Thu, 20 Jun 2024 06:37:00 -0500

Sint Maarten/Saint Martin is two countries on one island, and that's a weird thing. There's no real border. You can just pop back and forth and at some point, the language and the currencies change on you.

We were mostly in a marina in Dutch Sint Maarten. We spent days on minor repairs and major cleaning, getting Velvet Elvis ready for the leg of the journey with more visitors. The marina itself is great. It's the third of the IGY branded marinas we've stayed at (they should have a rewards program), and it was definitely the nicest.

They sent an escort dinghy out to lead us through the drawbridge, show us to the fuel dock, and lead us to our slip. When I didn't line up the boat just exactly right, the dinghy became a little tug and pushed us exactly where we needed to be.

Then, there's a pretty nice pool on a rooftop with a view, where you can bluetooth in to nice sounding speakers. It was a great break after boat work.

A fun little bar by the entrance to the marina was also a good place to wind down and chat it up with the locals.

We ventured by dinghy to France, and we didn't really give it a fair shake, but I didn't see anything that was worth the excursion. We went for brunch and found some good crepes and a grocery that filled a void that was left by the grocery closer to the marina.

Boat supplies are abundant. Sint Maarten would be a great place to stage trips, as there's so much there, and there are so many great sailing destinations a day away.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures...

Americanized restaurants
Kid's bonfire at a tourist trap with surprisingly good food.
Boat work

Headed to France