Salty Podcast #57 | ⛵️⚓️ Sailing & Anchoring Expert Tips for St-Martin/Sint Maarten in the Caribbean - Salty Podcast: Sailing

Episode Transcript
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Capn Tinsley (00:00):
Ever dropped the anchor in paradise and spent a
week questioning your lifechoices?
Well, tonight, hayden andRaydeen return to the podcast
for the fifth time, live from StMartin in the Caribbean aboard
their sailboat Island Spirit andIsland Packet 35.
These seasoned cruisers aresharing wind patterns, routes

(00:20):
and anchorages so you canmaneuver around St Martin like a
pro patterns, routes andanchorages so you can maneuver
around St Martin like a pro.
We've got charts, real-lifedata and hard-earned advice to
help get the most out of yourexperience in St Martin.
So grab a drink, jump in thechat and let's get salty.
This one's too good to miss.
But first but first, here we go.

(00:41):
Please hit like, subscribe andshare this video.
And don't be shy, drop yourcomments in the live chat so my
guests can reply in real time.
I'm Kat and Tinsley of SaltyAbandoned and Island Packet 320
Sailboat, and this is the SaltyPodcast, episode 57.
Hayden and Raydeen, welcomeback to the podcast.
Yeah, thank you, tinsley.

Hayden Cochran (01:04):
Thank you, tinsleyley, appreciate uh you
doing all the work getting usall in here.

You're great I appreciate you doing the visuals
.
Thank you very much yeah, ofcourse we can.
Uh, like I said before, I don'teven have to come up with
questions for you, because youorganize the agenda so oh yes,
you do, you can ask lots ofquestions.
You can, you can do that, butI'm sure I'll come up with
questions, but, um, okay, sowhere would you like to start?

(01:30):
Would you like to?

go first.
Well, first of all, you have tonotice the dutch flag over
there and then the french flagover here.
So we have, we have the.
We have the dutch, the Frenchflag, up, of course, with the
Island Packet flag which wealways proudly fly.
But actually, right now we'vesailed from St Martin back to

(01:53):
Antigua because there was a lullin the eastern trade winds and
whenever that happens, you wantto go east.
So we left St Martin about aweek ago and we moved over to
Antigua, which is our home basearea.
But we've spent, I don't know,three weeks, four weeks this
season, up in, up in St Martinokay, yeah, because I know how

(02:16):
much you love St Martin.

I was thinking that you were still there, but
cool, I know Antigua is also afavorite place of yours.

Yeah, antigua is our home base for hauling out
and launching, but next yearwhen we launch, we've decided
already.
We're going to go immediatelyback to St Martin because
there's so many good servicesthere and you'll see with the
charts and how the island islaid out.
We want to rebuild a solararray there and do some

(02:44):
modifications on the boat andit's just, it's one of the top
islands to go boating to.
Because of the two countriesthe one side is French and the
other side is Dutch Right, rady,what do you like about it?

Radeen Cochran (02:58):
Oh, I like the fact that in a minute you can
dinghy from the Dutch side overto the French side.
In a minute you can dinghy fromthe Dutch side over to the
French side, have a wonderfulcrepe for lunch and red wine and
turn around and come back tothe Dutch side and do your
shopping.

So it's great.
Yeah, radine with her sweets.
She likes these pastry shopsand the French cafes and her
French.
What the crepes that they make.

The almond croissant oh the almond
croissant.

You got to have an almond croissant and a coffee
when you're in france.

Yes, absolutely so .
So you are winding down,because it's usually in may when
you go back yeah, yeah, we'reat the.

We have another month yet.
We haul out basically on may2nd and we fly home on may 5.
So we have another couple moreweeks yet and we're going to
sail around Antigua, hopefullyup to Barbuda, and go back to
the pink sand beaches up inBarbuda and then come back and
down, rig and haul the boat outand go through the storage

(03:56):
process.
We go kind of crazy on takingthe boat apart for storage and
then it gets hauled out to landand bolted down to the ground
and ready for hurricane seasonyeah, you know what we should do
an episode on that, on how youget the boat ready for what do
you call it down?

what do you call it down?

rigging down, rigging I keep.
I keep a google document ofevery day what we do.
I'm sure you do and uh, it'sseven days of work usually that
we log every task we do to theboat and then we use that to
reverse it when we come back.
Yeah, we take everything out,we pull all the lines and ropes

(04:36):
and halyards and everything goesdown below out of the weather.
Yeah, most people don't do allthat.

I bought that tape that you use to cover your teak
.

Yep, I haven't used it, it's still in the box.
Yeah, the protective cap railtape is where you can tape that
over your hatches and your portsand your teak and anything you
want to cover up and protect outof the sun when you're storing
your boat.
Yeah, that protective cap railtape from a national marine
warehouse in Fort Lauderdale.

(05:08):
That's stuff is fantastic.
I've been using it five yearsnow.
I love it.

Yeah, I'm going to break it out here soon, but
yeah, okay, well, just tape justtape a hatch and see what it
does.

You know, just tape over a hatch and cover it
up and go, oh, this is prettygood.
And then a week later peel itoff and see what it does.
You know, just tape over ahatch and cover it up and go, oh
, this pretty good.

And then a week later peel it off and see how it
comes off clean.
Well, you know, in thesummertime it gets hot in the
boat right in july and so Iusually put like um small hand
towels on yeah you know how youhave the screen that's in
between right inside.
I usually put it in there, butI could just cover the take the
white tape.

Take the white tape and tape the outside of the
hatch, tape it down and thenjust trim it with a pair of
scissors and make it look niceand it'll stay on for a year.

It's amazing To this day from Hayden.

Yeah, it's good stuff.
It's good stuff.

The nice thing about that is it protects the
lexan in the hatch so it won'tcraze and and discolor as
quickly in the sun compared toputting the towels in the screen
right, yeah um yeah, because itis.

