It’s good to be back in St. Martin, three years since the last time. Slightly odd being here married, sailing our own boat, and without the crew of vagabond sailors and divers I used to work with at Broadreach, but it still feels like a homecoming. A return to the land of juxtaposition, the commerce and seediness of the Dutch side and the charm and gastronoimcal delights of the French. The tourist map we picked up at a car rental place has in the legend both an icon of a baguette for the boulangeries of Marigot and an icon of a finely detailed red sillouhette of a lady of the evening as viewed from behind- legs akimbo, thong stretched between knees, breasts in hand, hair extensions draped to the stage as she bends to look back at her sun burnt pink and pudgy customer. All that in an icon half a centimeter high. The contrast between cultures is jarring.
We tend towards the French side, the land of bread and cheese. Much of the enjoyment we get out of a place seems to be tied to our bellies, and it’s something we’ve been lacking for a while. For all of the fine qualities of the Virgin Islands (beautiful beaches, close anchorages, protected waters), the cuisine is underwhelming. Abysmal, even, if one were to calculate an index of quality-to-price. In a place surrounded by water, we had one seafood meal in a month and a half that was actually fresh, local fish. The rest was frozen and imported. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a local “creole” cuisine that we could find, either. Salvation was only found in a single truck in a parking lot that had been converted into something akin to a chuhascuria. But barring that lone refuge, the tastes of American and British tourists has taken hold. Poorly executed pizzas and burgers. We’ll just cook on the boat with our anemic vegetables, thanks. Dutch St. Maarten is not wholly dissimilair to the Virgins in this respect, though access to good ingredients is better, even if not wholly adopted as part of the cultural identity.
But now we are in France, a far away arm of her’s anyway, and the culture is reflected in the food. Every grocer, from the smallest convenience store to the mega-mart, offers baguettes baked that morning, an array of cheeses, prosciutto, chorizo, pancetta, salumi galore. The vegetables have somehow survived importation. The meat is red and rich and fatty. There is even a modest selection of fresh fish. We’re two for two in fantastic seafood meals. We revel in it.
I’d imagine that the majority of the few of you that read this are more interested in sailing than my musings on differences in regional cuisine, so I’ll get back on topic.
Since crossing over from the BVI a week and a half ago, we haven’t strayed far, but have still moved around a fair amount chasing an elusive combination food, scenery, and calm water. A breakdown of our movements:
Anse Marcel, St. Martin – a sleepy little place tucked in behind mountains. The beach front is dominated by a resort, but the building are only one or two stories so it’s inoffensive to the eye. The anchorage is susceptible to shifty winds and a bit of surge in a north swell, but still quite comfortable and holding is great in 10 to 15 feet of water with a sand bottom. There’s not a lot going on here, but we still enjoyed a couple of pleasant, quiet nights here last week.
The marina tucked into a lagoon behind the bay is undoubtedly the best protected harbour for 50 miles in any direction, both in terms of natural shelter and security. It also has the benefit of being the most painless place to check in to customs that I can imagine. 5 minutes, 5 euros, a chat with a friendly harbourmaster and you’re done. This isn’t listed in the guidebooks for some reason, but now you know. This is where we’ll leave the boat while we go back to the States for a week for Cat’s brother’s wedding.
Grand Case, St. Martin – just around the corner from Anse Marcel lies a massive bay that doubles as fantastic anchorage and culinary ground zero. This is where the best lolos (local barbeque joints) and fine French restaurants collide with room for five hundred boats to anchor, yet unlike the bay at Marigot, there are rarely more than ten. Like Ansel Marcel, Grand Case can be susceptible to a north swell, but it’s moderated by Anguilla. Holding is fantastic in clay-ey sand in 10 to 15 feet of water. This is a bay I am comfortable approaching at night because it’s wide open and you almost can’t go wrong in where you drop the hook. The only downside to the place is that to enjoy the restaurants and night life on shore, the only options are to swim or to tie your dinghy to a decrepit conrete dock rife with rusty rebar jutting from it, a single cleat to tie to, and uncompassionate commercial boats to contend with. Oh, and while I was working for Broadreach we also had a 14′ RIB with 40hp Yamaha outboard stolen from this dock – whoops.
