Seeing Beaches, Meeting People

Location: Lagoon Marina, Sint Maarten

Today the boat is full of activity making carrot cake with Fly, getting our windows redone (they were leaking) and the rigging is being loosened to be able to take out and service the genoa furler. If I die mid-post, I'll blame it on the mast falling. I've had a mast fall on me two years ago, but that was a small dinghy one. This one might hurt a little more.

It's been a fun, productive week. First off, I forgot to mention that we have a new roommate. Nika is a sailor from Slovenia and was looking for a place to stay for a bit, so she currently lives on the couch. She likes walking around more than taking the dinghy, so we've explored some of the streets around the lagoon. It was during one of these excursions that I bought a funky pair of shorts with flowers on them. I un-stitched the tassels though; tassels are a bit too funky for me.

Later that day (Wednesday), we got our first covid vaccines! It took going to three different locations and waiting two hours, but they have extra shots and they need to fill their daily quotas, so we got some of the extras (a big thank you to the Dutch government). I will be fully vaccinated by the time I get back. The sense of relief that we felt after that first shot was amazing. I'll be able to hug my grandma!

We also had a St. Maarten edition of Wednesday night on Heaven's Door, the last one having been in St. Vincent. We had friends from all over, from Karl and Kara from St. Helena to Flora and David from Grenada to Ishka and Jean, new friends whom we met at the Soggy Dollar bar a few days earlier, to Fly's entire family. We had a blast, ate fondue, and had leftovers for days. The cons of hosting are the mountains of dishes. The pros of hosting are the leftover cheesecake.

Thursday, Anna got out her sparkly gold nail polish and she and I painted our nails. We also persuaded Jem to allow us to paint his left pinkie nail, so now we are all, as my sister likes to say, twinsies.

In the afternoon, Anna, Nika, Jean and I drove to the French side (St. Martin and St. Maarten have a non-existent border) and explored a beautiful beach during the sunset. Jean is great to hang out with due to the pure chaos that surrounds him. He has a two-door Nissan whose seats slide forward only if you wiggle them violently. It took him 20 minutes to find where he had parked it the day before. During this time, he would utter very French expressions such as "mais, putain," "oh là là," and "allez, hop." While driving, he would tell us funny anecdotes while pointing around, which led to him taking his eyes off the narrow road slightly too much and also slowing down, which led to a bit of honking. He also has the unnerving habit of driving backwards very quickly. Oh là là.

Friday I went for a dinghy ride around Simpson Bay (outside the lagoon) with Anna. At the first beach that we went to, the anchor held very badly, and as we swam to the beach, we had to turn around midway and swim back very quickly, as we saw the dinghy start to drift away. At the second beach the anchor held much better and we took our time lounging on the beach. Sometimes life ain't so bad.

Saturday Anna and I went diving again. After doing the shallow water exercises for our certification, we went to the wreck of a beautiful monohull with a snapped mast surrounded by shoals of fish. We saw a reef shark and barracuda. The water was impossibly clear, and the bubbles rising to the surface seemed almost silvery. Anna told me that she smiled so much that water kept getting into her mouth around the regulator. 

In a completely different change of pace, that evening we went to a house party at a huge modern-style villa, danced with a bunch of Jean's Dutch friends (one of them was named Flop), and ate pizza at five in the morning.

Sunday we went to a brunch with Flora and company. I had an excellent breakfast burger, which was just a regular all-dressed burger with an egg in it, but, after the day before, was exactly what was needed. One couple at the brunch brought their baby. Apparently the baby had partied with the group late into the night the previous day. Apparently they are known as "techno babies." This particular one seemed to be a very cool dude. Later in the afternoon we walked to a beach and met up again with Flora and Co. I played soccer on the beach during the sunset with some of the more active (and less inebriated) people. Anna and I swam in the water and floated in the turquoise waves. It was a nice way to end a day.

Monday we did the last of our diving. The first was at another monohull wreck. We saw an absolutely beautiful ray, another shark or two, and a two-foot-long spiny lobster (crayfish). Now, I know that these can get even bigger than this, but normally the ones that you find at supermarkets are approcimately half that size, and so, seeing a prehistoric creature like that poking out of a cute red cabinet at the bottom of the bay was slightly unnerving.

The second dive was at a narrow reef, with multitudes of multicoloured fish hiding in the alleyways between the blocks of coral. Red tones get erased the further down you go, so one of the divers brought with him a light. Seeing anemone in their true rosy colours was beautiful. Also, one of the dive instructors put on an easter bunny costume because it was Easter Monday. Apparently it wasn't the most comfortable, as when he exhaled, the bubbles inflated the head of the costume and it would start to float up over his eyes. After the dives, we passed our exams and ate ice cream on the way back.

In the afternoon, Jean drove us (sometimes backwards) to another beach on the French side. This one was called Happy Beach, and was an arc of the softest sand dotted occasionally with black boulders lapped by waves. 

The road to walk there looked like a savanna. There were tall grasses, spiny bushes, and dark trees. It looked eerily dry for a place surrounded by water.

After the beach, we went to visit Jean's friend Harris who works on a horse ranch in the mountains. He had arrived on the island last week and was hitchhiking around when he saw the sign for the ranch, went in, and the lady in charge gave him a free room in exchange for chores such as mending fences. All the horses there were given to the ranch because they had been mistreated, and the views are beautiful. We drove away through the mountains under pink-gold skies and went to yet another beach, where we ate pizza as well as various French things such as truffle-infused brie and foie gras. Later in the evening I stopped by a pub with some friends from a different boat and bought a bracelet from a Chinese lady who gave me a discount because I spoke a bit of Mandarin. I think she tried to set me up with her son, but my Mandarin wasn't good enough to understand her completely.

Tuesday I took Fly sailing on a Quest, which was the same boat in which I took Anna. The wind was less strong, and so the strange lagoon wind shifts weren't as upsetting, and turned out to be actually quite fun. In the afternoon I helped Fly with some math and caught up with various wifi-related chores at Lagoonies, which had reopened after the long weekend. My dad has started his own blog; it's essentially a collection of stories that should end with "but I digress..." and talks about topics ranging from the number e to Japanese cherry blossoms. Anna, Jem, and I stayed at Lagoonies for dinner and ate with pub friends Ray (captain, owns a software company) and Ryan (first mate, used to be in the US airforce) as well as their friends Josh (crew on another boat, dog owner) and Jodie (freelance yoga instructor, also a dog owner). Dinner was excellent, and I would have taken a picture had I been less eager to eat.

Today we have another Wednesday night party. A few of our friends leave over the next week or so, but the good thing about this island is that everyone knows everyone else and so we're bound to meet more people. (Jean seems to have a whole network of people on the French side. Oh là là.) At the end of the weekend, the boat gets hauled out of the water and onto land to get more repairs done, and we move into a nearby apartment. I'm not excited for that part; it's a shame to leave such a nice place. I've lived on her for nearly six months, and so Jem put a label of my name above my cabin door. That place is Ada's Cabin now. 

But all is well, the island beckons, and adventures await. Ciao