We came back to St Martin again after leaving the Virgin Islands after a rather boring night sailing and motoring. It is always nice to be in Marigot Bay in St Martin, now there were more boats on the anchorage than last time as the season now got going. There is always interesting boats to be seen, such as the one below
Some bots need more TLC than other, on the other part of the scale we found this
Nothing special for a large yacht in St Martin, but I found the helicopter worth an extra picture
As it was well taken care of.
More fun to see this Fisksatra S 30, not a very suitable live aboard or blue water cruiser
How do I know that?
Well this is the one we had before we bought Kerpa, a wonderful boat to sail in the archipelago, but very inconvenient already out on the opened waters of the Baltic Sea.
Bellow follow some pictures illustrating how we had it when cruising the archipelago on the east coast of Sweden, might be of interest for some who have not been there, I can recommend to go there, it is very beautiful given that the weather cooperate.
We have previously missed to visit Fort Louise in Marigot, strange it is well worth a visit and not very far at all from the dingy dock in Marigot Bay. One get a great view from up there.
One can see the Lagoon all the way over to the Dutch side
St Kitts
From St Martin we set course south, we had hope to visit Saba, but there was to much swell to even try it, so we aimed for St Eustatius, but when passing by it was way to much swell, so we continued to St Kitts. Very much swell there as well, but it was already dark and one have to anchor at Basseterre to clear in. Else White House Bay about 5 nM from Basseterre is a very good option, but the coast guard do not like that, and one can be fined up to 300 USD for breaching that rule. As we did not want to risk that we spend a very rolly night at Basseterre.
Basseterre is a very lively place with some charm if one avoids the area where the cruise ships are.
But you have to clear in were the cruise ships are moored
The Marina Dingy Dock and view
The water front area where the buss station is, are rather vibrant and interesting, with fishermen cleaning their catch, across the street there is a fruit and vegetable market, many small bars so it is a very lively area.
The town itself is color full and interesting to visit with both small and large buildings in many colors and in different stage of need for TLC.
To our surprise we found rather good tomatoes at the local street market at a reasonable price
This probably a remain from the British era
From the Basseterre anchorage, one has this nice view over the mountain and rain forest
Next time we visit we will try to rent a car or attending a guided tour to see the rain forest.
On our trip down from St Martin we tried our new lure a “Cedar” plug, well not a traditional cedar plug but a more colorful one.
On St Martin, Island Water World had a fishing seminar that we attended and we were inspired by them to try a new Lure and to shorten our line to just a boat length. They also said when you see birds there are fish, but they also go for your lure so be careful. We put out our new lure and one of our squids which we usually get some fish on. After just a short while Kerstin said to me look birds, I saw them, and they were definitely going for our lure so I quickly went aft to real them in as we do not want a bird on the hook. Guess what we got, a fish on the new lure so I quickly reeled in the other lure and then we landed a very nice Mahi Mahi. We also learned at the seminar, when you land a fish one should cover the eyes on the fish and they will become calm. We tried by putting a rag over the eyes on our Mahi Mahi and it worked, the fish became very calm and easy to kill.
We enjoyed a very nice dinner, Mahi Mahi with stewed spinach and potatoes it tasted great.
White House Bay
White House Bay is a nice anchorage that is very protected ca 5 nM from Basseterre, we rode out some very bad weather on this anchorage two years ago, and now we were back again, nice to have a flat sea after the rolly night in Basseterre.
There is a posh bar in the bay, where people enjoy expensive food and drinks while admiring the sunset.
So did we one day
32 USD for two rather watery Marguerites, not worth the money, so next day
We enjoyed the sunset from our own after deck drinking a homemade Rum punch, much better.
Around the “corner” is a marina for Super Yachts
We saw this very tall mast from anchorage, so we took the dingy around the “corner” to have a look
Definitely a rather big boat, the name is Perseus 3, 61 meter long
Can you see the man working on the radar at the first spreader?
That is not a toy teddy bear or a mascot, but a real person working on the radar!!!!!
Boating gears tip
We bought wheels for our dingy this spring and when we were on the Virgin Islands I mounted them on the dingy.
They are actually very good, work well, role rather well if the sand is not to soft, but it also lift the dingy so the swell will not fill up your dingy but go below, given they are not massive swell, but then I suggest an other beach for landing your dingy. Yes we do recommend this they are in stainless steel but only A2 quality so they rust a bit. We bought them from Defender.com, which is a very good US supplier of boating gears at competitive cost and good service, recommended
This is after ca 6 weeks on the dingy
But no problem to get them shiny again, I guess one has to polish them rather frequent, we polished with a product containing Phosphoric acid, works very well and do passivate the steel, it should corrode slower after the treatment.
S/Y Kerpa 
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