Salty Podcast: Sailing

Salty Podcast #57 | ⛵️⚓️ Sailing & Anchoring Expert Tips for St-Martin/Sint Maarten in the Caribbean

• Captain Tinsley | Hayden & Radeen | SV Island Spirit • Season 1 • Episode 57

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Hayden & Radeen of S/V Island Spirit are back, streaming 🎙️ LIVE from Saint-Martin in the Caribbean (but the ended up being in Antigua)  🌬️ Wind patterns (with graphs), ⚓️ Best anchorages 🌀 Pro tips for maneuvering & anchoring around Sint Maarten

YouTube Link:  https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcast57

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SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25

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Capn Tinsley:

Ever dropped the anchor in paradise and spent a week questioning your life choices? Well, tonight, hayden and Raydeen return to the podcast for the fifth time, live from St Martin in the Caribbean aboard their sailboat Island Spirit and Island Packet 35. These seasoned cruisers are sharing wind patterns, routes and anchorages so you can maneuver around St Martin like a pro patterns, routes and anchorages so you can maneuver around St Martin like a pro. We've got charts, real-life data and hard-earned advice to help get the most out of your experience in St Martin. So grab a drink, jump in the chat and let's get salty. This one's too good to miss. But first but first, here we go. Please hit like, subscribe and share this video. And don't be shy, drop your comments in the live chat so my guests can reply in real time. I'm Kat and Tinsley of Salty Abandoned and Island Packet 320 Sailboat, and this is the Salty Podcast, episode 57. Hayden and Raydeen, welcome back to the podcast. Yeah, thank you, tinsley.

Hayden Cochran:

Thank you, tinsleyley, appreciate uh you doing all the work getting us all in here.

Capn Tinsley:

You're great I appreciate you doing the visuals. Thank you very much yeah, of course we can. Uh, like I said before, I don't even have to come up with questions for you, because you organize the agenda so oh yes, you do, you can ask lots of questions. You can, you can do that, but I'm sure I'll come up with questions, but, um, okay, so where would you like to start? Would you like to?

Hayden Cochran:

go first. Well, first of all, you have to notice the dutch flag over there and then the french flag over here. So we have, we have the. We have the dutch, the French flag, up, of course, with the Island Packet flag which we always proudly fly. But actually, right now we've sailed from St Martin back to Antigua because there was a lull in the eastern trade winds and whenever that happens, you want to go east. So we left St Martin about a week ago and we moved over to Antigua, which is our home base area. But we've spent, I don't know, three weeks, four weeks this season, up in, up in St Martin okay, yeah, because I know how much you love St Martin.

Capn Tinsley:

I was thinking that you were still there, but cool, I know Antigua is also a favorite place of yours.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, antigua is our home base for hauling out and launching, but next year when we launch, we've decided already. We're going to go immediately back to St Martin because there's so many good services there and you'll see with the charts and how the island is laid out. We want to rebuild a solar array there and do some modifications on the boat and it's just, it's one of the top islands to go boating to. Because of the two countries the one side is French and the other side is Dutch Right, rady, what do you like about it?

Radeen Cochran:

Oh, I like the fact that in a minute you can dinghy from the Dutch side over to the French side. In a minute you can dinghy from the Dutch side over to the French side, have a wonderful crepe for lunch and red wine and turn around and come back to the Dutch side and do your shopping.

Hayden Cochran:

So it's great. Yeah, radine with her sweets. She likes these pastry shops and the French cafes and her French. What the crepes that they make.

Radeen Cochran:

The almond croissant oh the almond croissant.

Hayden Cochran:

You got to have an almond croissant and a coffee when you're in france.

Capn Tinsley:

Yes, absolutely so. So you are winding down, because it's usually in may when you go back yeah, yeah, we're at the.

Hayden Cochran:

We have another month yet. We haul out basically on may 2nd and we fly home on may 5. So we have another couple more weeks yet and we're going to sail around Antigua, hopefully up to Barbuda, and go back to the pink sand beaches up in Barbuda and then come back and down, rig and haul the boat out and go through the storage process. We go kind of crazy on taking the boat apart for storage and then it gets hauled out to land and bolted down to the ground and ready for hurricane season yeah, you know what we should do an episode on that, on how you get the boat ready for what do you call it down?

Capn Tinsley:

what do you call it down?