It gets pretty hot here on the on the alabama gulf
coast, just like you know, justlike in the caribbean sure yeah
all right.
Well, you ready to jump in?

yeah, let's look at the first slide.
Let's look at the first slide,let's look at the first screen
there.
That's kind of the overview.

There we go.

The nice thing about this slide is basically,
if you don't know where StMartin is, it gives you a
perspective from Puerto Rico allthe way down to Guadalupe and
you can see.
It's in the middle there andit's 90 miles east of the US
Virgin Islands.
And the interesting thing aboutwhere it's located, it's in the

(06:51):
Leeward Islands.
And then you see whereGuadalupe, and directly above
Guadalupe is Antigua.
That's where we are right now.
That's the beginning of theWindward Islands, and the
Windward Islands run basicallysouth from Antigua and the
leeward islands basically rundownwind from it, from Antigua
back to Puerto Rico.

(07:13):
So the biggest challenge whenyou are coming out to Dutch
Saint Martin or or Saint Martinfrom the US, you reach Puerto
Rico and you kind of feel like Imade it, I'm here, and then
it's only 45 miles from PuertoRico over to St Thomas.
And then you reach the USVirgin Islands and you're like I
got it made.
I'm in the Virgin Islands, I'vereached paradise and you have.

(07:36):
The US Virgin Islands arereally, really fantastic, along
with the BVIs.
We've spent many years doingthose islands.
And then it's 90 miles east ofthe US Virgin Islands to get to
St Martin.
Well, the problem is the tradewinds.
You see the arrows of all thetrade winds blowing.
The trade winds are east.

(07:58):
They very rarely are anythingother than 080, 090, or maybe
100, right.

Absolutely.

And then the only other variable of 10
degrees north and 10 degreessouth of east, the only other
variable is the trade winds are10, 15, 20, 25 knots, gusting 30
knots.
So this 90-mile passage, it'scalled the Anagata Passage and
it's been nicknamed the oh myGodda Passage is the nickname

(08:30):
that they can give it Becausepeople are like I am not doing
that.

Is it worse than the Mona Passage?

Yeah, no, no, it's not the Mona the.

Mona's back in the West?
No, I mean, is it worse than?

that, yes, it can be.
It can be, but.
But they're an easy solution.
You simply wait.
In the Virgin Islands, seven to10 days to, a front comes off
the east coast of USA and itpushes these trade winds back
and the trade winds will drop to10 knots, maybe 10 to 15.
And especially overnight, atnight, the trade winds died down

(09:00):
a little bit.
So you leave the US VirginIslands at sunset and you go out
to sea and you have about a15-hour passage of 90 miles, 90
miles at six knots.
And you arrive at St Martin atdaybreak.
Sun's coming up over themountain and you're looking at
Marigot and you're coming intoeither Marigot or you come into

(09:21):
Simpson Bay Anchorage and we'vecome in there Christmas Eve on
midnight already, right anddropped anchor.
It's very easy to pull in to StMartin in the middle of the
night if you do.
But if you leave at sunset backat the Virgin Islands, it's the
next morning you arrive at StMartin and you just have to wait

(09:42):
.
Yeah, you're outside the bridge, you just have to wait for the
trade winds to die down, whichthey do every 10 days, about
right.

Sometimes three weeks.
Yeah, yeah, oh wow, we have tobe patient, but it will happen,
they'll go down, you got to bepatient.

We were just in St Martin for 21 days and we had
family and friends fly in andvisit and then we decided that
we were going to stay anotherweek and we looked at the
weather and looked at theforecast looking ahead.
And the forecast ahead was itwas calm the whole 21 days we
were there.
There was like five mile anhour winds it was the Heineken

(10:22):
Regatta.
They were frustrated.
It wasn't good wind for sailing.
So three weeks of no wind,family leaves.
We're like we have two moredays of no wind.
We want to stay another week.
After the two days the wind wasback to 20 knots east and we
said, okay, we know how that is.
We got to go and we left, left.

We left immediately as soon as our
family left yeah, our, ourfamily left at two o'clock in
the afternoon and by three wewere in the customs office
checking out for the nextmorning sadly, yeah, and then we
caught the 830

bridge out, made the 830 bridge out and we were
gone and got back east becausefrom saint martinigua is about
maybe 100 miles, 120 miles.
It's a bit of a hike becauseyou go from St Martin down to St
Barts and then from St Bartsyou go down to Antigua and it's

(11:15):
a good push.
You can stop in St Kitts andNevis to shorten it and make it
two 50-mile days and then goeast.
But no matter how you do it,you eventually have to go due
east.
You can see you're goingstraight into the trade winds.
It's just that's the wholechallenge of the Caribbean is
reaching Antigua.
Antigua is your corner, that'swhere you want to get to and

(11:38):
once you get there everythingyou will sail is north and south
and that's beam reaching.

Oh nice.

Yeah, yeah, very nice.
That's why Antigua is our base,that's why we pushed out here,
yeah.

There's always a reason for everything with you
guys.

Well, yeah that's the lay of the land there
.
If you go to the next slide, wecan just look at the island
itself.
All right, so here's the wholelay of the island and you can
see a couple harbors around theperimeter of it.
Again, you have to visualizetrade winds blowing from the
right to the left of the screen,from east to west.

(12:15):
So the top of the island isfrench and the bottom of the
island is dutch.
And tell, tell us about thelagoon Radine.

Look at these lagoons.
The lagoon is diagonallydivided with the country border
and you can enter from the northside, where the arrow points to
Marigot, that's the French side, or you can enter from the
Simpson Bay Anchorage into thelagoon.

Yeah.

Excuse me, bay Anchorage into the lagoon, yeah,
and once you've cleared ineither side of the countries,
you're allowed to dinghy backand forth without going through
customs yeah, and you're allowedto drive back and forth in a
car without going throughcustoms Right.
So it's really a great location.

Yeah, what we like about the lagoon is and and
we'll.
We'll zoom in on the lagoon asec in a second.
But if you just look at thewhole lay of the island, you,
you have the french on the north, the dutch on the bottom, and
the dutch are known forbusinesses and they're they're
brilliant at services.
So all the yacht services andeverything.
You could rebuild your entireboat in Dutch St Martin.

