See the comments on our
cruising log at the start of Chapter 14
My comments to this letter
were made in June 2003.
LETTER 3
January 7, 1992
Down Time
Lat. 18o02'N Lon. 63o06'W
Dear Family and Friends,
Well, the "see the Caribbean" tour has made it to
the French West Indies and the Netherlands Antilles. After five months in the
Virgin Islands, the week before Christmas we crossed the last of the three
legendary watery passages on the trip, the Anegada
Passage, and pulled into Marigot, the capitol of
French St. Martin.
Anegada was
not the terror it can be. Jim had
finally solved the engine overheating problem while we were in the Virgins and
we had the hull cleaned before we left St. Thomas. Dear old Down Time was as
fast as she has ever been coming across the Passage. So fast, in fact, that we got to St. Martin
at 3:00 AM and had to "stand off", sailing up and down a few miles
offshore of the island for 3 1/2 hours waiting for the sun to come up. Our
reward was the most unusual sunrise either of us had ever seen. The sky turned a matte cantaloupe color
behind pale grey and white clouds. Truly stunning!
We have reached the part of the trip where every island is a
new country, in the case of St. Martin/Sint Maarten, two countries. This is actually the smallest piece
of land in the world shared by two sovereign nations. Moving between St. Martin and Sint Maarten requires no formalities which is fortunate because
the great restaurants are on the French side (where else?) and the cheap
shopping is on the Dutch side.
St. Martin has wonderful beaches but most are near
resorts. Jim was here several years ago
for business and he says the island has changed considerably. There is a tremendous amount of development
going on here. This appears to be one of the destinations of choice for many
Europeans as well as Americans and there are condo developments, timeshare
vacation places and hotels ringing the island.
It also has one of the most secure "hurricane holes" in the
Caribbean so there are a large number of permanent and long term liveaboard boaters here.
Marigot and
Philipsburg, the capitol of Dutch Sint Maarten, are both old cities with many of the original
buildings still standing. Philipsburg is the port where the cruise ships come
in, so it is very oriented toward shops to attract cruise ship passengers who
will only be in town for six hours. It
is very similar to St. Thomas (and, I suspect, every other cruise ship
destination in the Caribbean). Marigot, on the other
hand, gets more of the hotel tourist trade and seems to be just one long
succession of boutiques, sidewalk cafes and boulangeries. We have become terribly spoiled, indulging in
fresh French baguettes with every meal.
Even more wonderful than St. Martin is the island of
St. Barth. It's about 12 miles from St. Martin, an
absolute jewel of a place. The whole
island is only 8 square miles. You can
see the entire island, drive every road, stop at several glorious beaches, and
have a classic "loaf of bread, jug of wine..." lunch in less than a
day. On an island with 5,000 permanent residents there are over 60 restaurants.
Although there are hotels on the island, most of them have less than 30 rooms
and a low profile along the beach so you really aren't aware of them. The most common accommodation for tourists is
a private villa rented by the week.
We had friends from Florida (Rob and Carole Harris) visiting
us for the week we were in St. Barth. Rob, bless him, is a runner who would get up every
morning early to jog and bring the breakfast croissants and baguette back from
the boulangerie when he returned to the boat. We were in heaven.
We spent New Year's Eve in Gustavia,
the capitol of St. Barth. It was like being on a set of "Lifestyles
of the Rich and Famous." We sat on
the boat and watched the largest concentration of mega-yatchs
we have ever seen maneuver to the dock in Gustavia. Walking past them on our way to dinner that
night we estimated there was well over $40 million in boats on one small
section of the dock, far in excess of $100 million in total on the dock, which
itself held a small portion of the over 100 yachts/boats tucked into Gustavia harbor for the holiday festivities.
Dinner New Year's Eve we had at Eddie's Ghetto, a well known
but difficult to find restaurant. Eddie,
a member of one of the oldest families on the island, doesn't believe in
advertising so finding the restaurant can be a bit of a challenge. To enter it, you have to go through a
boutique. Jim figured out which block
the boutique was in and decided to just go into them all until he found the one
hiding the restaurant. It was well worth
the search, the food was wonderful and the price, by local standards, was quite
reasonable. The restaurant was hosting a
fascinating international crowd and the people watching was as good as the
food. We may have been the only table
speaking English in the restaurant.
We will be here in the St. Martin/St. Barth/Anguilla
area until at least the middle of February, we are meeting another set of
guests on St. Barth in early February. During the time we are here We are also
hoping to get over to Saba to do some diving since it is supposed to be the
best pinnacle diving in the Caribbean. Then
it is on south to some of the less developed (read less tourist oriented)
islands like St. Kitts, Nevis and Statia.
The cards and letters have been arriving. Thank you all for writing, it is good to hear
from friends, to know how you are all doing.
We have changed our stateside mailing address from Miami to Jim's
parent's home in Mississippi. You will
find a new card with our address enclosed in this letter.
As you can tell from the above narrative, some people have
realized we are serious in our invitations to come on down and see this part of
the world with us. We understand that
some of you have had trouble reaching us through AT&T High Seas; we have
been working on that problem and have a new contact strategy. You now can reach us through Virgin Islands
Radio. It works in basically the same
way as AT&T High Seas. You call
1-800-LEEWARD and ask for "Down Time", call sign WTA
2000. VI Radio will broadcast the call
to us for the next three days, so it could be that long before you hear from
us. They will not call you back every
two hours like AT&T does.
Of course now in 2003 it
seems a little old fashioned to be talking about the AT&T High Seas
service. Now you would probably have a
cell phone that would work in most, if not all, of the islands and you might even
have a satellite phone.
Jim & Diane
Send comments to: jkbarrentine@earthlink.net
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