St. Martin 1/2/17

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, bangers

Lunch: seared ahi tuna, green salad with avocado, tomatoes and red peppers. Iced coffee with Baileys.

Happy Hour: watermelon mojitos

Captain's Table Appetizers: fruit, cheeses, salmon on crackers, garlic olives, procuitto, salami,
Dinner: Shrimp Creole on noodles with cucumber and tomato salad with a tzaziki sauce.
Dessert: chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream.

We had an easy morning at Pelican Point with breakfast and reading. Victor wiped the mats down after a little rain and we enjoyed reoccurring rainbows all morning. 

Comfy in the rain.

Sandy Island was our first snorkeling stop. Bill and Victor fished along the way, catching a small fish that was released. After lunch some of us headed to Sandy Island. Some were staying on the island and some were snorkeling back to the boat from the nearby reef. As we approached in the dingy, the skies opened and we all got soaked. The snorkelers decided it was too rough and the island walkers decided it was to wet, so back to Home we headed.

This is before the rain turned us back. What optimistic people!

Our original plan to head to Pinel Island was scuttled due to the weather and the rough sailing. We sailed over to the south side of Anquilla to a calm bay called Rendevous Bay. Victor caught a very big barracuda along the way that we released. They say you can't eat barracuda from the Caribbean due to mercury poisoning. We arrived at our destination, and were socked in with rain. 

Captain Ashley bringing in Victor's barracuda.

Victor's prize.

Victor at his post.

Rick on the other side.

Some of us played Farkle to pass the time. 

Happy Hour was a huge array of special appetizers. Ashley and Emma explained the Tradewinds company in a little presentation. 

Yummy! Emma must have spent hours on this array.

After dinner we worked on getting through the "boys" stories. We heard Bill Knapp's very interesting story. Rick is saved for tomorrow night.

Bill in the Dolphin Chair

St. Martin 1/1/17

Breakfast: fruit, cheeses, croissants, hard boiled eggs. Delicious

Lunch: Tradewinds curry chicken salad, avocado, red and yellow pepper salad with fresh bread

Happy Hour: Painkillers

Dinner: pork tenderloin with mustard maple marinade, bananas flambé 

The famous Tradewinds Chicken Curry Salad

Ashley briefed us on the day's journey. We are heading to Anquilla and to several beaches.

Map of our voyage from St Martin to Anguilla and then to St Bart's

Sailing in the dolphin chair was awesome. The water came flowing up the hull and looked like a fountain. I loved sitting in the dolphin chair for the sailing to Anguilla. So relaxing to watch the sky, clouds and swells. 

We sailed past beautiful Meads Bay with pure, soft white sand and turquoise waters where the Four Seasons hotel overlooked the bay.

Life of the Rich and Famous!

We dingied in to Crocus Bay where we walked the beach looking for an ankle bracelet for Velvet, who forgot to bring any. No jewelry stores on the east side of Road Beach.

Captain Ashley

A cute beach bar on Road Beach.

We headed to Elvis Beach Bar on the west end where we met Brett, the co-owner. Brett is an American who lived in Breckenridge, came to Anquilla on vacation and decided that "it is easier to get sand out of your ear than shovel the snow". He and an Anquillan named Elvis bought a $200 boat and made it into a beach bar. We had a fun time talking with Brett and the gal working behind the bar. Sandy and I wanted to buy her tee shirt-gemstone Elvis Beach Bar. No deal.

Brett the owner

She would not sell us her blingy Elvis Beach Bar shirt.

Hilarious sign during Election time - www.Do-D-Rum.com!

Brett in his bar.

Elvis' Beach Bar on Road Beach

Ashley came to get us in the dingy. We snorkeled in Pelican Point. I went with Sandy and Victor. We saw: squirrel fish, trumpet fish, parrot fish, sergeant major, butterfly fish, French grunt, turquoise/yellow fish, a periwinkle colored  fish. Jim saw a lion fish - the predator of the oceans and an eagleray. Lots of sea fans and brain coral. There were many huge sea urchins in the rocks.

Happy Hour included our favorite Caribbean cocktail - Painkillers!  After dinner we let the boys tell their stories. Surprisingly, they took much more time than the ladies. Interesting stories. Most of us are in the same age bracket, which is kind of unusual. Later, we had some dancing to ABBA and other 80's hits complements of Tom, followed by stargazing on the flybridge.

Pat, Ruth and Rick at Happy Hour.

How pretty is this sunset?

St. Martin 12/31/16

Breakfast: Mary's Boon. 

Lunch: Enoch's in Marigot

Happy Hour: Welcome Cocktail

Dinner: Sway fish stuffed with salmon, roasted potatoes, vegetables, key lime pie with chocolate crust. 

We walked down the beach to Sunset Beach Bar to watch the jumbo jets come in over our heads. Sandy and I found a good spot right in the center of the runway and waited. We shouted, "The plane. The plane." And the oldsters on Sunset Beach knew that we were talking about Fantasy Island. Funny.

This place is famous for watching the jets come in.

The runway is right behind Sandy.

They come in right over our heads to land.

Here comes one!

As they pass over, you get a sugar coating of sand!

Rohan took us in his taxi to Marigot where we walked around the market and had a delicious lunch at Enoch's listening to a reggae band. We still had time to kill before 5:00 so we had a beer at Plongeior (The Dive).

Rohan our cab driver.

Love the cowrie shells in her hair!

Ashley and Emma are our Captain and First Mate. They took us to Home, our home for the week and showed us our cabin in front. We got acquainted with our boat mates. Pat and Tom are from New Jersey. Velvet Rock and Jim are from Massachusets. 

Our 60 foot catamaran is named Home.

After dinner we went around the table and the ladies introduced themselves and told some little facts. Very fun to get to know each other.

Our crazy crew!

Rick and I brought NYE hats and horns. Sandy brought paper lanterns that you could light and they would float away. We all put a wish in our lanterns. The wind was not our friend and they all crash landed.

Captain Ashley & First Mate Emma

We all tucked wishes for 2017 in our lanterns.

We began our NYE celebration early since not everyone wanted to stay up until midnight. We clanged and hooted and had some champagne. Actually, we made it til midnight - everyone!

Tom and Pat

Happy New Year!

Bill and Barb

Sandy and Victor

Jim and Velvet

Rick and I had a good night's sleep in our little bed the first night.

The cabins are very roomy with tons of storage.

St. Martin 12/30/16

We are off for our newest Tradewinds Cruise Club adventure to St. Martin in the Lesser Antilles. The island is Dutch on one side and French on the other. We start and end on the Dutch side and visit the French side in between.

Our travel companions, who we will meet up with in St Martin, are Sandy and Victor (Ruth's sister-in-law) and Bill and Barb (Sandy's brother and his wife). Mary's Boon is our first night hotel on Simpson Bay. The others are arriving during the day, but the Wades won't touch down until 10:00 pm. We arrived at 11:00 pm at Mary's Boon. The Bolducs and the Knapps were already asleep in their rooms, but we thought they were out on the town. We had a beer at the bar and then had to leave when four cigar smoking locals came in for their Friday night fun. Very smelly. Ruth had an airline bottle of bourbon in her luggage, so we had a cocktail our room watching the news on TV and went to bed. While trying to sleep, our cigar smoking friends were hooting and hollering watching a football game, which was right outside our room apparently. We were so tired it did not matter much.

Our cute room at Mary's Boon.

We even have a little kitchen.