We ended up spending a whole week anchored in the lagoon on the Dutch side of the of the island. This was partly because we arrived on 2 days public holiday, you pay harbour dues for a week anyway. The place was pretty empty, it would normally be home to rows of superyachts but has not recovered from the hurricanes of 2 years ago. Many docks are still in a state of disrepair and there are many sunken boats visible, or others you can see have been on the bottom by the coating of mud. Every time we dropped the anchor we brought up some debris – a huge canvas cover, various ropes. The fancy yacht in the picture was built for Steve Jobs, but he did not live to see it finished.

We were very pleased to meet-up with some of our World ARC rally mates here – Jill and Dave in AirPower and Tanja and Thomas on Adrienne. We also spent time and money in the huge chandleries. We finally got our new mainsail fitted (in a rare calm moment) – the one we should have had in Cape Town in January. Rob and Karl at Ullman Sails St Maarten were very helpful. And the sail seems to be OK.