With that said, this is one my favorite places. The benefits outweigh any annoyance or theft risk. We spent two or three nights here last week. Ribs at Sky’s the Limit, pizza down at the west end of the village, ti punch at Calmos – it’s so damn good.
Ilet Pinel, St. Martin – a couple miles around to the east from Anse Marcel lies this tiny, idyllic, islet. Protected by reef, she rarely gets much swell, even if the seas are breaking dramatically just a hundred yards away. This same reef and associated breakers made for a somewhat harrowing approach the first time we did it, but it’s really pretty easy. Line the south end of Tintamarre up with our ass end and the antennas on the mountain on SXM on our bow and stay on course. Breakers on starboard, breakers on port, but deep water and no dramas. Once in the lee of Pinel there’s room for a few boats in 5 to 8 feet of water. Grass bottom, so hard to get a good set, but our trusty Mantus is proving her worth while the charter boats with CQRs and Deltas drag around us. Luckily we also tend to have the shallowest draft of most boats, so we can tuck up in the very front of the anchorage and watch the drama unfurl with cocktail in hand, knowing that shallow water will protect us from the poor anchors and under-developed techniques of Moorings charterers.
We came here for a night and ended up staying for three. It’s one of those places. It takes a hold, makes us forget what we came for or why we’d ever need to be anywhere else.
Gustavia, St. Barthelemyรย – ahh St. Barths. Heaven on earth. Little red roofs, quaint cobbled streets, dining on streetside patios, tiny espressos, beautiful tanned French women “walking like cats” (as I once read them described). The last place where it’s still elegant to smoke cigarettes. I love it here, so much. I get lost in it’s charm, just sitting on the sea wall and taking in the scene. It’s a little slice of the Mediterranean, which we cannot afford to truly participate in, but can find satisfaction in by simply watching it exist.
We stayed in the outer anchorage, since the inner harbour is dominated by the mega yachts of shadowy figures – an oil shiek perhaps, or a Russian post-Soviet industrialist. The outer ancorage is crowded, deep, grassy, and rolly as hell. The wind swings 360 degrees. It’s everything you don’t want in anchorage, but the proximity to town is worth it. C’est la vie.
Anse de Columbier, St. Barthelemy – After a couple of nights without sleep sloshing around at Gustavia, we sought refuge at Columbier, on the north end of the island. No swell, nowhere to blow money, turtles popping their heads out for air everywhere you look. It’s a good spot to recuperate. Well maintained (and free) marine park moorings also take out any guess work.
We stayed here for a single night before making the run back to St. Martin to prepare to leave the boat and head back to the States. The sail was one hell of a romp. Seemingly the first one we’ve had that was downwind (in our day, we sailed our boat to the island and back upwind everyday, both ways). 20 to 25 knots aft of the beam, 8 foot seas looming high over the cockpit, a screaming broad reach. We saw 10.0 knots on one occasion and mid-9s on most of the waves we surfed down. It felt like we were standing still when the speed would drop in to the 7s, which is usually a respectable speed for Paradox. Hand steering was exhausting (since neither of our auto pilots are operational), trying not to broach as we’d round up in the troughs of short period wave sets, the mainsail out to the spreaders and boom threatening to get dunked, which it did on one occasion. It felt like we’d done a hard day’s work by the time we got back to Anse Marcel to check in only a couple hours after we left Columbier. This type of sailing is both what it’s all about and what leaves my nerves run ragged by the time the anchor is down.
So there it is – an abridged update up on what we’ve been up to since leaving the Virgins and a love letter to French cuisine. On Wednesday we’ll be hurtling through the air at 500 knots, bound for the depths of winter in Salt Lake City. I don’t even own a coat anymore. Expect the next update to be comprised primarily of lamenting sub-zero outside temperatures while simultaneously exulting the virtues of flush toilets and climate controlled living spaces.
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