Virgin Islands to St. Martin (Saint Maarten)

April 15, 2014

We left our anchorage yesterday afternoon at about 3 p.m. and we pulled an all nighter.  I don't know if I'm spoiled or what, but the past month in the Virgin Islands where there were no overnighters was wonderful.  Overnight sailing trips are hard.  I don't care how rested you are, it wears you out.  The winds were 15-18 knots most of the way and the sea started at 3-4 feet (later on going to 6 feet).  The beginning of the trip was quite lovely.  The weather was wonderful and we were able to just sail, sail, sail.  Later on during the night, the seas picked up and then it wasn't as much fun.  I ended up with Dramamine to help me through, which, of course, made me sleepy.

I started to fall asleep in the cockpit, at one point, but decided to go below to see if I could sleep a little better.  I woke to hear the sails luffing in the wind and noise in the cockpit.  I got up to check on Daniel and he smiled - a flying fish decided to ride with him in the cockpit.  The fish landed right where I WAS sleeping.  So glad I went below.  Back off to sleep for me and more luffing and more noise.  I get back up to check on Daniel again - another flying fish landed in the cockpit.  This was getting weird.

Later into the night we were able to witness a total lunar eclipse.  It was amazing to see from the middle of the ocean and Mars was the brightest it had been in 6 years.  It was a nice celestial night to be at sea.  After that, the wind picked up and the waves picked up - we turned into a moving washing machine.  Daniel finally lost his dinner and I was still below trying to hold on to mine.

We finally made it to St. Martin at about 10 a.m. but had to wait until 11:30 for the bridge to open for incoming traffic.  We found a really nice anchorage in the lagoon next to Marigot Bay and took D-Time to town to check in with immigration.  We pulled up and walked to the local checkin spot, arriving shortly after noon.  The lady behind the desk said "we're closed until 2:30 p.m.".  No, "hello", "could you please come back later"....just a snappy "we're closed".  She probably said it 3 times before we could get out the door.

We left the nice lady and found find a restaurant for an extended lunch.  We made it back to the check in spot a little after 2:30 p.m. and the man behind the desk said to go upstairs and get on the computer on the right, it's in English, and just type in our information in the spaces provided in the form.  We climb some rickety stairs and sit in front of the computer and I'm typing while Daniel is reading me the information we need to input.  Most everything is pretty easy to understand (it's in French and somewhat in English) and we muddle through.  Our biggest problem was we couldn't find "USA" or "United States" or "America" to choose from as our home country and the place where our passports were issued.  I searched through a long list of names and all I could find that came close was "America de Norde".  I said, that has to be it, it looks like North America.  So we chose that, printed the form and went to see the lady down stairs.  She mumbles something in French and comes back upstairs and points to a list (under the keyboard where I was typing) with the name of the United States in French.  Apparently, I was supposed to chose "Unis Etats", which is French for United States.  Seriously??  You send me to an English computer but the answers are in French?

We take the final corrected form downstairs and I pay the lady $7.50.  She mumbles "merci" and I get ready to leave when I see that one of the answers still stays America de Norde.  I point that out and she looks me in the eye and mumbles a BUNCH of French words at me with a glare in her eyes (at this point Daniel says he will just wait outside until I'm done - I called him a chicken).  She went back up the rickety stairs, made the change, printed the form, stamped it and handed it to me without another word.

Now that we have her form, we have to take that form to the immigration office at the Ferry Dock - probably about 6 blocks away.  After some discussion, they finally stamped our passports and we left.  One of our fellow cruisers said "I hate the French, they aren't happy to have you visit and they're just miserable and not friendly - at all."  I waited to form my own judgment and frankly, she is pretty close to hitting the nail on the head.