Rest day in St Maarten

So after the wonders of the regatta, the late nights and early starts and hard sailing it is ridiculously nice to have a lie in!!! I think I eventually get up at 10am... After all it's another beautiful day in the Caribbean, and it's a waste to spend it in bed. I meet up with the crew that remain in Jimbo's, say farewell to those heading home soon, and make plans with the rest for a final night... Curry Night!!!

I spend the rest of my day, relaxing on the beach followed by packing and getting ready to head back to Antigua tomorrow on EH01. I'm looking forward to the delivery back, getting my old bunk and helming on her, it's been a while. The sea is amazing and it's such a relaxing day time to recharged a little as I will shortly be on tour and climbing Macchu Picchu... As always, sad to be going but excited with my next adventure.

We meet up in Jimbo's, everyone keen to use up the last of their Jimbo dollars before we leave. Then head to Lal's Curry in a Hurry... It's seems everyone in St Maarten has the same idea as us and so we have to find another curry house, at the other end of town... No idea of the name, but let's just say empty and plastic sheeting on the tables. However, they do have wifi!!

We all order our curry, and it's pretty damn spicy... One thing that doesn't mix, sunburnt lips and curry so there is plenty of water being thrown down our necks. We have a great time talking about the many adrenalin sports the various crew do. The Northern Child crew are from Michigan and basically do ice yachting, DN Ice yachting google it or look on you tube, it's crazy! So now we have an open invite. Ice windsurfing .... Hmmm, now thats crazy talk. All in all a great night and some new outdoor sports to look up. And so my time in St Maarten comes to an end, one last sail to Antigua and its off for another type of adventure.

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Heineken Regatta Day 3

It's the final day of racing and I wake early and refreshed!! Ready for the race from Marigot Bay. So it's an early cab to the boat and then getting ready to leave the dock. Everyone is in good spirits after a fun team night out, and we are ready to put in our best efforts for the final day. Although it was forecast light winds when we get out it is anything but, and so should be an excellent race back to Simpsons Bay. Sadly we are one man down as Gabe has returned home.

The race back takes a little over 3 hours, mostly upwind and when we are downwind we are overpowering a little so Marucs is shouting to ease the main sail constantly and bring it in. We need to be careful in these conditions and I am ready and waiting on the vang to let it out just in case. I learnt quickly from my first race and Chinese Gybe that a wet rolling boat throwing you side to side is not a place you want to be often if you can help it.

Luckily we manage to keep it together and have a great spinnaker run to the end, it's only when we finish and try to drop the spinnaker that we end up with pole crashing into the forestay and the boom swinging and hitting Sean in the head! Again we are so lucky the carbon fibre pole did not smash to pieces and that Sean was not seriously injured. More dramas as we try to dry off the spinnaker which in dropping ended up in the water... We quickly give up on that and wait for the bridge!!! Best to just no touch anything now me thinks.

The bridge goes up and we head in for the final time, everyone has done really well and this was the best race yet. It's a good crew of people, who have learnt quickly. Although, some still don't know how to us the bloody toilet... Come on!!

In the evening I have offered to cook us all a meal in my apartment and get some drinks so we don't have to fight for a table in a restaurant, everyone heads to mine for 6-6.30 and I get cooking with the help of Carolina. Dinner is a great success and we then head down to join th party, eagerly waiting then Commodores. The party is literally at my hotel, so the good thing is I won't be sent home early like last night as I am already home!!

The Heineken girls throw out some rather large glow sticks which go down a storm, I have my two and am not sharing as we dance the night away on the beach. It's not long before people are slowly missing in action and my crew are no where in sight so I'm dancing away with another crew from Northern Child, and then as I lose them as we meet some Dutch crew that have been sailing in the regatta... Insisting on rehydration (of me!), I get some water inside me and have a dance and then everyone makes sure I get home safely. Sadly the Commodores we're not as good as expected, and the warm up act was much better. I hear later of attempts to get backstage, and awards for best in show at the legendary (and not for good reasons) Red Piano Bar..... All in all it was a great end to a wonderful regatta, something I would definitely do again without a doubt.

 

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Heineken Regatta Day 2

So it's day 2 and we are determined to do better with the Race to Marigot Bay. The course to Marigot Bay is a short one, we expect a second race in Marigot once we get in but its not 100% certain, I guess it depends if the wind dies down. but the boat will stay overnight as it is a race from Marigot Bay to Simpsons Bay to finish tomorrow, so I have packed a change of clothes for later! Time to get out my new HR-2013 vest top... Mainly because I am rapidly running out of clean clothes, and am praying for a day off where I can get laundry done.