(13:26):
Every possible system that youneed to rebuild.
You can get it done there.
You can buy it here.
There's no duties on thingshere.

And then, while you're Is it reasonably?
The services are reasonably.

Yeah, the prices are great.
You buy everything in Dutch StMartin.
This is where you buy yourstuff, and then you sail down
island and you have your sparesand your parts and your repair
things you need.
We even brought our paint withus the bottom paint.
We bought the bottom paint hereto bring down to Antigua to
paint the boat because it'shundreds of dollars cheaper.
That's the Dutch side of StMartin and then you've got the

(14:01):
French side up top which has allthe cafes and the wine shops
and the bakeries and thedelicious restaurants and
beaches.
And you know I prefer thebottom side where it says
Simpson Bay Lagoon.
I prefer the bottom down herebecause in the Caribbean you get
these north swells that rundown.

(14:21):
Whenever there's a big stormnorth of the Caribbean up
towards Bermuda, and again a lowpressure comes off the east
coast, the swell is happeningand the and the north swell is
running down, and this you cansee on the front side.
the north waves would crash inon that cove there, if they were

(14:41):
in there anchored and, uh,we've been in there anchored and
we there might, might have beena six foot swell coming through
and when you would come back toyour boat in the dinghy you
would at the time when the boatwould go up and down six feet
and the dinghy would go up anddown and you'd have the time
when you could jump onto theboat.
So it can get really sketchy onthe Marigot side with the north

(15:02):
swell.
Sketchy on the Marigot sidewith the North Swell.
That can be a littletreacherous.

But inside the lagoon it's calm because it's
completely landlocked, exceptfor the two bridges.

So now, if you go to the next slide, we focus
in on just the lagoon.
Okay, now look at this.
This is where paradise, in myopinion, happens.
Now, what you're looking athere is just what's called
Simpson Bay Lagoon, but noticethe black line.
It runs through the middle ofthe lagoon.
So the north side is French andthe bottom side is Dutch, so

(15:37):
you have two countries owningthe lagoon.
So, yeah, so you have a borderthere between the french and the
dutch right when you enter thelagoon.
We come in from the bottom downat the bottom, where it says the
dutch bridge.
We come into there and then weanchor in the center of that

(16:01):
lagoon.
But we've also come in from thetop up at the top, where it
says anchor and it says thecenter of that lagoon.
But we've also come in from thetop up at the top, where it
says anchor and it says theFrench Bridge.
That bridge opens once a dayand you could come in well
morning and night.
It opens at 8.30, it opens atlike five o'clock and you could
come into there and then youcould get on the top side of the
lagoon.
There is a bridge in the middlecalled the Causeway Bridge, and

(16:24):
that bridge in the center opensthen, relative to the other two
bridges when they open, so youcan come in either bridge and
still go through the centerbridge to the north or the south
, depending upon which side ofthe island you want to be on,
whether you want to be on theDutch side or the French side.

So the Dutch Bridge opens seven times a day.
I have it written down so Idon't make a mistake.
Outbound it opens at 8.30,10.30, and 4.
And inbound it opens at 9.30,11.30, 2 o'clock and 5 o'clock.
Right, that next to last timeused to be 3 o'clock but they
changed it to two o'clock toaccommodate road traffic better.

(17:06):
So one of the fun things to doin St Martin is the Yacht Club
on the Dutch side is right atthe Dutch Bridge, on the south
side of the bridge, and theyhave a huge deck and in the
afternoon people will gatherwith their drinks and watch the
four o'clock opening and thefive o'clock opening right here,
Yeahclock opening Right here.

Yeah, right in there.
We'll zoom into that in aminute.
But before we leave the screenand go to the Yacht Club,
because the next screen showsthe Yacht Club look back at the
left of this screen and you seeMaho Beach.
And you also see the airplaneflight path.

Yeah, we were there we got to experience that.
Okay, what we're, okay.

This is one of the things everybody does at St
Martin.
You go around the Maho Beachthe jets are coming in between
10 o'clock and 2 o'clock and youget on the beach there and
literally they fly right overyour head, at 20 feet above your
head, and they land.
You know because the runway isshort and they land you know
because the runway is short.
And the other crazy thingpeople do is they go and they

(18:06):
stand at the fence when a jet istaking off and then the jet
throws sand and debris andrubble in your face and then you
get thrown down the beach fromthe jet wash and fly into the
water and people have goggles onprotecting their eyes.
They're just not.
Half of them are drunk most ofthe time, but it's hilarious

(18:30):
because people do this.
They stand behind a you know ajumbo jet taking off and they're
literally maybe I don't know,never allow that in america, I'm
gonna say they're 50 yards fromthe jet engine and they're just
getting hit by this.
We stand at a side and watchthis chaos.

(18:50):
It's definitely something thateverybody does, so you can take
your dinghy around and go to thebeach.
We've not done that.
We usually take a cab aroundand go to a little beach bar
that's there and get a burger.

Yeah, that little bar there.
That's where I watchedeverybody doing all this
nonsense.

Yeah, it's very there's a bar on both sides of
the beach.
You know, it's really reallyfun.
It's because the runway isright there.
It's really something to see.
I mean, it's amazing how closeyou can be to a jet.

It's one of their best attractions.
Oh, absolutely, it's one oftheir best attractions.
Oh, absolutely.

It's pretty cool , it's popular, everybody does
it.
So that's the whole lay of thelagoon.
Now the next slide.
We zoom in the bottom of thelagoon, which is our happy
little spot.
Right there is us, the little Xin the middle of the screen.
Okay, that's where we dropanchor or take a mooring ball

(19:44):
and you can see the little yachtclub arrow and that's where the
little bridge is that you comein and out of.
And then what we do every dayis we take the dinghy from the X
under the bridge and go aroundto the beach, because there's a
beach right there.
It's called Buccaneer Beach andit is a fantastic beach.
So we go there and go swimmingevery day and that's our beach.

