A New Year in St. Martin

Happy New Year! We have been exploring SXM and working on some projects. Jim’s deck inspection before we left USVI revealed a frozen main halyard block at the base of the mast so we have taken it and a foot block out and have been attempting to ship in replacements through Budget Marine. As you can imagine, both Lewmar and Harken have been closed or behind on their inquiries because of the holidays so it has been slow going. All the large marine stores are on the Dutch side so we have been taking the dinghy under the Sandy Ground Bridge, across the lagoon over to the Simpson Bay area. The Sandy Ground Bridge is currently being held by a group of protesters so it has caused some traffic backups if you travel by ground. There are still some sunk boats in the lagoon from the two hurricanes so you have to keep an eye on objects below the water when traversing it. Our anchorage in Marigot Bay is peaceful unless the wind has a northern component, then it gets really bumpy. Grocery shopping is an adventure since all the products are in french. Amy has been trying to learn some french on her app. On New Years we ate an early bird dinner in an outside cafe and watched fireworks from around the island on the boat. Au revoir y’all!