Reflecting on St Martin/Sint Maarten I am reminded of one of my favourite bits of dialogue from the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall…
Henry: “When I went into France, I captured the town of Therouanne which you, in Parliament, called…”
Cromwell: “A dog hole, majesty?”
Henry: “How could you say so?”
Cromwell: “I’ve been there.”
Well, perhaps that’s a bit harsh but the wonders and charm of Statia, St. Barts and Anguilla throw the tackiness of Sint Maarten’s casinos, seedy bars and strip clubs into sharp relief. The state of the French side nearly two years after hurricane Irma is shocking. President Macron might well ask “where did the money go?” On the upside, there’s an international airport, a peerless yacht chandlery and its been nice to sleep on a yacht quiet and safe in a lagoon not rolling about in reflected swell but all in all St. M is a place to get fixed up and fuelled up before heading off somewhere more agreeable.
To that end we’re all astir getting ready for our next leg, 860M or so N to Bermuda. The weather outlook is somewhat uncertain, suggesting light to moderate E trade winds for Thr/Fri (good) but large calm patches over the weekend (less good). Anyway, we’re determined to be off so we’ll have to put up with what’s provided.
I had a nice moment chatting to the owners of Morpheus, a handsome cruiser-racer from San Francisco, suddenly realising that we’d sailed together before – in Tonga in 2002 when Morpheus was brand new and Jim and Debbie were sailing with their sons who were the age Daisy and Dora are now. Happy memories. Jim is something of a master blogger as this https://morpheussailing.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/yesterday-was-a-shitty-day/ description of a less than perfect day in Deshaies shows. I hope this goes some way to dispel the myth that live-aboard cruising is a non stop round of turtles, white beaches and sunset cocktails!
We’ll try to do daily updates as we head North, T.
Cherubino's Atlantic 
Safe passage Hester’s, loved reading about your travels and adventures, Alexander is very jealous of your sea life encounters especially the turtles. Gareth has completed his first EAORA weekend, well half of it as on the second morning on leaving Burnham Marina the stearing was jammed in starboard, lucky it didn’t happen sailing at full steam up The Crouch through the Cadets the evening before! Anyway lots of pounds later she’s fixed and ready for the trip back to WM… We’re looking into the possibility of meeting up with you on the South Coast in August, thank you for thinking of us. Bon voyage!
Emma x
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Hi Emma, so sorry to hear about Salt’s steering issues, hope that’s all fixed now and that you have a good trip back round to Mersea. We’d love to meet up on the South Coast in August if we’re both in the same bit of the world at the same time, lets stay in touch! All the best to you and Gareth, T.
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