Hayden Cochran:

rigging down, rigging I keep. I keep a google document of every day what we do. I'm sure you do and uh, it's seven days of work usually that we log every task we do to the boat and then we use that to reverse it when we come back. Yeah, we take everything out, we pull all the lines and ropes and halyards and everything goes down below out of the weather. Yeah, most people don't do all that.

Capn Tinsley:

I bought that tape that you use to cover your teak.

Hayden Cochran:

Yep, I haven't used it, it's still in the box. Yeah, the protective cap rail tape is where you can tape that over your hatches and your ports and your teak and anything you want to cover up and protect out of the sun when you're storing your boat. Yeah, that protective cap rail tape from a national marine warehouse in Fort Lauderdale. That's stuff is fantastic. I've been using it five years now. I love it.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, I'm going to break it out here soon, but yeah, okay, well, just tape just tape a hatch and see what it does.

Hayden Cochran:

You know, just tape over a hatch and cover it up and go, oh, this is pretty good. And then a week later peel it off and see what it does. You know, just tape over a hatch and cover it up and go, oh, this pretty good.

Capn Tinsley:

And then a week later peel it off and see how it comes off clean. Well, you know, in the summertime it gets hot in the boat right in july and so I usually put like um small hand towels on yeah you know how you have the screen that's in between right inside. I usually put it in there, but I could just cover the take the white tape.

Hayden Cochran:

Take the white tape and tape the outside of the hatch, tape it down and then just trim it with a pair of scissors and make it look nice and it'll stay on for a year.

Capn Tinsley:

It's amazing To this day from Hayden.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's good stuff. It's good stuff.

Radeen Cochran:

The nice thing about that is it protects the lexan in the hatch so it won't craze and and discolor as quickly in the sun compared to putting the towels in the screen right, yeah um yeah, because it is.

Capn Tinsley:

It gets pretty hot here on the on the alabama gulf coast, just like you know, just like in the caribbean sure yeah all right. Well, you ready to jump in?

Hayden Cochran:

yeah, let's look at the first slide. Let's look at the first slide, let's look at the first screen there. That's kind of the overview.

Capn Tinsley:

There we go.

Hayden Cochran:

The nice thing about this slide is basically, if you don't know where St Martin is, it gives you a perspective from Puerto Rico all the way down to Guadalupe and you can see. It's in the middle there and it's 90 miles east of the US Virgin Islands. And the interesting thing about where it's located, it's in the Leeward Islands. And then you see where Guadalupe, and directly above Guadalupe is Antigua. That's where we are right now. That's the beginning of the Windward Islands, and the Windward Islands run basically south from Antigua and the leeward islands basically run downwind from it, from Antigua back to Puerto Rico.

Hayden Cochran:

So the biggest challenge when you are coming out to Dutch Saint Martin or or Saint Martin from the US, you reach Puerto Rico and you kind of feel like I made it, I'm here, and then it's only 45 miles from Puerto Rico over to St Thomas. And then you reach the US Virgin Islands and you're like I got it made. I'm in the Virgin Islands, I've reached paradise and you have. The US Virgin Islands are really, really fantastic, along with the BVIs. We've spent many years doing those islands. And then it's 90 miles east of the US Virgin Islands to get to St Martin. Well, the problem is the trade winds. You see the arrows of all the trade winds blowing. The trade winds are east. They very rarely are anything other than 080, 090, or maybe 100, right.

Radeen Cochran:

Absolutely.

Hayden Cochran:

And then the only other variable of 10 degrees north and 10 degrees south of east, the only other variable is the trade winds are 10, 15, 20, 25 knots, gusting 30 knots. So this 90-mile passage, it's called the Anagata Passage and it's been nicknamed the oh my Godda Passage is the nickname that they can give it Because people are like I am not doing that.

Capn Tinsley:

Is it worse than the Mona Passage?

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, no, no, it's not the Mona the.

Capn Tinsley:

Mona's back in the West? No, I mean, is it worse than?

Hayden Cochran:

that, yes, it can be. It can be, but. But they're an easy solution. You simply wait.

Hayden Cochran:

In the Virgin Islands, seven to 10 days to, a front comes off the east coast of USA and it pushes these trade winds back and the trade winds will drop to 10 knots, maybe 10 to 15. And especially overnight, at night, the trade winds died down a little bit. So you leave the US Virgin Islands at sunset and you go out to sea and you have about a 15-hour passage of 90 miles, 90 miles at six knots. And you arrive at St Martin at daybreak. Sun's coming up over the mountain and you're looking at Marigot and you're coming into either Marigot or you come into Simpson Bay Anchorage and we've come in there Christmas Eve on midnight already, right and dropped anchor. It's very easy to pull in to St Martin in the middle of the night if you do. But if you leave at sunset back at the Virgin Islands, it's the next morning you arrive at St Martin and you just have to wait. Yeah, you're outside the bridge, you just have to wait for the trade winds to die down, which they do every 10 days, about right.