(20:07):
And the center island calledthe Mega Yacht little message
there, that's where all the Imean 100-footers come in and
they come under the bridge andthey go right to that center
island.
It's called Snoopy Island andit's a private gated island, one
road onto the island, andthat's where all the mega yachts

(20:29):
get their service done.
So we never dock there,obviously.
We're out in the lagoon and then, if you look at the arrow
pointing down to the south ofthe lagoon, you can see all the
key Dutch businesses that aredown there you have, you know,
starting at the top, you gotbobby's marina.
That's where you get hauled outif you need to get bottom work

(20:51):
done.
And then you got island waterworld, which is where the fuel
dock is and the water dock is,and that's the best channel
channel.
Rewrite there, right.
You can buy anything at atisland water world.
And then there's lagoon mar,which is where Lagoonies is.
And then you got Blue PearlMarina and then you got Budget
Marine.
So everything is down in thebottom of this Dutch side of the

(21:14):
lagoon and you just dingy downhere every day.
There's a laundry.

A few other businesses that aren't marked on
this chart are one of the bestrigging companies in the
caribbean fkg rigging.
Oh yeah, and there's a sailmaker, a loft down at the bottom
of the lagoon as well, and youwere going to bring up laundry.
Laundry is always so importantto cruisers, and one of the nice
things about the caribbean isthere's very few laundromats.

(21:40):
Instead, you take your laundryto a service and they do it for
you and it's reasonably priced,and you get it back, maybe
folded the way you like andmaybe not, but it's clean and it
smells good.
So the laundry is at LagoonEast, which makes the Lagoon
Marina even more attractive.
You can drop off your laundryand have lunch and a drink.

There's a Yamaha dealer there.
Fuel filters are $10 a filter.
He gets any part you need foryour engine.
It's ground zero.
That Lagoon Marina Lagoonies isground zero for the cruisers.
That's where everybody goesevery night to gather up.
There's a band playing, there'smusicians that perform you know

(22:21):
, acoustic music.
They do live jams.
It's just really, really asweet place.
And you're inside this lagoon.
So there's no, there's no swell, there's no wave action.
It's very calm and it's it'spretty clean.
It's surprisingly clean becausethere's a, there's a current
that flows through here and thetide comes up and down.

(22:43):
So, yeah, it's a great spot.
It's a great spot.
So there's the Yacht Club.
You go to the Yacht Club in themorning for breakfast.
If you want, you watch theyachts going out at the 830
morning morning for breakfast.
If you want, you watch theyachts going out at the eight 30
morning and then you go to theyacht club in the evenings for
the four o'clock burgers andfour o'clock and five six
o'clock.
The yachts are going and we'retalking a hundred 150 foot

(23:05):
yachts, you know, 24 feet wide,barely fit through the bridge
and uh, it's quite a scene toyou're right there, next to them
, as go past Everybody's yellingand hooping and hollering and
these, these and during theHeineken regatta, there were
some 120 boats that wereregistered for it and most of
them were anchored or docked inthe lagoon, so you could see

(23:28):
boats of all sizes and the crewshad fun dressing up together.

There was a boat from Canada that all wore
flannel shirts and lumberjackhats and they all had pretend
axes and some of the crews willsing songs, so it's really fun
to see.

Yeah, it's really great, well, I have a
question about the bridge.

You said that certain times you can go in and
certain times you can go out.

Yep Right, it's regulated.

The dinghies can come and go all the time but
that's a great idea.

That just keeps it from getting all right, it's,
it's well run, it's.

it's, there's a.
There's a set schedule when thebridge will open, and that's
only for inbound one way traffic.
Yes, Everybody lines up outsideand you know, and you radio the
bridge 10, you say I'm comingin island spirit, you can't line
up whatever.
Then they open and theneverybody gets in line, goes
through bridge.
Nobody's coming out becauseit's only about, I don't know,
24 feet wide.

(24:22):
It's not very wide and onelittle one lift goes up and you
go right in and you're rightnext to the yacht club and
people are right there.

It's it's very entertaining it's very
entertaining but, it's it.

It's also nerve-wracking.
Radine drives through thebridge.
I'm taking photographs of it.
It's kind of fun.
She has no fear driving theboat.

Good You've been doing it a long time.

Yeah, it's great .
25 years we know this boat,that yacht club, the Simpson Bay
Yacht Club.
It's wonderful.

It's called St Martin Yacht Club St.

Martin Yacht Club is wonderful, yeah, we love
it.
That's who runs all theregattas.
So now the next slide.
I think I go up to the Amerigo,the French side.
Let's see, yeah, okay.
So this goes back to looking atthe whole lagoon and again you
see the airport there, you seethe X where we anchor, and then

(25:21):
you see the Dutch shops down atthe bottom and you see the
beaches that you can dinghy outto get a coffee.
So you take the dinghy up to theFrench side of the island and
you zip up through there withthe dinghy and you got two ways
to go.
You can go, stay in the lagoonand end up at the French shops

(25:44):
on the inside and there's coffeeshops and pastries right there
and grocery stores.
Or you can go through thelittle bridge and go out to the
outside and come into the beachside where there's a dinghy dock
and you're in the town right inthe center of come into the
beach side where there's adinghy dock and you're in the
town, right in the center oftown, where where the shops are
and the little street vendorsare and coffee shops it's, uh,
the cat name of the town ismarigot, and it is the capital

(26:07):
of french st martin, and in 2001it was our privilege to be
there, uh, for bastille day,which is the big French
celebration, july 14th.

So it was very fun to see the people in the
band all dressed in their whiteuniforms and there were speeches
in French.
Of course, we couldn'tunderstand them.

I love the French.

It was very, very serious.
It was very somber celebration,unlike Carnival which happened
every Tuesday night.
There's a little carnival inanother French town.

