St.Maarten vs. St.Martin

in the front: Dutch lagoon / behind the new bridge: the crowded French lagoon

Last season we've been anchored for two weeks in Marigot Bay on the French side of St. Martin as this was more recommended by many cruisers than the Dutch side - as a matter of fact mainly because of the fees. But you know what? It's bullshit, as usual in life you get what you pay for or better: Check it out yourself and don't listen to others. 

Laying in the lagoon (French or Dutch) is anyway not as nice as laying in the clear water bays surrounding the island. Nevertheless, we decided to go in because there was a bad swell predicted. So what are the fees? French lagoon: nothing. Dutch lagoon: bridge fee is USD 21 for boats 12 meter and up and another 20 USD per week. Even though the French lagoon is free, the main anchorage Marigot Bay is not as you have to pay approximately 3 USD a day. Another common cruiser complain is the fact, that the Dutch side has some Coast Guard patrolling. Yes, they may search your boat or check if your dink has light at night. But this controls also help to keep the human trash away which tries to rob your boat. Remember, we wrote about our first incident we had while under way. It was in Marigot Bay and since then Noonsite has published more, very disturbing news for that part of the island. 

As I said, you get what you pay for: The French lagoon is crowded like hell, mostly with French boats. And if you know me you know what that means. French are for sure fantastic sailors, they showed that again at the last Vendee Globe. But I could provide you with scientifically proven material that they cannot anchor! I have seen more French boats dragging than sailing. Really.

This time we discovered some new to us "Dutch advantages". The Check-in was very friendly and yes, we like to stay around some Mega Yachts, it's just amazing what you get to see here. The usual rides to Budget Marine and Island Water World are short. But more important, the anchorage has approximately one third of the boats per m2 than the other side of the lagoon. The restaurants may not be French style, but since we anyway can't afford that every night we like the more fun bars on this side. There is even an adult bar which says they had the nicest butts on the island - Since I was not allowed to check that out in person I have to admit I can't confirm the truth of this interesting statement.  

A short walk or dink ride away is the beach of Simpson Bay - picture postcard like! Another recommendation is the Karakter beach bar. It has more St. Tropez flair than what we saw in real France. Or check out the Indian restaurant Lal's if you like heart rupturing but delicious butter chicken. Nice, tax free shopping is in dink distance. I'm not saying the Dutch lagoon is perfect, the noise of the starting airplanes is astonishing but overall we're happy we checked it out - and we'll come again.

Simpson Bay Beach

In summary: The French lagoon is cheaper. But you might not get the chance to spend the saved money anyway; You're now all night awake, terrified and ready to defend your valuable boat against thieves or to fend that French boat off which dragged on to yours. That's when we sip a beer and listen to some live Jazz in this one nice beach bar. Well worth 20 bucks or so extra a week.

picture postcard beach

We're cruising from island to island and what pops in your mind when you hear "Caribbean"?? BEACH of course. It's a bit contradictory but Marco & I aren't really beach persons - neither do we like to lie in the sun nor to swim from shore. Let me explain: we lived for almost 3 years just steps away from the beach in Dubai. We like to swim from the boat as the water usually is much clearer, we can rinse off the saltwater and do not bring any sand on board.
Since we left the Bahamas we haven't really seen many perfect beaches with the attributes "white sand, turquoise water, lined with palm trees". With our friend Nigel we sailed from Falmouth Harbour to Jolly Harbour on the West coast. The colors of the sea changed from dark blue to turquoise and almost hurt our eyes.

The pictures show Jolly Harbour Beach - just gorgeous!

There are obviously many more beaches like this all around the island. But unfortunately we're a bit driven by time and weather to go on and are preparing the boat for our next passage towards St. Martin/Sint Maarten. Even if this means that we'll miss the Jolly Harbour Valentine's Regatta & Rum Festival :-)

 

From paradise with love
Rahel

Breakfast view

Since we're sailing the Caribbean chain up north again it's fun to taste new food on every island. While in Grenada we loved Nutmeg Jam for breakfast. Now we discovered Guava Preserve which is delicious either on a fresh baguette or on whole wheat bread with some butter - let's see how long it takes until we'll find something new.
Of course it tastes even better with a view like the one we currently have from our Habibi in Falmouth Harbor...

entrance to Falmouth Harbour 

turquoise water

Caribbean flair with palm trees

BIG boats docked in Falmouth Harbour Marina

From paradise with love
Rahel

Hiking Deshaies River

Hiking in Deshaies River

I just realized that we only spent two weeks in Guadeloupe but it feels as we'd stayed much longer. Maybe because we already have been to some places before on our way South towards Grenada and it wasn't all new to us.

Pointe-a-Pitre anchorage

It was the first time that we went to Pointe-a-Pitre, the largest city of Guadeloupe (but not the capital). There we found a rather calm anchorage with a lot of room. Even though it's in vicinity of the city and its commercial harbor it was peaceful and quiet. It was very interesting to watch all kind of big boats and cruise ships passing and how they're loading container ships. On a road trip we explored some of the tourist places on Grand-Terre like Sainte-Anne and Saint-Francois, went to the eastern most spot from where you can see the island Les Desirade off the windward coast. This part of the island is flat, rather dry and rural. Basse-Terre-Island is the other part of Guadeloupe which is volcanic and therefore mountainous, consists of lush forests, grassland and plantations. Even though Guadeloupe is part of France we find it has more Creole and Indian influence than for example Martinique. You see and hear more Creole everywhere you go. For example we encountered the word "Karukera" quite often. I found out that's what the Arawak people (the first who settled here) called Guadeloupe and it means "the island of beautiful waters" - how poetic.

