We spent 4 well deserved, relaxing days at the St. James
Club in Antigua. This is an
all-inclusive resort with space for a few boats. Until our last night, we were the only boat
in there. The resort was nice, and at
$1.25/ft, quite reasonable. This include
use of pools and watersports (hobbies, kayaks etc). The entrance in was quite straightforward
and it was well protected at the dock.
Food and drinks could be purchased separately at the restaurants and
bars. Food was pricey and average. The alternative was an all-inclusive pass for
$125/person/day. We elected the former,
and many times, the bars forgot to charge us for drinks.
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| Start of RORC 600 |
The island was real nice – we rented a car for a day (which
broke down and just added to the
adventure), and we watched the start of the RORC 600 – a 600 mile sailing race
around the islands. I think our favorite
sights were the race start and a visit to Devil’s Bridge – a natural rock
bridge formation spanning the crashing waves.
The people of Antigua were super friendly and the local history was very
interesting with many remnants of British forts, Nelson’s dockyard, English
Harbor
etc.
When we left, we cleared out and sailed up the coast maybe
10 miles finding a nice secluded beach anchorage in Fryes Bay. We stayed the night before heading off to St.
Kitts
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| Devil's Bridge, Antigua |
St. Kitts
We had planned to stop at St. Kitts but could get no
response from the marina on email or phone.
We finally raised them on the sat phone from a few miles away, but were
told they had no space available – maybe tomorrow. So we elected to continue on to St. Marten.
St. Maarten
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| Sailing Yacht A, Simpson Bay - $450M monstrocity! |
Our passage was good, but we did have a few squalls
overnight puffing up to 32 kts. We
arrived in St. Marten at about 11 pm and dropped the hook in Simpson Bay.
The next day, we went through the drawbridge into the lagoon
and got a slip for 2 nights at /Simpson Bay Marina. While in port, we rented a car to do some
sightseeing. St. Marten was hit badly by
hurricane Irma (18 months ago), and while Simpson Bay is on the way to
recovery, most other parts of the island are clearly not there yet. Oyster Pond is the location where most of the
charter boats were operated out of. I
have chartered from there in the past and it was a bustling area of bars,
restaurants and boaters. Sadly it was
devastated and at the time of our visit the marina area was a sad sight.
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| Mega Yachts - Simpson Bay Marina |
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| Marigot |
We visited the French side of the Island – Marigot Bay and
drove the coastline around to Phillipsburg.
Lots of damage, but slow and encouraging signs of recovery.
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