We'll tell you about that in a minute.
I got a slide for that.
But yeah, the French.
I just see that the French areso passionate about life.
Everything they do to me seemsover the top.
I mean, even a cup of coffee.
It's just beautifully presentedand just really nicely made,

(26:59):
and they present it with alittle cookie or something.
It's not just a Starbucks,here's your coffee go.
I don't know.
There's something about theFrench that I really admire and
I really like.
And their coffee shops andpastry shops and restaurants.
They present food as art.
I mean, it's just, you get aFrench meal, it doesn't matter

(27:23):
what it is, it is so beautifullyprepared and presented.

And they're very proud.

And they're really proud of this.
They just live a wholedifferent perspective than
Americans do.
It's obvious.

It's so obvious and we love it and they're so
leisurely with dining, you justrelax and visit with your guests
.
And nobody's rushing you,here's your check.
Oh, no one rushes.
You have to beg for the check.

They never come back and say they never come
back and like, hand you thecheck and say, move on, it's
like you have to.
Are we going to get a check?
Are we finished here?
And they're like hand me thecheck and say, move on, it's
like you have to.
Are we going to get a check?
Are we finished here?
And they're like well, we don'twant to rush anybody, I mean
it's just.
France is phenomenal and theFrench islands that we've sailed
into are a dream.
They absolutely are a lifetime.

(28:10):
Sailors must do destination.
There's no question about it.
You got to sail to a Frenchisland and you will experience
this and see how incredible itreally is.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really wonderful.
We love it.
So that's another reason why welike this island you have.
Half of it is French and halfof it is Dutch the.

Dutch are different than what you just
described.
The French are the Dutch youthan what you just described,
the.
French are you want to get your?

work done down in the Dutch part of it, but if
you want good service and goodfood.
The Dutch are all aboutbusiness and trading, buying and
selling Right.

And move on.

They get things done.
I mean French West IndiesTrading Company, right?
No, dutch West Dutch WestIndies Trading Company from back
in the 1600s.
They were the traders of theworld.
They bought and sold things,and so now, on this island, they
have all the businesses.

So you've got the best of everything there.

That's why it's such a great destination.
That's why St Martin has goteverything.
You've got both worlds here ina little tiny island with a
lagoon in the center of it toanchor, or you can anchor out
off these beaches.
I mean, it's got everything.
It's got it all.

I know you told me this before, but why is it that
you don't keep your boat there?
Because it's more expensivethan Antigua.

No, the prices are the same all through the
Caribbean, From Puerto Rico downto Grenada.
It's all within $1,000 of eachother.
It's not a big savings one tothe other.

The reason that we wouldn't store our boat there
is St Martin is flatter thanAntigua and so it's not as
sheltered.
And when they got hit manyyears ago by Hurricanes Luis and
Marilyn back to back they tookterrible damages so we would not
leave our boat there because ofthat.
Here in Antigua it's verymountainous and the place we

(30:10):
haul out is very sheltered.

Yeah, you want to be in a concrete yard.
You want to be on concrete withhurricane tie down straps that
are into concrete and mountainsbehind you, yeah mountains and
cliffs around you and this yardhere in Antigua.
They actually weld the jackstands together, making a cradle
for your boat.
I mean it's they do a lot ofthings where other yards.

(30:35):
You get on jack stands and theychain them together and your
jack stands are sitting ongravel or dirt or sand and they
put a little square board underthe foot of the jack stand and
when the wind and the stormscome and the jack stand starts
vibrating, the little boardunder the foot flies out because
the stand's moving and theboard flies out and the jack

(30:57):
stand sinks into the sand andgravel and the boat falls over
Concrete.
That doesn't happen.
You're sitting on a concretepad, way more stable, and then
they strap you down with eighthurricane straps, four on each
side, two from midship, and thenbalancer on each side into the
concrete footers and winch thosedown.

(31:19):
We took 220 mile an hour windsin Hurricane Irma and Maria in
Puerto Rico.
We didn't fall over.
We were on concrete, we werestrapped down.
A building blew up and sheetmetal wrapped around our mast
and broke our mast.
So you don't know about flyingdebris, but the boat didn't fall
over.
It's how they get strapped downis the key and what surface are

(31:40):
you on?

Another tip of the day from Hayden and Nadine
right here on the Salty Podcast.

Get on concrete.
Get your jack stands onconcrete.

That's going to be a clip.
That's a valuable tip that youjust gave me.

Let's see what the next slide is.
The next slide from FrenchMarigot.
I think I zoomed in on Marigotand we look at the harbor up
there.

Did I go to the right one.

I don't see a slide.
Oh, I'm sorry.

It would help if I added it to the screen.
Yeah, oh there, it is.

Yes wine, cheese , cafes, bakeries paradise.
It's france dinghy to france.
This is why we love it.
We're back down in the bottomof the lagoon in the dutch side,
but this is a five minutedinghy ride now that seems like
it's more convenient than goingoutside.

Here it is, it is two ways to go.

We normally go on the inside, sure, and then
you walk over to town.
But if you got to pick up a lotof stuff, like a case of nice
Bordeaux red wine, you gooutside and you and you have a
less distance to walk tocarrying your case of red wine.
So you got, you go out thelittle channel there and you go
across the moorings.
Now, sadly, the town of Marigotput in moorings here.

(32:59):
We've anchored here where itsays moorings, and the city put
in, I'm going to say, 40 mooringballs, 50.
They covered the entireanchorage with mooring balls.
Wow, well, the cruisers saidsorry, we don't do that.
So the cruisers moved.
They moved to the top aroundthe marina.
You see the circular marina atthe top with an arrow says

(33:19):
anchor.
They all moved up around there.
They went on the north side ofthat marina and they anchor
there, and they went to thebottom of the mooring field to
the left of the channel and theyanchored there and all the
mooring balls are empty.

It's a joke.
Are they really expensive orsomething Probably like 40, 50
bucks probably.