Radeen Cochran:

Sometimes three weeks. Yeah, yeah, oh wow, we have to be patient, but it will happen, they'll go down, you got to be patient.

Hayden Cochran:

We were just in St Martin for 21 days and we had family and friends fly in and visit and then we decided that we were going to stay another week and we looked at the weather and looked at the forecast looking ahead. And the forecast ahead was it was calm the whole 21 days we were there. There was like five mile an hour winds it was the Heineken Regatta. They were frustrated. It wasn't good wind for sailing. So three weeks of no wind, family leaves. We're like we have two more days of no wind. We want to stay another week. After the two days the wind was back to 20 knots east and we said, okay, we know how that is. We got to go and we left, left.

Radeen Cochran:

We left immediately as soon as our family left yeah, our, our family left at two o'clock in the afternoon and by three we were in the customs office checking out for the next morning sadly, yeah, and then we caught the 830

Hayden Cochran:

bridge out, made the 830 bridge out and we were gone and got back east because from saint martinigua is about maybe 100 miles, 120 miles. It's a bit of a hike because you go from St Martin down to St Barts and then from St Barts you go down to Antigua and it's a good push. You can stop in St Kitts and Nevis to shorten it and make it two 50-mile days and then go east. But no matter how you do it, you eventually have to go due east. You can see you're going straight into the trade winds. It's just that's the whole challenge of the Caribbean is reaching Antigua. Antigua is your corner, that's where you want to get to and once you get there everything you will sail is north and south and that's beam reaching.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh nice.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, yeah, very nice. That's why Antigua is our base, that's why we pushed out here, yeah.

Capn Tinsley:

There's always a reason for everything with you guys.

Hayden Cochran:

Well, yeah that's the lay of the land there. If you go to the next slide, we can just look at the island itself. All right, so here's the whole lay of the island and you can see a couple harbors around the perimeter of it. Again, you have to visualize trade winds blowing from the right to the left of the screen, from east to west. So the top of the island is french and the bottom of the island is dutch. And tell, tell us about the lagoon Radine.

Radeen Cochran:

Look at these lagoons. The lagoon is diagonally divided with the country border and you can enter from the north side, where the arrow points to Marigot, that's the French side, or you can enter from the Simpson Bay Anchorage into the lagoon.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah.

Radeen Cochran:

Excuse me, bay Anchorage into the lagoon, yeah, and once you've cleared in either side of the countries, you're allowed to dinghy back and forth without going through customs yeah, and you're allowed to drive back and forth in a car without going through customs Right. So it's really a great location.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, what we like about the lagoon is and and we'll. We'll zoom in on the lagoon a sec in a second. But if you just look at the whole lay of the island, you, you have the french on the north, the dutch on the bottom, and the dutch are known for businesses and they're they're brilliant at services. So all the yacht services and everything. You could rebuild your entire boat in Dutch St Martin. Every possible system that you need to rebuild. You can get it done there. You can buy it here. There's no duties on things here.

Capn Tinsley:

And then, while you're Is it reasonably? The services are reasonably.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, the prices are great. You buy everything in Dutch St Martin. This is where you buy your stuff, and then you sail down island and you have your spares and your parts and your repair things you need. We even brought our paint with us the bottom paint.

Hayden Cochran:

We bought the bottom paint here to bring down to Antigua to paint the boat because it's hundreds of dollars cheaper. That's the Dutch side of St Martin and then you've got the French side up top which has all the cafes and the wine shops and the bakeries and the delicious restaurants and beaches. And you know I prefer the bottom side where it says Simpson Bay Lagoon. I prefer the bottom down here because in the Caribbean you get these north swells that run down. Whenever there's a big storm north of the Caribbean up towards Bermuda, and again a low pressure comes off the east coast, the swell is happening and the and the north swell is running down, and this you can see on the front side.

Hayden Cochran:

the north waves would crash in on that cove there, if they were in there anchored and, uh, we've been in there anchored and we there might, might have been a six foot swell coming through and when you would come back to your boat in the dinghy you would at the time when the boat would go up and down six feet and the dinghy would go up and down and you'd have the time when you could jump onto the boat. So it can get really sketchy on the Marigot side with the north swell. Sketchy on the Marigot side with the North Swell. That can be a little treacherous.

