Anchors Aweigh!

Our anchor is now our best friend. We talk about our anchor more than anything else right now:

Where should we anchor?

Is our anchor set?

Do we have enough anchor chain out?

Did our anchor move?

Should we let out more anchor chain?

Did we anchor too close to that boat?

Should we re-anchor?

And so on.

We’re in the middle of what they call Christmas winds that produce 25-30 knot winds. This is a fact as we are feeling them. Thus, all the discussion about the anchor.

This past week we’ve been in Bai de Grande Case, one of our favorite places on St. Martin. You can walk from one end of it to the other in about 20 minutes. There’s a great French vibe everywhere with a dozen or so excellent French restaurants, a boulangerie, and a chocolat/coffee shop with the fast WiFi.

Our favorite place to hang is a bar/restaurant called Quai 58. Quai is “dock” in French and it’s the only dinghy dock here. It’s a place where locals hang and boaters come and go.

We’ve been working on our anchoring skills in Grand Case by anchoring 7 times. Two times in what we call the “toilet.” Not because it’s dirty, but because our boat spins due to the way the winds come off the mountain. Then we moved to the center of the bay right where planes come and go at their local airport. We were kindly asked to move by the Gendarmerie as our mast was a hazard for planes coming and going. Rookie mistake.

We are just now back on the Dutch side to get ready for Tyler, Wesley and Wesley’s girlfriend, Piper who will join us for Christmas. We can’t wait to show them our new life here and our little home. Hope you’re enjoying this holiday season!

I tried to get an interesting photo of our anchor, but I would have fallen off the boat whilst anchoring.

This photo is the December 19th full moon in Simpson Bay off the bow of our boat. There's a full moon party going on over on the beach. I feel like we're in New York City compared to being in Grande Case.