I don't know what they cost, but nobody uses
them.
I don't care if they're fivebucks.
The cruising community is likeno, we are not paying for a
mooring ball.
We used to anchor here and itwas fine, so it's kind of been a
bitter thing.
It didn't really work out, butthere's probably 50 empty
moorings right there.
So you dingy through themooring field zig work out, but
there's probably 50 emptymoorings right there.
So you, you dingy through themooring field zig zigging and

(33:59):
zagging, like you should justmake them free.
Yeah, they really should.
They really should, and thedinghy dock is great.
And then you walk in the townand tell them about the town a
little maradona dinghy dockright here yeah, dinghy docks at
the end of the arrow.
At the end of the arrow there'sthis dinghy dock.
Okay, right, right there dinghydock and there's another one
down at the other arrow that'sinside the lagoon.

Right.
So you got two dinghy docksright there in Marigot and
they're close to grocery stores.

Right.
Each one of these is close to agreat grocery store.
Why?

don't you describe a French grocery store?

Well, they are different.
It's surprising how they havemeat and cheeses like we would
have for sandwiches, and they'resliced and packaged beautifully
in individual or maybe aserving for two people, and so
there's just packages andpackages and everything's very
fresh.
It feels a little wastefulbecause it's so much packaging

(34:53):
for such a small quantity offood, but that's how they do it.
And then there's more yogurtthan you've ever seen in your
life and more juice than you'veever seen in your life.
A small grocery store will havean entire aisle of just juices.
It's amazing.

Piles of baguettes.

Oh yeah, baguettesettes by the dugout?

Yeah, I don't eat bread because you know it
raises my blood sugar too much,but piles of baguettes and
pastries and a French grocerystore is amazing.
And the wine I do like wine, Ilike Bordeaux wines, I like
heavy red wine and cheese isgreat.
So you know, cheese and redwine.

(35:35):
I'm in paradise and they willsell some of the finest tasting
French Bordeaux wine for eighteuros.
You know it's subsidized by theFrench government.
These islands are.
They help to pay for things, tokeep the cost down for the
locals.
Well, you travel to a Frenchisland, you sail into a French

(35:55):
island and you'll notice thingsare reasonably priced from a
cruising standpoint because theFrench government is helping the
locals afford to live here.
So, bordeaux wine I've had four, five, six, eight, 10, $12
bottles of Bordeaux wine.

They're all fantastic it's amazing, and so
how much would that be here?

oh, a euro is a dollar dollar right now the
conversion is one to one euro isone to one, so eight, eight
dollars for a bottle of wine,the best red wine you've
probably ever had.
It's amazing.
So yeah, they, they have reallygood wine shops.
But we like the coffee shops.
We drink a lot of coffee andteas and Radine likes her

(36:41):
pastries and I like my cheese.
Yeah, we're pretty happy therewe're pretty happy with the
coffee shops.
Yeah, that's great.
So we'll go back to the nextslide.
I think the next slide I go upthe island to the Grand Casse.
No, I think you go back to thenext slide.
I think the next slide I go upthe island to the Grand Casse.

No, I think you go back to the Dutch side.
You're alternating, so you'redigging to the Dutch side.

Let's see what the next slide is.

Okay, oh, it's right, it's not up there, sorry.

Yep, we're on the Dutch side.

Oh, yes, I went down to this cruise ship town.
On the south side of the islandis the cruise ship terminal and
there'll be two, three, foursix cruise ships in here at one
time and then they taxi peopleinto the shops because the ships
are a little bit out of town.
You can walk.

(37:31):
It's a little bit of a hike.

Is this it right here?
What is it, Phillips?
Oh no.

The shops are.

The shops are up where it says shops and then
the cruise ships are docked atthose long piers.

So you got the shops in town.
The town is called phillipsburg.
And then you, it's a beach, abeautiful beach, crescent beach.
There you can anchor your boatoff of it, and there's a marina
there bobby's marina's there,and there's a beautiful
boardwalk the length of thatwhole beach and there's a marina
there.

Bobby's Marina is there and there's a beautiful
boardwalk the length of thatwhole beach.

Yeah, it's a great, great little city to walk
around the shops and and buytouristy things and we've never
anchored in here.
We've been in this town 10times probably.
The first time we were here was1996 on another person's
sailboat.
So, um, yeah, it's, it's great.

There's a great bus system in st martin so we
often just take the bus.

It's either one or two dollars to get wherever you
want to go okay, we just madesure we were not in phillipsburg
when the ships were in yeah,yeah, very smart of you, yeah,
good idea to see what the shipschedule is, but pretty much
every day there's ships in there.
We could see them offshorecoming in.
Right, we were staying on theDutch side.

Right.

Oh, okay.

Let's go shopping, Hurry quick.

Well, they run, yeah, they run, between here and
St Thomas.
They're going back.
You know it's a standard run,because St Thomas is only 90 to
100,.
No, it's maybe 100 miles up toSt Thomas, whatever, yeah, so
that's Phillipsburg, on thesouth of the island.
Now the next slide, which Ithink might be the last slide,

(39:06):
goes up to the top of the island.
Yes, yeah, grand Casse.
Wow, french little town here.
Describe this reading.

It's a little village.
On the chart, every littlesquare you see is a building, so
you can see how small it reallyis.
You can count the buildings.

Yeah, you have to drive over there.
It's like a real beautifulbeach.

It is.
They're all on the beach.
They're all on the beach.
They're all restaurants andcafes and shops.

So you dingy in.
There's a dingy dock where youcan dingy onto the beach and
it's just like four or fiveblocks long and wonderful
restaurants, and the first timewe were there was in 1991, I
think, and I actually had founda restaurant by using a this is
going to show how old I am awebsite called Prodigy and there

(39:56):
were discussion boards inProdigy, and so I found a St
Martin travel discussion boardand found a restaurant that we
tried.
So that was a good memory.
There's another harbor at thevery north side of this chart
called Ants Marcel, and we droveup by car there this time for
the first time, and we found outthat we probably will never go

(40:16):
there by boat.
It was very narrow and verycrowded and so that's not our
kind of place.

