St. Barts

St. Barts is such a favorite of so many people, and we missed it on our trip south so it was a new island for us. But we did not love St. Barts.

The 48 mile sail from Nevis to St. Barts was a romp once we get through The Narrows, the strait separating Nevis from St. Kitts to the north, which is not that narrow. We left at 6:45 am with reefed main and motor. Out in the Caribbean sea, as measured point to point on the half hour by the logging feature of the GPS chartplotter, we were fast! With reefed main and small jib and the wind averaging about 17 knots between 60 and 90 degrees off our starboard bow, we hit a peak of 8.4 knots (without surfing down any waves) and for a four hour period starting at 8:30 we averaged a bit better than 7.6 knots!!

But St. Barts was a bust for us.  Gustavia , the Capital, is a cute enough town, built around a rectangle of water in which too many boats are moored in rows, fore and aft.

And it is filled with megayachts of the type that don’t go to Nevis because there is no one to impress there.

They are cheek to jowl.

Here is Genevieve, passing us on the way out.

And it is filled with stores selling every brand of high end merchandise known to mankind, only more expensive here.

And it is filled with chic restaurants and chic women and is too expensive and too crowded.

We mentioned rings, rather than cleats, at the dinghy dock --  big ones; and Lene looks happy too.

We anchored in the outer harbor with many other boats, near les Gros Islets (the big little islands?) 

with small cruise ships further out.

After checking in with customs, only 21 Euros, we went to the commercial harbor for a free login and password for their harbor wide wifi, but back at the boat, it did not work. Neither did Lene’s new SIM card for the local phone.

After a very uncomfortable rolly and pitching night, in the crowded outer harbor,

in the morning after spending some time with croissants and keyboards at a boulangerie with wifi, we decided to check out the following day and spend the night in Anse de Colombier, a lovely bay with beach at the northwest corner of the island. We got there using the small jib only and hit peaks of 7.2 knots, because the wind remained strong. Why can’t the wind be nice and strong when we are sailing and then calm down when we get to the mooring.  Actually, on average, winds do tend to diminish at night, but not this night. The government provides free moorings  for overnight use at Colombier and we took one, though in the process, with the winds howling at better than 20 knots, we lost our boathook. We will get a new one in St. Martin. Though supposedly protected from the force of the easterly winds by the island, the wind came over the hill, and off shore and spoiled the time there for us. Anse de Colombier has lovely hiking trails. But the howling  winds from off shore and past us out of the Bay, made it no fun. We did not even try to light the outdoor grill in that wind and al fresco dining would not have been comfortable.

Posted from St. Maarten.