Anyway, enough boring admin stuff. So the start is about 10.30am as usual upwind start and then some downwind, and so on... Just to keep us in our toes. We do well again off the mark, and don't really have any major issues, right up to the point the inboard end of the spinnaker pole drops down and hits Sean in the head!!! Nightmare, thankfully no damage done to the pole or to Sean! So we fix things, but again this loses us time we could do without. We hit some light air through the race, during which time a mini photo shoot breaks out on deck.. Plenty of banter and fun soon broken up when Marcus shouts "come on guys we are still racing!" serious faces on we get to work.

We make good time though and are in Marigot Bay for 12.30, finish race one and the committee confirms the second race. Just waiting for the course. The second race is a quick one, and we are doing ok right up to the end... But again team effort was maximum. When we get places and scores we came 9th and 11th out of 16 and timeline there are literally minutes between us in the pack. I think we are all a little disappointed with position, but not surprised.

The party in Marigot starts early that evening, as it's straight off the boat. Attempts to shower are scuppered due to the need for tokens and the fact the office closes at 5! Darn... So it's a wash in the sink and change of clothes to feel human again after boiling on the boat all day. Then off to the bar, I go to order (bearing in mind we are now on the French side of St Maarten and no longer the Dutch so culturally it's a different accent, atmosphere... Well just different. So I ask for a spiced rum and ginger ale, what could be so hard! She looks at me as if I am speaking German, I repeat, again, again and the blank expression shows me I'm not getting anywhere, I am then presented with an interpreter who I explain my order to and then says to the lady "rrr umm and gin ga" (that's as about as good as I can describe textually!) at which point everyone laughs and I am open mouthed with amazement.

It's like the pen incident all over again, asking for a marker pen and being asked if I mean something you write with.... I am the one speaking English here...!

Anyway, a few too many rum and gingers later I am frog marched home for my own good by my team mates!

 

 

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Heineken Regatta Day 1

So today is day 1 of the Heineken Regatta, the Commodores Cup is not actually part of it but is always the day before. So the big race today is Round the Island, obviously that is St Maarten. Predicted some light winds, so the concern is not actually being able to make it round before the 5.30pm bridge. Anyway, as we set out we eagerly wait to hear whether there is a change of plan of if we are going round the island.

Yes, Round the Island it is... Good news. So, we jostle for our start position and do really well getting a great position off the line. All in all we race well, we don't have any major issues, no breaks, no tears. We hit a wind hole same as most about half way round but at one point we are hot in the heels of Northern Child which is not bad going. Sadly, we lose our rhythm in the end with a couple of slow gybe's which seem to knock us back about 4-5 places sadly.

However, 100% for effort and team work just not polished enough to deal with issues yet or efficient on our gybe's downwind under spinnaker.

In the evening we head off to the party in Phillsburg, where there are DJs, live bands and basically a street party with everyone invited. That is the nice thing about the Heineken Regatta, it's not just for us yachties everyone is invited and it takes you all round the island each evening so you get to experience all of it and not just one yacht club and dock. The party is great fun, Vadim and Gabe get stuck into a huge plate of ribs, we catch up with a couple of people from other crews and have a few drinks and a boogie.... gangnam style as you might say! It's pretty much all you here out here!

 

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Commodores Cup Race

I wake suddenly on race morning... Look over at the clock in my room and charge out of bed in a panic, 12.20... Oh no, then I race to the kictchen clock... Hmm 8.30.. I think, need my glasses as its a bit blurred and im not really wke yet. Finally my phone, thank goodness.. 6.30am... Certainly got my heart pumping thinking I had missed the race. Best make lunch and get to the dock so we can get the 9am bridge. I get to Southern Child around 8.30, and we leave pretty much straight away!

Marcus decides we will do a quick run upwind/downwind before we start we are using new sails and the wind is up so it will be a good test and a little training before the main event. The training goes ok, but leaves very little time before the start and we seem to be struggling on the bow with what is needed to mark the starting line. So normally what you do is find the line and then line up with something on land to help you know when you hit the mark as there will be a lot of boats and the start can be obstructed from view.

11am and we are off on the first race, about a mid pack start we arent too quick off the mark but short tacking upwind we are doing ok. However, the hiking team are a little bit over zealous to say the least. Its as if their lives depended on getting across first, holding no prisoners this lot. Vadim the worst of the lot, I'm getting more bruising for his flailling arms and legs than anything else on the boat! He is soon nicknamed the Tasmanian Devil...

