Christmas 2010 Sint Maarten
We had set ourselves a deadline…………Christmas in St Martin with friends.
After an abortive start from Prickly Bay, Grenada, we landed up in the superyacht dock in St Georges with an engine needing a new waterpump. We had to get the part flown in and installed and we finally got on our way on 6 December.
We kept on the move ………….almost daily we anchored off a different island and clocked up our 10000nm along the way…………... Grenada, Carriacou, Union, Bequia, St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Les Saintes, Guardeloupe, Antigua, St Barts, Sint Maarten! Many of these we’ve earmarked for a longer stay on our way back.
So here we are in Sint Maarten, anchored in Simpson Lagoon with 0.6m of water under our keel. We had a lovely “potluck” on the beach on Christmas Day and since then have been resting and reading and sorting out the autohelm problem that we had most of the way up. Its much cooler here, no humidity, thank goodness, as the water is too dirty to swim in.
Steve and Kim joined us for a few weeks in February in Tobago which was wonderful. We had such fun and were very sad to say goodbye and wish them well for their skiing holiday in Switzerland. They got engaged shortly after their return to SA! End of February saw us weighing anchor and heading for Trinidad for some badly needed work on Sheer Tenacity. This took us 2 months to do and it was with relief that we got on our way at the end of April to Grenada to meet Kate. The time with her went all too fast. She has joined Merrill Lynch and is working way to hard! At the moment she is in Nelspruit with Steve and Kim for the festive season.
Steve and Kim have left Mozambique and have started an online travel agency specializing in adventure destinations in Moz (check out their website www.mozambiquemystique). They have also bought some land in Brittania Bay on the west coast which is very exciting for them.
We went up as far as Bequia before heading south for the hurricane season. We spent the time in Carriacou and Grenada keeping an eye on the National Hurricane Centre website. Very late in the season Hurricane Tomas developed and seemed to be heading our way. We made the decision to stay in Prickly Bay with an extra anchor out. In the end, thank goodness, we had less wind than usual although the airport was closed for a day in anticipation and all businesses bar essential services were shut. Other islands were not so lucky and the torrential rains caused a lot of damage and mudslides.
We will be heading for the BVI’s soon…………really looking forward to that although it’ll probably be very crowded at this time of the year. We may even get to the Bahamas before turning southwards again. Looking forward to visiting some of the places we liked but couldn’t stop at on our way up.
We need to be back in Prickly Bay by the beginning of August (hurricane season again) where we are hauling out. We will be returning to SA for September/October………………can’t wait. We are really missing all our family and friends.
We are still loving life on the water and think that we’ll be spending another few seasons in the Caribbean. We haven’t really covered much at all………its all too easy to get stuck in places one likes!
We hope you had a peaceful and blessed Christmas wherever you happened to be. Our very best wishes for a wonderful 2011 to you all.
Much love
Mary & Rod on Sheer Tenacity