Radeen Cochran:

But inside the lagoon it's calm because it's completely landlocked, except for the two bridges.

Hayden Cochran:

So now, if you go to the next slide, we focus in on just the lagoon. Okay, now look at this. This is where paradise, in my opinion, happens. Now, what you're looking at here is just what's called Simpson Bay Lagoon, but notice the black line. It runs through the middle of the lagoon. So the north side is French and the bottom side is Dutch, so you have two countries owning the lagoon. So, yeah, so you have a border there between the french and the dutch right when you enter the lagoon.

Hayden Cochran:

We come in from the bottom down at the bottom, where it says the dutch bridge. We come into there and then we anchor in the center of that lagoon. But we've also come in from the top up at the top, where it says anchor and it says the center of that lagoon. But we've also come in from the top up at the top, where it says anchor and it says the French Bridge. That bridge opens once a day and you could come in well morning and night.

Hayden Cochran:

It opens at 8.30, it opens at like five o'clock and you could come into there and then you could get on the top side of the lagoon. There is a bridge in the middle called the Causeway Bridge, and that bridge in the center opens then, relative to the other two bridges when they open, so you can come in either bridge and still go through the center bridge to the north or the south, depending upon which side of the island you want to be on, whether you want to be on the Dutch side or the French side.

Radeen Cochran:

So the Dutch Bridge opens seven times a day. I have it written down so I don't make a mistake. Outbound it opens at 8.30, 10.30, and 4. And inbound it opens at 9.30, 11.30, 2 o'clock and 5 o'clock. Right, that next to last time used to be 3 o'clock but they changed it to two o'clock to accommodate road traffic better. So one of the fun things to do in St Martin is the Yacht Club on the Dutch side is right at the Dutch Bridge, on the south side of the bridge, and they have a huge deck and in the afternoon people will gather with their drinks and watch the four o'clock opening and the five o'clock opening right here, Yeahclock opening Right here.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, right in there. We'll zoom into that in a minute. But before we leave the screen and go to the Yacht Club, because the next screen shows the Yacht Club look back at the left of this screen and you see Maho Beach. And you also see the airplane flight path.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, we were there we got to experience that. Okay, what we're, okay.

Hayden Cochran:

This is one of the things everybody does at St Martin. You go around the Maho Beach the jets are coming in between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock and you get on the beach there and literally they fly right over your head, at 20 feet above your head, and they land. You know because the runway is short and they land you know because the runway is short. And the other crazy thing people do is they go and they stand at the fence when a jet is taking off and then the jet throws sand and debris and rubble in your face and then you get thrown down the beach from the jet wash and fly into the water and people have goggles on protecting their eyes. They're just not. Half of them are drunk most of the time, but it's hilarious because people do this. They stand behind a you know a jumbo jet taking off and they're literally maybe I don't know, never allow that in america, I'm gonna say they're 50 yards from the jet engine and they're just getting hit by this.

Hayden Cochran:

We stand at a side and watch this chaos. It's definitely something that everybody does, so you can take your dinghy around and go to the beach. We've not done that. We usually take a cab around and go to a little beach bar that's there and get a burger.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, that little bar there. That's where I watched everybody doing all this nonsense.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's very there's a bar on both sides of the beach. You know, it's really really fun. It's because the runway is right there. It's really something to see. I mean, it's amazing how close you can be to a jet.

Capn Tinsley:

It's one of their best attractions. Oh, absolutely, it's one of their best attractions. Oh, absolutely.

Hayden Cochran:

It's pretty cool, it's popular, everybody does it. So that's the whole lay of the lagoon. Now the next slide. We zoom in the bottom of the lagoon, which is our happy little spot. Right there is us, the little X in the middle of the screen. Okay, that's where we drop anchor or take a mooring ball and you can see the little yacht club arrow and that's where the little bridge is that you come in and out of. And then what we do every day is we take the dinghy from the X under the bridge and go around to the beach, because there's a beach right there. It's called Buccaneer Beach and it is a fantastic beach. So we go there and go swimming every day and that's our beach. And the center island called the Mega Yacht little message there, that's where all the I mean 100-footers come in and they come under the bridge and they go right to that center island. It's called Snoopy Island and it's a private gated island, one road onto the island, and that's where all the mega yachts get their service done. So we never dock there, obviously.