Deshaies

Our last stop is Deshaies, a charming fishing village with a beautiful anchorage on the Northwest coast of Basse-Terre-Island where we've spent some days before. On our (maybe more on my) list was the hike up the Deshaies River which is described in our guide. Yesterday we went and it was an experience that's not to be missed. You more or less walk in the river, not in the water though as you can step from one rock to the other while you pass countless pools. It's not the easiest hike and while underway we both had the same thought: what if one of us hurts himself? We didn't have a mobile phone with us, nobody knew where we went and we didn't encounter another soul for two hours. I guess, that's part of the adventure! ;-)

Who is interested can find more pictures on our facebook site.

From paradise with love
Rahel

time to say goodbye

After three! weeks in Dominica we're going to use the weather window that's opening up on Saturday/Sunday to head towards Guadeloupe. First stop will be Les Saintes - hopefully we'll be able to sink our teeth in a warm baguette fresh out of the oven! The next day we're going to sail to Pointe-à-Pitre, the biggest town in Guadeloupe. There we hopefully will be well sheltered from the big North swell that is predicted for next week.

We can't point out enough how much we liked Dominica and its people. Our expectations have been exceeded in more than just one point. We have encountered so many lovely, helpful, happy people everywhere we went. Of course, some of them wanted to sell a service. But when they realized that there won't be any business they didn't push and remained friendly - unlike on other islands in the Caribbean. It happened more than once, when a drunkard begged for some coins that another person stepped in and told him to stop bothering us.
During three days we explored the island with a rental car. The streets are just amazingly new and in excellent shape! Thanks to the EU and the Chinese but who cares? Only when we went deep into the rainforest some streets turned into muddy roads - no surprise after all that rain! The island is visibly clean and it seems that the people really care to keep it this way. We came across No-littering-signs everywhere. And during this three days we never worried to leave our boat unattended. In the anchorage in Prince Rupert Bay in Portsmouth the PAYS guys do a great job to make cruisers feel welcome and safe - we especially can recommend the service of Martin on his boat Providence.
The hiking trails are amazing and leading through the lushest nature we've seen, the snorkeling is great and life (food, drinks, eating out etc.) is reasonable in comparison to the French islands.
Did we find paradise? I guess we got really close!

With love from paradise
Rahel

crazy weather!

Wind speed in knots for tomorrow. We prefer the blue colors...
picture courtesy of www.passageweather.com

When you're following our facebook page you already know that we extended our stay in Dominica due to a bad weather pattern. Actually it's been CRAZY the last few days! 

Within minutes it can change from blue sky and calm to heavy rain and gusts up to 40 knots - the three pictures were captured this morning withing a period of 20 min. We don't want to imagine the conditions offshore with seas up to 3.5m/12ft... 

It's no secrect: during summer they have Hurricanes and during winter the so called "Christmas winds" in the Caribbean. Here's an excerpt from doyleguides website: In the winter season a big high-pressure area to our northeast is a dominant feature. When the isobars get tight, the wind increases and is sometimes very fresh (25-30 knots). We call these Christmas winds.

It looks like it's going to "calm" down a little by the coming weekend which would give us an opportunity to move on to Guadeloupe. 

typical squall with gusts and rain

we've seen hundreds of rainbows in the Caribbean...

rain again, this time in the far back over the mountains

In the meantime we are not bored at all. During three days we've been exploring the island's beauty inland by rental car. The following two days are predicted to be the worst so we'll probably stay on the boat, tick some boat jobs from the list or just hang out with a good book or watch a movie. 

We have to admit that for a short period of time we've been tempted to lift anchor and rush towards Guadeloupe. But we're very happy that we stayed. There is so much to see and do, people are so friendly and helpful. Dominica and its people surprised us in so many ways, the list would be endless!

With love from paradise

Rahel

Happy New Year from Dominica

When we passed by this beach yesterday we saw the locals enjoying some family time on and in the water. From young to old everyone seemed to have fun, children splashing or building sand castles, adults bathing while chatting to others or sipping on a Kubuli (local beer). Just a very relaxed atmosphere on a sunny Sunday afternoon with a lot of smiling faces. And they don't have much...

Since we moved on Habibi certain things are less important to us as they used to be. We enjoy every day even when for example discovering light beer in a supermarket (for Rahel of course) is the highlight of it! So, today is New Year's Eve? We don't fancy a big party. Actually we don't even have any plans. And don't get this wrong - we do not say this lifestyle is right for everyone. We really just say we learned a lot of new things the past year.

So, even there will be no big party we will spend our time gorgeously: We're having some sundowners with new found friends on their boat in a nice anchorage!

But we never forget our roots. All of you who made our dream possible and believed we can do it. There are so many people we should thank for that continuous support we get with our crazy sounding dream.

So lets say Thanks to you all: Blog Followers, Facebook Followers, our Families & Friends and as well the zillion of other people which contributed in many different ways to make our dream come true...

Thank you all and have a blast in 2013 and of course in many more years to come!

With much love from paradise
Marco & Rahel on Habibi