5/25/01 | Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten

ooh la la

We're not in Kansas anymore. Ok, so we were never in Kansas, but we're not in the US any more, and it shows. In the Bahamas the vast majority of boats were either US or Canadian flagged. The variety of home ports and flags increased in the DR and Puerto Rico, but the anchorages were still dominated by boats from North America. Not any more. We're distinctly in the minority here in Marigot Bay, surrounded by German flags, French flags, British and Australian and New Zealand and South African flags, not to mention a few from the other Caribbean islands, and a few we can't recognize. There are more metal boats --they're favored by Europeans -- than we've ever seen before in one place. European boats tend to the colorful, too; we've seen red hulls, yellow hulls, lime green hulls, boats with broad multicolored patterns across them, and one zebra-striped boat. No boring white hulls for these guys.

Ashore, we're in France. (Although it's a France with a somewhat larger than usual black population, and everyone speaks English ungrudgingly.) St. Martin is part of the "department" of Guadeloupe, just as much a part of France as Toulouse or Nice. However, when we dinghied across Simpson Bay Lagoon the other day, we left St. Martin for St. Maarten, and left France for the Netherlands Antilles. Fortunately, there are no passport formalities between the French and the Dutch halves of the island.

In fact there were practically no formalities even for checking in, just one form and no fee. The Immigrations officer didn't even stamp our passports, and there's no Customs at all as it's a duty-free port. This means, unfortunately, that the island is one big shopping mall for cruise ship tourists. The prices didn't seem to be really all that good, at least on some of the things we checked -- Steiner Binoculars were $200 over list price at one store, compared with about $100 under list in the West Marine catalog. Plus, the main items that "duty free" seems to be an issue for, and thus what the majority of the stores sell, are jewelry, watches, crystal, and perfume. Real useful stuff on a boat! The clothing stores offer "deals" of $20 t-shirts and $90 bikinis. Philipsburg, where the cruise ships dock, is even more "shopping central". There are at least 4 stores on every block selling the exact same t-shirts and tropical print clothing. The only real deal we saw was on booze. French wine can be had for as little as $1.50 a bottle (and we tried some -- it was good!), and the duty-free liquor prices range from pretty good to unbelievable.

By skipping the Virgins in order to ride that great south wind eastward, we ended up getting a jump on some of the cruisers we know. Lady Simcoe and Bahati, who'd left Luperón before us and been ahead of us ever since, showed up the day after we did and were stunned to see us already here. I explained that Windom is a fourth-dimensional hyperboat, able to bend space and time, but I don't think they believed me. Feather is anchored on the Dutch side, in the lagoon, but Tom and Cindy dinghied over to our side to meet us for Stella Artois beers in one of the little brasseries around the marina, served by French-accented waiters in blue-and-white striped shirts. Hallelujah showed up after we arrived, also anchoring on the Dutch side because although they are Canadian their boat is registered in Delaware, and the French are picky about these things. We had all heard that several boats who tried to check in at French islands with no national documentation, just state registration, were fined 1000 francs and given 24 hours to leave.

sitting around, stuffing our faces

We've been overtaken by a bad case of tropical lassitude. It's tough to get motivated to do much of anything, and we have been spending a lot of time just hanging out on the boat and reading. Part of this is probably due to there not being any good snorkeling reefs nearby. There's nothing to do in the water, and it's too hot to work on the boat. (At least, that's our excuse.)

Since this is French territory, there are boulangeries with excellent bread for a couple of bucks a loaf, and we even found some good whole wheat loaves. I had been baking our bread all through the islands, but I'm happy to abdicate to the French bakers in order to keep from heating the boat even further. We are still making the rest of our home-made (boat-made?) repertoire, though:  yogurt, granola, and our new product, ginger fizz. This last is based on a recipe and starter we got from Redwings in Luperón -- it's home-made, nonalcoholic soda pop, kind of like yogurt or sourdough bread in that each batch is started with a bit of the previous batch. We made our second batch here in St. Martin, this time adding cloves for more spice and using some brown sugar for color. Yum!

While talking about food, I should also add that there is probably one restaurant for every resident on the island, and all the food is delicious and breathtakingly expensive. We managed to have one tasty and relatively inexpensive lunch at a lolo on the beach, a sort of outdoor barbecue place which served up ribs and stewed plantains and beans and rice, and we went to one Friday night BBQ at the St. Maarten yacht club. Of course, there are fast food restaurants on the Dutch side (certainly not on the French side!) with KFC apparently the flavor of choice, but something in me rebels at eating McFood in the Caribbean. Local beverages do not stack up to the local food. The only beers readily available are fairly light: Heinicken, Stella Artois, Carib, and that fine imported Budweiser. I did try the guavaberry liqueur which is brewed on the Dutch side. Although guavaberries (which are unrelated to guavas) grow only on St. Martin/Maarten, if you'd like to follow along at home you can approximate the taste by adding a shot of vodka to a glass of Robitussin cough syrup (the red kind). We'll stick to rum, thanks.

around and about

We did manage to get up off our butts long enough to do a small amount of sightseeing. We trekked to the two forts on the island, Fort St. Louis above Marigot and Fort Amsterdam near Philipsburg. We rented a car for a day, $27 for a tiny Hyundai Atos -- such a deal!  Too bad we got ripped off on gas when we stopped at a gas station on the Dutch side where they charged us in guilders and we paid in dollars. Francs are far enough off from dollars that it's obvious, but guilders aren't. Everything's usually quoted in multiple currencies, and you can generally pay in any of them. We saw one restaurant that had prices listed in Euros. Kind of dizzying to keep track!

But it was fun to drive around the island, from France to the Netherlands and back again, and we saw many picturesque coves and beaches. At one elegant resort we strolled in as though we belonged there, and had drinks in their beachside bar as we watched the sun set over the ocean. We visited a strange little museum, the homestead of a sixth-generation islander who claims descent from French royalty and family friendships with such luminaries as Napoleon and Lafayette. We also drove up the highest mountain on the island, Pic Paradis. It's far from a wilderness experience, as the road winds past many lovely and huge houses, and there are multiple radio towers on the summit.

We are carefully giving St. Martin/Maarten the once-over, because something unexpected happened: Britt was offered a job. One of the large marine store chains in the Caribbean (the Antillean equivalent of West Marine) needs a new computer network manager, and that's Britt's field. Since we've been feeling a little lonely lately, and Britt's been at loose ends ever since the last major boat project was done, we thought it might do us good to settle down somewhere for a while where we can be part of a community. But after thinking it over and taking a good look at this island, we are probably going to pass. We're just not crazy about St. Martin; it's crowded and urban, it doesn't have the kind of recreational opportunities we enjoy easily available, the cost of living is high (and the salary is very low), and of course we're concerned about hurricane season. (Hurricane Luis, in 1995, put over a hundred boats here either underwater or on the beach, and four lesser hurricanes have hit since.)  On the other hand, the temporarily-ex-cruisers we met who are working here are very nice, it's a different environment from the US, and the urbanization and industrial base make it one of the few places in the Antilles where we could actually find technical jobs. But Britt wasn't super excited about this particular job, and we decided that since we were looking at St. Martin in terms of "could we tolerate living here for a year?" that we'd probably prefer to just move on.