Sorry, once I get going...

When we arrived we stayed in Marigot Bay for I think two nights, the first wasn't much of a night as we got the anchor down late, and there may have been some adult beverages after that. The following day, with land legs and minor headaches we did a couple of things. I got a Digicel SIM card, and we officially checked into the island. The Digicel SIM card is a great value, at least compared to Canada, 30GB of Data for 40Euro, and the card is good anywhere in the Caribbean, save for, ironically, Dutch St. Martin. My phone gets blazing signal on the other side of the mountains, but right now we are in the lagoon, and service is a bit hit or miss.

Checking into St. Martin presents you with a choice. You can go to the immigration office at the Simpson Bay bridge, where it is reputed to be rife with formality and various charges, or you can walk to Island Water World on the edge of Marigot and check in there. I had gone online to find out how to check in, and found that there is a pre-clearance site, where I could enter all of the boat and crew information, then upon completion it gives you a code so you can simply call up your file on the terminal once ashore. We got to Island Water World and I asked about the use of the computer - the nice clerk pointed me to it, then asked about the code. "Oh, we don't do that", she replied, in English better than mine. I went about entering all of the info once again, this time on a French layout keyboard. You never realize how much muscle memory is involved in typing until you use another language's keyboard. It took a very long time of hunting and pecking to fill out the info. At one point I asked Crewman Chris if it was okay if I simply allowed his name to be entered on the weird and frustrating keyboard as "Qsawd."

I finally got it done, printed the form, took it to the counter and another store clerk stamped, signed and dated it, and required $2 as a fee. The most wonderfully lackadaisical such official undertaking as I have ever experienced.

Once we were in the country, I wanted to take a slip in a marina for a couple of days to rest, get some maintenance done, fill tanks, wash the salt off the boat, all that stuff. A friend who lives on his boat at Porto Cupecoy arranged for a slip for a really fair price. Porto Cupecoy is really nice. We made good use of the facilities for the three days we wound up there. Such a pretty resort development. Having that lovely pool to swim in was glorious, and you can't beat having a mini Carrefour mere steps away from the dock. We at at a couple of the restos there, the one that stands out is "Mama" that has opened at Cupecoy after I gather switching from another location after the storm. Anyhow, Qsawd and I each had a pizza, and $16 each it was not just great value, but one of the beast pizzas I have ever had in my life.

From our brief home base at Cupecoy we started finding our way around the lagoon by dinghy. It's pretty fun to roar around on a little boat visiting the Chandleries and such, but basically it's about going the the St Martin Yacht Club for bloody Marys and lunches.

My budget only supports so many marina days per month so we had to get off the dock at Cupecoy and settle in elsewhere. The same friend that lives at Cupecoy has a couple of moorings in the lagoon, and has allowed us to use one while we're here. It's near the Causeway Bridge, just inside of French waters, in the lee of "the witch's tit" (a much more colourful name for "Mount Fortune"). This location is fairly safe and sheltered, and as it's kind of on the highway on the water we get to watch a lot of comings and goings. There's a daily tourist boat here called the Explorer, and we have become part of the tour. They briefly interrupt the non-stop Bob Marley for "There's Sayonara, a boat from Canada. Who here is from Canada?!? Yay!!"

I had been away from home since the end of August, so the first weekend of December I went home for an early Christmas to see my Mom and kids and friends but mostly my dog. It was nice to go home, but while I was gone, Qsawd stayed behind to keep an eye on the boat and have a bit of a vacation. While I am freezing my buns off in Canada making my visiting rounds, he's living the life of the yachtsman, posting endless pictures of beaches and bloody marys on Facebook. "Get off my boat - that's my life!" I didn't actually yell out loud.

I got back from Canada and didn't see the interloper on my return as he was on the same Westjet plane going north that we had taken south, so we were in different parts of the airport at the same time. He told me later that everyone on his flight wanted to be my friend as I had arranged with the the flight attendant to deliver a beer to him as a thank you from his friend Ritchard. Qsawd is a good guy.

My lovely wife came down with me on my return so that we could, as I said in the last chapter, commence learning how to live on a boat in paradise. Looking back on it now, I have to admit that a lot of it is real laziness. We get up and have our coffee and listen to the morning cruisers net on the VHF radio, maybe have breakfast, do a bit of chores, and figure out how we will spend our lazy day. It may be a trip to the beach, or grocery shopping, but it invariably involves quite a bit of reading and napping. Sand Gravity does not only apply to your time on land here.

