Wednesday 20 February, St. Martin day 23: Service autohelm linear drives and visit Philipsburg.
As predicted it was a rather rolly night in the anchorage and subsequently a bit sleep challenged.
First thing on our agenda in the morning is to make bookings for visiting Saba island. We decided a while ago not to sail to Saba because the passage from there to St. Martin or Anguilla would be a long upwind sail for almost a full day. Also, the water around the island is very deep so you can only stop on specially laid mooring buoys that are completely open to the Atlantic swell. So our plan is to fly or ferry there from St. Maarten. Flying is our preference because the runway on Saba, and hence the landing, is uniquely challenging apparently. It would be fun to experience.
But alas, seats on the flight that were available last evening have now been sold out by this morning. Bummer! So we will take the 90minute ferry. Then stay in a hotel for 2 nights and do 3 scuba dives. We will be proper tourists!! Saba is famous for its “pinnacle” dive sites. We are just a little concerned because these pinnacles are over 100ft depth, the deepest we will have dived yet. It we will be on Nitrox air and have instructors with us, so should be fine. By mid morning we have discussed the plan with SeaSaba dive company and they will arrange everything. Cool. But on the other hand the price tag is a bit of a shock to us. It reminds us the cost of “normal” travel without Cloudy Bay being there as our transport, hotel and restaurant all in one, for free! On the other hand, when they say: “sailing is the most expensive way to get anywhere for free” …. there is truth in that too. Cloudy Bay is indeed a high maintenance mistress!!
With our “holiday” booked we head ashore to continue our exploration of the island. First stop is at the Raymarine service center to pick up our 2 linear drives from our auto helm system. These are the twin worm-drive rams that physically turn the rudder when we are on autohelm … which is 95% of the time. It’s 3 years and 15,000 miles since they were last serviced. Happily the Raymarine engineer tells us there is absolutely nothing wrong with them and all the gearing and components still look like new. Wonderful. It makes a change for a part of Cloudy Bay not to actually need some attention. These rams are super important to us. Without the autohelm it’s almost unimaginable how we could handle Cloudy Bay with just the 2 of us.
Following this we head to B52 kite school where I have a 2nd lesson on the foiling board. This time with Oana in the RIB with the instructor. I’m dying to show her that I can get up on the foil. But sadly the wind is super gusty and it’s all I can do to manage the kite let alone get up on the foil. After 1 hour I’m super frustrated, feeling like a total beginner. Will have to try again tomorrow.
Half full of seawater and feeling pummeled from head to foot I nurse my mid-life body into the car and we set off to see Philipsburg, the main town on the Dutch side.
On the way there we again treat ourselves to French pastries. But not so good today. We drive along the north coast from Orient Bay to Philipsburg. So much damage from the hurricane still in evidence. Oyster Bay Marina and surrounding buildings are still completely demolished like the hurricane hit just yesterday, not 18 months ago. And in the bay most of the catamarans and yachts are moored with no rig – a sight we are getting used to around here.
Philipsburg is a 3-4 street town, each street parallel to the beach. At one end is the cruise liner terminal, today with 3 giant ships in dock, their passengers all now sauntering back towards their ships for the usual early evening departure. Front Street is basically a promenade between the beach and the town, giving it almost a Spanish resort feel. If you forget all the duty free shops, the town has a really nice feel about it. Certainly the tidiest and most pleasant town on the island. We walk all the way one end to the other. And we do note things regrade the further away we walk from the cruise liners!
By the time we drive out of the town, it’s deserted and the outlets are all closing up shop. The passengers are all back on their ships and so it enters back into ghost-town mode, like so many of the towns that cruise liners visit.
We reach Cloudy Bay at sunset, eat and have a relaxed evening doing admin work, blog writing and re-fitting the Raymarine linear drives on the rudder quadrant that lie below our aft berth.