Hayden Cochran:

We're out in the lagoon and then, if you look at the arrow pointing down to the south of the lagoon, you can see all the key Dutch businesses that are down there you have, you know, starting at the top, you got bobby's marina. That's where you get hauled out if you need to get bottom work done. And then you got island water world, which is where the fuel dock is and the water dock is, and that's the best channel channel. Rewrite there, right. You can buy anything at at island water world. And then there's lagoon mar, which is where Lagoonies is. And then you got Blue Pearl Marina and then you got Budget Marine. So everything is down in the bottom of this Dutch side of the lagoon and you just dingy down here every day. There's a laundry.

Radeen Cochran:

A few other businesses that aren't marked on this chart are one of the best rigging companies in the caribbean fkg rigging. Oh yeah, and there's a sail maker, a loft down at the bottom of the lagoon as well, and you were going to bring up laundry. Laundry is always so important to cruisers, and one of the nice things about the caribbean is there's very few laundromats. Instead, you take your laundry to a service and they do it for you and it's reasonably priced, and you get it back, maybe folded the way you like and maybe not, but it's clean and it smells good. So the laundry is at Lagoon East, which makes the Lagoon Marina even more attractive. You can drop off your laundry and have lunch and a drink.

Hayden Cochran:

There's a Yamaha dealer there. Fuel filters are $10 a filter. He gets any part you need for your engine. It's ground zero. That Lagoon Marina Lagoonies is ground zero for the cruisers. That's where everybody goes every night to gather up. There's a band playing, there's musicians that perform you know, acoustic music. They do live jams. It's just really, really a sweet place. And you're inside this lagoon. So there's no, there's no swell, there's no wave action. It's very calm and it's it's pretty clean. It's surprisingly clean because there's a, there's a current that flows through here and the tide comes up and down. So, yeah, it's a great spot. It's a great spot. So there's the Yacht Club. You go to the Yacht Club in the morning for breakfast. If you want, you watch the yachts going out at the 830 morning morning for breakfast. If you want, you watch the yachts going out at the eight 30 morning and then you go to the yacht club in the evenings for the four o'clock burgers and four o'clock and five six o'clock.

Hayden Cochran:

The yachts are going and we're talking a hundred 150 foot yachts, you know, 24 feet wide, barely fit through the bridge and uh, it's quite a scene to you're right there, next to them, as go past Everybody's yelling and hooping and hollering and these, these and during the Heineken regatta, there were some 120 boats that were registered for it and most of them were anchored or docked in the lagoon, so you could see boats of all sizes and the crews had fun dressing up together.

Radeen Cochran:

There was a boat from Canada that all wore flannel shirts and lumberjack hats and they all had pretend axes and some of the crews will sing songs, so it's really fun to see.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's really great, well, I have a question about the bridge.

Capn Tinsley:

You said that certain times you can go in and certain times you can go out.

Hayden Cochran:

Yep Right, it's regulated.

Radeen Cochran:

The dinghies can come and go all the time but that's a great idea.

Capn Tinsley:

That just keeps it from getting all right, it's, it's well run, it's.

Hayden Cochran:

it's, there's a. There's a set schedule when the bridge will open, and that's only for inbound one way traffic. Yes, Everybody lines up outside and you know, and you radio the bridge 10, you say I'm coming in island spirit, you can't line up whatever. Then they open and then everybody gets in line, goes through bridge. Nobody's coming out because it's only about, I don't know, 24 feet wide. It's not very wide and one little one lift goes up and you go right in and you're right next to the yacht club and people are right there.

Radeen Cochran:

It's it's very entertaining it's very entertaining but, it's it.

Hayden Cochran:

It's also nerve-wracking. Radine drives through the bridge. I'm taking photographs of it. It's kind of fun. She has no fear driving the boat.

Capn Tinsley:

Good You've been doing it a long time.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's great. 25 years we know this boat, that yacht club, the Simpson Bay Yacht Club. It's wonderful.

Radeen Cochran:

It's called St Martin Yacht Club St.

Hayden Cochran:

Martin Yacht Club is wonderful, yeah, we love it. That's who runs all the regattas. So now the next slide. I think I go up to the Amerigo, the French side. Let's see, yeah, okay.

Hayden Cochran:

So this goes back to looking at the whole lagoon and again you see the airport there, you see the X where we anchor, and then you see the Dutch shops down at the bottom and you see the beaches that you can dinghy out to get a coffee.