A couple of weeks ago we had some friends visiting from Canada who had a brief layover before boarding a windjammer cruise. They suggested that we get together for drinks and dinner, near where they were staying at The Esmeralda. We rented a car and made a day of it. The first obligatory stop we had not yet made was Maho, where, we stopped at the Driftwood bar just in time to see the KLM flight come in overhead, and watch the same silly behaviour that has been endlessly amusing us for years now. We took the long way around thru Maho, Mullet, Cupecoy etc to Marigot, where I once again got a look at the destruction I had seen on our arrival. After a bit of time you grow a little more accustomed to the damage everywhere, and it ceases to shock so much. We got into the biggest traffic jam we had ever experienced on the island, making our way up the hill outside of Marigot on the way to Grand Case. The traffic was bumper to bumper that whole way and we were thankful that we had left ourselves plenty of time to explore before our dinner date. That traffic jam would have made the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto proud, and the cause of it, a minor road repair being carried out with island efficiency, would have made any Toronto road repair crew proud as well.

We finally got to Grand Case and parked in the public lot. Up close, the damage is still quite shocking. You can only imagine what it must have been like a year earlier. Since first arriving I had been a little pessimistic about the damage, unable to get my mind around how they could ever overcome such a devastating event. At Grand Case, my mind started to be changed. Sure there was damage, and plenty of it, but at the same time, some stuff was getting back to normal. The Lolos were in full swing nd the BBQ smell is amazing. As we walked down the main street we saw that about a half a dozen of the great restos were open for business, and a couple more were getting ready to open. After destruction, I realized, there is renewal. A terrible thing, but this town might actually come back better in two or three more years.

We found much the same in Orient - there was still so much damage in evidence, but like Grand Case there has been rebuilding underway. We passed La Plantation where we used to stay to see that it was in operation, and the Cafe Plantation was going to be serving dinner under a lovely canopy that had been installed. The village is battered, but coming back, Yellow Sub looks better than ever, Bikini is open, the Plaza is scarred but the fantastic restos are ready to serve.

The Beach itself was quite startling. It was not yet 4 in the afternoon, but the people there could be counted by dozens rather than hundreds or thousands. This coupled with the lack of buildings made the place seem so foreign. Still, we went for a nice long walk in the surf and it smelled and sounded the same, and brings back memories of so many fantastic days spent there. As we walk to each end we see that there is still more building going on, and a couple more of the beach clubs are either open or will be very soon (this of course is two weeks ago, so now it's Bikini, Waikiki and Kontiki?) All of the beach clubs look as thought the same renewal through disaster is going on here. A terrible blow, but things end up better than they were before.

My outlook on the place was changed entirely by that couple of hours of walking around, and I really have to give the people all kinds of respect for rebuilding business and lives. But I guess that's what people do, they get on with it. But this is a heck of a task, and I admire the guts it takes to carry on.

Oh, so the reason for the trip was drinks and dinner, and our friends treated their poor yachtie friends to drinks at L'astrolabe and dinner at le Piment. I had never had drinks at Esmeralda and what a lovely bar it is. The server knew who we were because our friends had mentioned we were coming the next day, so when we arrived we were quizzed about our trip and I felt like a sailor rock star telling the servers the same stories I did in chapter one above - though with more detail, vigorous hand gestures and sound effects in person.

Dinner at Le Piment was truly excellent. One of our friends grew up in the South of Italy and knows a thing or two about food. He thought that dinner at Le Piment was about as good a dinner as he had ever had. Of course, there had been a few drinks, and the ambiance is lovely and kind of exciting, and it has to be said that we were charming company, but still, this is quite a claim from a fellow that has seen a lot of good meals. We did have a lovely night and were thankful for the treat.