But when you're anchored in this little Grand
Casse, there's a snorkeling spotright to the north of there and
we've snorkeled that a coupleof times.
It's fabulous and really,really good.
And again, this little harboris treacherous if there's a
north swell coming, because thewaves, the swell can be four,
six, eight feet, it's far apart.

(40:45):
It rolls in here from the north, hits the beach and recoils
back.
It's the recoil that reallymakes the anchorage, you know,
very uncomfortable.
So you have the waves coming inand then the recoil coming off
the beach and it's really notgood.
So you had the waves coming inand then the recoil coming off
the beach and it's really notgood.
So you will not be anchoredhere.
If there's a north swell coming, people will go around the

(41:05):
island and come down to thebottom to Simpson Bay, simpson
Bay Lagoon, and come into Lagoon.
So you have options.
You don't really get stuck ifit's bad weather.

Do you pretty much like to hang out in in simpson
bay?

yeah, it's too easy.

It's too easy another resource to know about
on this map is um south of here,back in marigot, there's a
business called shrimpy's.
It's a laundry service and anoutboard dinghy service and that
gentleman for over 20 years hasrun the cruisers net, which is
in the mornings every day.
I think it's at eight, 30.

(41:44):
His name is Mike at shrimpiesand he does the weather and he
helps people sell and buy thingsthat they need.
He helps people find parts theyneed.

It's like a.

Georgetown.
It's the same kind of thing andall social events get announced
and and people say when they'vearrived and people announce
when they're leaving.
So, yes, you're right, it'sjust like Georgetown and it
gives a real sense of communityto the whole island.

We've given a lot of things.

And what channel is it?

Oh, you stumped me.
Oh, I don't remember.

I should know, but I don't I know, I think it's
12.

I'm pretty sure it's 12.

Yeah, here it's 74 .

Each island is a different VHF net 68 is
Georgetown, I know that.
Yeah, and the other thing allof these islands and all these
harbors, they all have Facebookgroups.

Okay.

So you know, when you cruise into an island,
the first thing you do is youcheck out the facebook group and
and you join it.
There'll be a group and you cansell things, buy things, trade
things, you know, help somebodyfix something on their boat.

It's really kind of fun in most countries a lot
of people, especially the islandpacket people yeah, yeah, we're
a um a thing that's nice toknow is it's often not legal to
sell parts to someone who'slocal without paying the duty on
it, but to sell from onecruising boat to another
cruising boat is legal.

Yeah, oh good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't think I have any more slides
there, tinsley, you'd have to goback to the first one and look
at the big overview pictureagain.

Oh, I see Jeff Gaber's watchers, yeah drinking
Bordeaux.

now, jeff Gaber, that's my boat buddy right
there.

What did you meet him there?

No, Jeff Gaber and I have been sailing together
30 plus years and he's sailedon Island Spirit many times.

Yes, yes, Jeff and his wife Sharon had three
island packets.
They had a 31, a 35, and a 420.
And they don't anymore.
No, they've sold their Lucilleto another cruising couple Now
the boat's name is Mango.

Yeah, mango, mango 420 now, oh, that's a
great name yeah.
Yeah, but yeah, jeff, enjoythat Bordeaux.
That's a fine bottle, I knowyou.
Back to the overview pictureagain Tinsley, which was the
first slide.

Did you want me to bring up that restaurant
Lagoonies?
Oh sure.

If you can find that.
Yeah, see, there's the lagoonback there.
Let me see if I can pull thatup.
Go one forward.

One more.
I thought that was the firstone.
No, that's the first one.

Go forward one.
No, that's the first one.
Go forward one second there.
Oh, one more, I'm sorry, Onemore forward there.
That's the big picture.
That's, that's the wholeconcept of what you would want
to know about, about, uh, StMartin and with, with the French
side of the lagoon, the Dutchside of the lagoon, the beaches
down at the bottom, the, the,the French Island, the French

(44:36):
town of Marigo at the top, theFrench island, the French town
of Marigot at the top, theairport runway beach, the Maho
beach right there, the Dutchbusinesses down at the bottom.
And the first time we came herewe just sat on the anchorage
out at the bottom down there,which is anchor.
We anchored there for weeks onend.
It gets a little rolly and Iwas nervous to go under the

(44:59):
bridges and to go into thelagoon.
But after we sat a week or twoout there rocking and rolling,
we said let's get, let's get inthe lagoon and check this out.

Now why were you nervous?

I don't know.
I just was nervous with thebridge.

You've got your boat there, I think you can
handle it, the bridge.

I've been on thousands of bridges, but this
is this bridge is little.
But so I was worried aboutgoing into the lagoon and not
knowing the lay of the land, butthe whole lagoon's six, eight,
ten feet deep everywhere, and wejust went in and found a place
to drop anchor and it was sortof near the end of the runway.
The jets take off towards thelagoon, so you were anchored

(45:40):
right in here, yeah, and that'sa no anchor zone.

Oh no.

Yeah, it's marked off like you can't anchor
there because the jets couldhit your mast.
But they don't obviously, so Iwas right up against the no
anchoring zone of the airporttakeoff runway.
It was kind of fun but, uh,yeah, it's really exciting, it's
real nice.
But now I know now I know theguy that has the mooring balls
and we rented a mooring ball.

(46:06):
A mooring ball in in thislagoon was 15 a night oh my gosh
was that a deal?

that is a deal 15 a night so is that on?
Is that labeled here where's?

that labeled here.
Well, he's got 10.
Up on the French side, he's gotone more.

Oh, you're talking about on the outside.
No, no, no Inside.

Inside the lagoon.
They're all around that littleisland right there where your
mouse is Right here, they're allright around there, okay, yep.

He's got 10 mooring balls there and one down
in the middle of the Dutch side, where we took.
We took the one in the Dutchside.
Okay, so that's where you liketo be is right there.