10 minutes upwind and we hoist the spinnaker, take down the jib and we are on our way, all is going ok and we look to be doing well. We have not long before the downwind run is over about 20 minutes, during which time we need to get the jib ready for hoist again. We start to prepare for a gybe's, it's all needed quickly and you can see the confusion on deck as to who does what when. Marcus sends out the instructions, calls out trip which is our signal for the various actions however, something goes wrong... I have no idea how but the pole just completely drops out of the air when the line is tripped.... The topping lift or up haul shoots up the mast!

Looking back it seems that somehow maybe the topping lift (uphaul) was attached in the beak of the pole only and not the pole itself, when it was tripped nothing was holding the pole up anymore, and at the same time in the confusion the outboard end of the pole was taken in at the mast instead of let out. We have to keep flying the spinnaker by hand, and then prepare to drop and move to white sails downwind for the rest of the race... Not a great start!! Everyone is in a panic and Marcus does a great job bringing everything back in hand.

So anyway, we need to fix this quick so as we are waiting for the next race to start we put Tony the bowman up the mast to retrieve the topping lift. He does a good job, we inspect the damage and then we are able to use the pole again. At this point we miss hear the call for the second race and one minute we think we have 15 mins the next realise its 3, so have to head for the line and prepare again to start racing.

To cut a long story short, the second race is not much better, whilst gybing the trip line is pulled all the way through, so now the pole is totally useless, we then put together a make shift setup to use an A-symmetric spinnaker as the pole for this was taken off the boat last night in the assumption we wouldn't need it! Sadly gybing the A-symmetric proved a challenge as this had never been shown before, as a result the spinnaker wrapped completely around the forestay and we had to send Tony up to retrieve it!!! Which he did but sadly the sail head was almost completely torn off! Game over.... We are out of th race.

The only thing left now is to wait for the bridge at 3pm and tuck into lunch. On looking round the boat, I notice e tweaker is over the side, and now we are without the blocks for it. All in all about $500 worth of damage done in a few hours.... A real learning experience, Marcus gives a review of the events for everyone and a good positive spin to keep people motivated.

I think everyone is completely shattered, drinks are planned but I am happy with my cold pizza and a relaxing night at home and early to bed. We will need as much energy as possible for the Round the Isand Race tomorrow based on our performance today!!

 

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Race training.... Southern Child

9am is our meeting time at Southern Child, but before that we head for breakfast at Zee Best at the marina, one of the few places without wifi. But the breakfast is very good, eggs benedict was delicious. All set now for hopefully a day of training. We meet the rest of our crew David and his wife Carolina, Giacomo (Jack) and Mauricio and from last night we have Joe and missing in action Sean!! Altogether that is 10 including Marcus our skipper, Tony and Vadim. We are still 1 short waiting for Gabriel to arrive this evening.

Sean eventually turns up at around 10ish, wearing the same as he did when we met at Jimbo's last night... We here mumbles of drama's, meeting crazy people, sleeping on th beach, it's all a bit vague and he is looking slightly jaded!

So, time to run through the usual routine safety and how to rig the boat. The problem being we don't seem to know how to rig this particular boat!! No one has sailed it properly before. Luckily for us as we start to run the lines in for the spinnaker Jamie (previous owner) walks past and outs us straight on what to do. He then runs through with Marcus everything on the boat, the speed, the sails and answers all his questions. Jamie is really helpful and we need it!!

Unfortunately, all this means we don't get to leave the dock today and simply run through the safety speech and do some land manuevours pole, up, down, gybe's... It's pretty chaotic and no one (except me) in the crew has flown a spinnaker.... so this is going to be an interesting few days. It's alot of information for everyone to take on board in one day, so will see how much sticks.

After the first nights shinnaningans everyone is ready for an early night so it's a quick drink at Jimbo's, simple dinner then early to bed to be fresh for getting on the water tomorrow in order to catch the 11am bridge out.

The next morning we meet at 9am ready to head out for the bridge again at 11, I'm in charge of lunches so make up some wraps. Everything is already set up so it'sjust a recap and then we slip the dock and wait for the bridge to open, passing the yacht club everyone waves as the queue of boats all head out for training day! It's quite hectic, lots of boats but even with that there is a very polite queuing system that takes place.

As expected training is a bit messy to say the least, the lack of experience showing and also people not listening to Marcus makes it tough. I pitch in as much as I can, and seem to be levitating down to the pointy end.... Not somewhere I've been for a while, but at times I quite enjoy it. The thought of offering myself up for bowman on the fastnet is becoming a bit more interesting an option, will see though. A few of the crew also seem to be feeling a bit motion sick, so that's not great as it means not everyone is 100%, a lot of lying down!