I was getting restless being located in the lagoon. It is convenient to be able to zoom around the lagoon for most of what you want to do, but I want to go swimming, so it was time for a road trip. We prepared the boat for travel - it's surprising how long it takes to square your stuff away after you have been living on the boat - and got ready to leave on the first bridge opening. Sadly the French side bridge is broken, so one has to go out the Dutch side right now - it is apparently going to take some weeks to get the French bridge repaired. What would normally be a quick trip ends up quite a few hours going out the Simpson Bay bridge and all the way around the west end of the island (yeah, I know, on my sailboat. first world problems). We got out the bridge and into Simpson Bay and it felt good to be on the move, even for what was only going to be a few hours. Our first stop was Grand Case, where we anchored in the bay. After squaring the boat away and admittedly another nap, we got ready to go into town to see what we could see this time, and have a delicious Lolo dinner. On our way in we passed by a Canadian boat and said Hi. I love the instant connection you have with boats from your own country. There aren't *that* many of us down here. We were instantly invited aboard for cocktails (see a theme here at all?) and snacks. A part of cruising that I have come to love so far is the friendships with the other yachties that are so easily made. We hung out chatting for a while and later went ashore as a group to the Lolos. Talk of the Town, Baby.

Well you know I love eating a meal of chicken and ribs and three sides, all washed down with a cold carib. We had a lovely dinner and more laughs before we went for another stroll down the street. At the far end of town we were enticed by the young fellow in the road into the LTC boutique hotel bar for one last beverage. "It is Paradise," we were promised. This place is lovely, and has excellent service. The guy from outside who promised us paradise, Riccardo, was not that committed to his job, it seems, as he joined us for drinks. I stood at the rail of the deck looking over the lit-up beach, listening to the waves wash ashore, and staring out at our own boat bobbing at anchor. That was one of many moments when I was struck with the knowledge that I was literally living the dream.

This is getting real long so I'll go faster.

In the morning I dinghied (sp?) out to Creole rock and went for a quick dive. I did my first scuba dive ever at creole rock with the dive guy at Le Flamboyant many years ago. Back then I should perhaps have been skeptical of being taught to dive in 10 minutes in French, but, whatever. It is a nice nostalgic feeling to go back there and look at the fishies. After the dive we went on to Anse Marcel. This may be the only trip in the world where it might be quicker to go by sailboat than car. We put down the anchor the afternoon of another glorious day. It was crazy to be in that big bay with only two other boats. Both of them seemed to belong to people that were working on repairing stuff in the area - so we were the only cruising boat in the bay. It's lovely there, though there's a crazy wind/swell/current effect that keeps spinning the boat around its anchor.

We hung out there for four days, getting our lazy on. I would wake up, walk straight to the transom and jump off the swim deck. What a way to start the day. We went ashore to hang out on the beach but I didn't actually get to the just-opened beach bar. While I am keen to support the local business, $22 for a pair of chairs seems real steep when I just want to have a couple of beers. We brought our own chairs and umbrella ashore and plonked ourselves down in the floury powder sand and read our books.

There was a bit of an incident as we left after our last beach day. As I walked the dinghy back into the water Kim hopped aboard and was settling in, then warns me to look out for the big wave! which lifts the boat up, throws her off balance, and slams her face into the outboard motor. I was certain she had broken her nose if not worse, and tried to figure out how to help as she's bleeding like a horror movie while I am trying not to lose the now full-of-water dinghy to the waves. I have to give her credit, she stayed calm while I helped as I could, made sure she was mostly okay (it looked terrible but there was nothing broken) we bailed the dinghy and got back to the boat so she could lie down and get some ice on her face. She ended up pretty bruised, still looking a bit black-eyed now a week later. This episode did teach us to adopt a new boarding method.

We finally ran short of fresh food and have to look at getting back to the Dutch side. We stopped in Marigot to have breakfast (Croissant Royale) go to the Super U. Kim felt fine but looked pretty terrible, I was having trouble walking to the store having cracked a bone in my foot on the same trip as the great outboard-to-the-face incident. That's how stuff goes for us.

Still wanting the ability to swim, we took a mooring in Simpson Bay on our return to the Dutch side. That pleasure only lasted for three days because it is so rough in that bay that you get seasick just sitting around. So on Dec 26th - after a great Christmas Day supper at Toppers where we laughed our asses off singing and watching others sing karaoke - we brought the boat back into the lagoon and got back to the mooring the boat had been on in the first week of December.

Now it's the 29th. We're hoping to go to Mama in Cupecoy this evening for dinner to celebrate our anniversary, but it has been blowing like heck-and-a-half for the last 24 hours and our dinghy may be too treacherous in the resulting waves.

So, it seems we're starting to learn how to live on a boat in Paradise. Sun, swimming, sundowners, Lagoonies Happy Hour, Yacht Club, Beach days, napping, reading, chores, Next up - traveling with friends to the next island to do more exploring. St. Barth's? Gudeloupe? Dominca? All three?