I prefer the Dutch side, but it's ridiculous
to check in with the Dutch.
It's kind of stupid.
You're better off to come to thetop side and come in Marigo,
check in at the French side,which takes 32 seconds, and then
you're into the country andthen you drive through the
lagoon wherever you want to bethat's a good tip yeah, when you
come into the bottom side andyou come into the dutch side, it

(47:04):
takes you an hour and a halfand your first born son to be
able to check into the dutchside, and then you get through
the dutch customs and you'rewelcome into the dutch side.
So yeah it's, we've done both.
We've done both.
We like checking in on thefrench side okay but since we've
been.
Yeah, another tip of the day,another tip of the day dutch

(47:25):
side hour and a half french side, 32 seconds all, right, now I'm
gonna pull up this uh, yeah,lagoonies yeah, look at
lagoonies.
It's such a it's such a happyspot.
It's one of those happy placescruisers go to you.

You have a lot of happy places well, we enjoy
where we are usually okay, sothis is on a website, but this
is what came up is this, thereit is okay, yep.
So local gym which combinesdelicate taste of the french
side with fun well, they have afrench chef they have.

Well, they have a French chef.
They have a French chef, whichwe love.

Okay.

She's wonderful.
Oh, so they make wonderfulmeals and it's a little bar and
all the cruisers hang out here.

When the locals clock out and the sailors docked
at Lagoon Marina in the dayLagoonie.

Lagoonie and I think dockage here is like a
dollar a foot.
It's cheap to dock here, butwe've never docked.
We don't dock anywhere.
We always are an anchor.

The trick about docking at all the marinas on
this island is it's always amid-moor.
There's no finger piers sothere's no side tie.
Yeah, so you have to have a wayto be able to get on and off
the back of your boat to getonto the dock, no, that's too
difficult for us.

I'm looking at this one dollar fifty beers and
two dollar rum punches oh yeah,it's true.

True, that's like wait, that's like 1970s
prices happy hour every everyday from four to six those other
prices, and their rum punchesare delicious.
I can vouch for them.

It's a good live music.

Two or three nights a week.

It's just, it's the best.
Everybody goes to Lagunas.

Here's the menu.

Yep, it's number one.
You'll go to Lagunas and you'llgo to the Yacht Club and then
you'll go to Marigot.
Those are the three placesThree hot spots.

Yeah.

Well, that was fun, Tinsley.

Yeah, yeah, we got it.
Let's see, we're at 49 minutes.

Hey, we're trying to keep it at 45.
We're doing pretty good.
I was trying to keep it at 45.
I didn't want to bore anybody.

No, no, they don't have to watch the whole thing.

I know they can listen.

And we'll be doing the clips, so you made
some good.

You gave us some good inside information to do
some clips with.

So Wonderful, wonderful.
Well, thank you so much.

What's the next one going to be about?

You said about putting the boat away, but
that's pretty boring.
I don't think we want to dothat.
I think we want to just focuson French Islands, martinique.

Okay, we can do Martinique, martinique, and you
might be home by then.

Yes, we should be home in May 5, hopefully Okay
, and I'm hoping, but you willnot be.
I'm hoping to get to Georgetownfor the first time on my boat.

Nice maybe november, december.

But you guys won't be there.
No, no, we won't, but I'll beflying back here.

December, december 2 okay but you will
have 350 other boats to have funwith.

Is that smart on my part?

yes, it is yeah, that should be your base.

That should be your base we got a couple of uh
remarks here.
Let's see William Lyons.
Hi guys, Thank you for thehelpful tips.

You're welcome, thank you.

And Mike Kuntz.
He's the one that got the 380.

You're very welcome.

In Key West.
So he's always on here, andthen William says Bell's
watching too.

All right, right , yeah, that's my miami team man
.
That my best favorite miamiteam right there.

So much fun and if anybody else wants to comment
you'll have to meet themsometime.

Tinsley, yeah, go to miami go to miami and go
go to no name harbor yeah,before you go to the bahamas go
to Miami and meet Belle and BillYep.

Oh, I'm going to be going through all these
podcasts, especially the onesabout the Bahamas.

You need to get them on.

I'm going to be timing it just like you do it
with the wind and the front.

You need to get them on to talk about Biscayne
Bay.

Okay.

Biscayne Bay is the top sailing destination on
the East Coast.

Absolutely Bay is the top sailing destination on
the East coast.
Absolutely, you said that'syour happy place too.

Hands down it's there in Block Island, you got
to have Block Island.

Okay, william, please email me at salty
abandoned at Gmail, cause Haydensays you have to come on, so
that's a direct order.

There you go.

They have an island packet for 20 in Miami,
yep okay, and let's they know,miami, they know, bis came back
okay and uh, if you want tofollow these guys, um, they're
at sb islands period oneverything, yes, basically
everywhere yes um, and you can.
Also, if you have an islandpacket, you can join the island
packet owners association, orersAssociation Facebook page which

(52:20):
these guys run, and it's thebest, especially if you want to
find some information about anyisland packet and you guys are
also brokers, so let's give aplug for that Go ahead.

Yes, cj Yacht Sales in West Coast of Florida,
st Pete area.
We are yacht brokers with them.
It was the former WhitakerYacht Sales team that moved over
with our lead broker, cj ClintJordan.
So yeah, we take listings andhelp people find the island
packet that they want.

Yeah, so when sailing season ends for you,
then you're back into helpingbuyers find packets.

I've helped a bunch of buyers this winter
already.

You were doing it while you were out there.

Yeah, I help buyers and bring them in and
turn them over.

William said he will email me.
There we go.

There's our Biscayne Bay team.
That's your next interview.

I'm going to be there this fall, so okay, guys.

Alright, thank you very much, tinsley.

Once again, a great podcast With you guys.
Thank you so much and we'll seeyou again soon.
And we're going to talk aboutMartinique.
So what do we say?
Salty?

Bandon Out.
So what do we say?
Salty Bandon, it's Salty BandonOut Out.

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Salty Podcast #57 | ⛵️⚓️ Sailing & Anchoring Expert Tips for St-Martin/Sint Maarten in the Caribbean

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Salty Podcast #57 | ⛵️⚓️ Sailing & Anchoring Expert Tips for St-Martin/Sint Maarten in the Caribbean