Gybe's are very messy, but we keep persevering until we get at least one good one, this leaves us on the 5.30 bridge back. Getting the spinnaker down and the Jib back up is a challenge, not least because somehow the jib has been twisted so needs to come straight back down... I head back up to the bow to pitch in correcting it with the crew so that we can raise the sail and head back to the bridge.

The bridge makes times a bit of a pain as you are constrained, miss the 3pm and the next one is 5.30. Northern Child and EH01 have the right idea, they have an anchor in the harbour ready for use so that the crew can go for a swim!!! Nice...

So not the most successful day, and sadly the only training we get before a pretty hectic race tomorrow The Commodores Cup, 3 races windward leeward with each leg about 7-10 minutes it's fast paced manuevours and I think we will be lucky if we do well at all.

Tonight though, it's the Mount Gay Rum Secret Party that obviously is not much of a secret. Ita at the Soggy Dollar bar the other side of the bridge from the yacht club, overlooking all the maxi super yachts!! I head over there to meet everyone, but it's early and the party hasn't really started. I run into an old friend, Paul who works on one of the super yachts and have a catch up with him and the guys hanging around the pool table. It's not long before the music ramps up and soon the gang arrives already well oiled from Jimbo's and ready to party. Gabriel has now arrived and we have our full crew ready to race in the morning... Well that's if they survive the party!

The Heineken girls are out in force, and all the guys are happy to apply the Heineken tattoos to various parts of their body, Sean with one cheek out waiting for his to dry, gareth with it on the front and back of his head, Marcus leg... and so on! I'm getting pics where I can, and having a good old dance as the house music blasts out.. The Heineken Girls hang around and we attempt a photo shoot... Gareth's words I think "my face, his arse and you!" not sure the girls are too impressed.. So it's just Gareth's face with Sean's butt! And so it continues into the early hours... I leave at 1.30am the rest still going strong.

 

 

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St Maarten... We have arrived!

So, after a slightly sleepless overnight boat journey, I'm keen to get checked in and into my room. I head to the Royal Palm Beach Resort. It's only a 10 minute walk so I decide a cab isn't necessary... Little did I know that there are no pavements here!!!! So I am literally dragging my wheeled backpack through sand and gravel, finally making it. Also, road crossing etiquette basically if you look like you are crossing the cars will stop.. Alternatively there seem to be zebras across the road and they will stop there. However, when the bridge is up is every man for himself so watch out for cars as they will do anything they can to get going including driving on what calls itself the pedestrian walkway.....
I get to the hotel and soon realise I have no booking for today... I think I worked out my dates wrong and so booked for tomorrow... Not to mention check in is at 4pm! So, luckily they find me a room and I have to then eat, and chill out somewhere. At this point all I want is to be able to change out of my sailing kit, wash and relax. Sadly, the changing room in the gym is under construction, and they have nothing near the pool expect an outdoor shower... Hmm, think not! So I find a toilet, clean up and get my bikini on and head for food.
Once I'm full up, I chill out and just take in the beautiful Caribbean Sea and boats moored off shore, the water is lovely and very little surf which makes it ideal for swimming. The plan is to meet at Jimbo's at around 7pm to meet the crew I will be sailing with and head for dinner and drinks. I get the room at exactly 4pm.... It's huge, amazing view, really fabulous so I know I will look forward to staying here for a week... Definitely a step up from the Cobana Copa days in Rio!!
I get myself ready and head to meet the crew, but looks like some got in early and headed to the yacht club which is opposite my hotel. So I head back and as I round the corner I see Vadim walking with a couple of guys so I head over to say hi... The big guy turns round and goes "hey there, why don't you join us at Jimbo's" to which I respond "I was planning to, I'm your crew!" and the night starts from there led completely by Sean we go bar hopping. The nice thing about St Maarten is everywhere has wifi.. Maybe not brilliant but enough for the basics and in the age of whatsapp instead of texting it is perfect. So I login at Jimbo's, then Tropper's, Skip Jacks, the Yacht Club, my hotel of course, I can practically walk my hotel to the marina with wifi coverage as I go!
The night turns a bit wild with flaming zombies! Tequila and the like, and then finally food... Which is devoured in seconds. Every restaurant has lobster, live and huge sitting in tanks that you can go and pick! It's crazy, they are massive. Like lobster on steroids. No lobster tonight though... The food is gone in minutes! I leave the guys at this point to carry on... It's one of those times when you know the next stop is a strip joint... I'm happy to pass on the pleasure of Golden Eyes!!
I will be interested to see how it goes tomorrow, how many sea sick crew we have... Let's hope they survive the first night!

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