Hayden Cochran:

So you take the dinghy up to the French side of the island and you zip up through there with the dinghy and you got two ways to go. You can go, stay in the lagoon and end up at the French shops on the inside and there's coffee shops and pastries right there and grocery stores. Or you can go through the little bridge and go out to the outside and come into the beach side where there's a dinghy dock and you're in the town right in the center of come into the beach side where there's a dinghy dock and you're in the town, right in the center of town, where where the shops are and the little street vendors are and coffee shops it's, uh, the cat name of the town is marigot, and it is the capital of french st martin, and in 2001 it was our privilege to be there, uh, for bastille day, which is the big French celebration, july 14th.

Radeen Cochran:

So it was very fun to see the people in the band all dressed in their white uniforms and there were speeches in French. Of course, we couldn't understand them.

Hayden Cochran:

I love the French.

Radeen Cochran:

It was very, very serious. It was very somber celebration, unlike Carnival which happened every Tuesday night. There's a little carnival in another French town.

Hayden Cochran:

We'll tell you about that in a minute. I got a slide for that. But yeah, the French. I just see that the French are so passionate about life. Everything they do to me seems over the top. I mean, even a cup of coffee. It's just beautifully presented and just really nicely made, and they present it with a little cookie or something. It's not just a Starbucks, here's your coffee go. I don't know. There's something about the French that I really admire and I really like. And their coffee shops and pastry shops and restaurants. They present food as art. I mean, it's just, you get a French meal, it doesn't matter what it is, it is so beautifully prepared and presented.

Radeen Cochran:

And they're very proud.

Hayden Cochran:

And they're really proud of this. They just live a whole different perspective than Americans do. It's obvious.

Radeen Cochran:

It's so obvious and we love it and they're so leisurely with dining, you just relax and visit with your guests. And nobody's rushing you, here's your check. Oh, no one rushes. You have to beg for the check.

Hayden Cochran:

They never come back and say they never come back and like, hand you the check and say, move on, it's like you have to. Are we going to get a check? Are we finished here? And they're like hand me the check and say, move on, it's like you have to. Are we going to get a check? Are we finished here? And they're like well, we don't want to rush anybody, I mean it's just. France is phenomenal and the French islands that we've sailed into are a dream. They absolutely are a lifetime. Sailors must do destination. There's no question about it. You got to sail to a French island and you will experience this and see how incredible it really is.

Radeen Cochran:

Yeah.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's really wonderful. We love it. So that's another reason why we like this island you have. Half of it is French and half of it is Dutch the.

Capn Tinsley:

Dutch are different than what you just described. The French are the Dutch you than what you just described, the. French are you want to get your?

Hayden Cochran:

work done down in the Dutch part of it, but if you want good service and good food. The Dutch are all about business and trading, buying and selling Right.

Capn Tinsley:

And move on.

Hayden Cochran:

They get things done. I mean French West Indies Trading Company, right? No, dutch West Dutch West Indies Trading Company from back in the 1600s. They were the traders of the world. They bought and sold things, and so now, on this island, they have all the businesses.

Capn Tinsley:

So you've got the best of everything there.

Hayden Cochran:

That's why it's such a great destination. That's why St Martin has got everything. You've got both worlds here in a little tiny island with a lagoon in the center of it to anchor, or you can anchor out off these beaches. I mean, it's got everything. It's got it all.

Capn Tinsley:

I know you told me this before, but why is it that you don't keep your boat there? Because it's more expensive than Antigua.

Hayden Cochran:

No, the prices are the same all through the Caribbean, From Puerto Rico down to Grenada. It's all within $1,000 of each other. It's not a big savings one to the other.

Radeen Cochran:

The reason that we wouldn't store our boat there is St Martin is flatter than Antigua and so it's not as sheltered. And when they got hit many years ago by Hurricanes Luis and Marilyn back to back they took terrible damages so we would not leave our boat there because of that. Here in Antigua it's very mountainous and the place we haul out is very sheltered.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, you want to be in a concrete yard. You want to be on concrete with hurricane tie down straps that are into concrete and mountains behind you, yeah mountains and cliffs around you and this yard here in Antigua.

Hayden Cochran:

They actually weld the jack stands together, making a cradle for your boat. I mean it's they do a lot of things where other yards. You get on jack stands and they chain them together and your jack stands are sitting on gravel or dirt or sand and they put a little square board under the foot of the jack stand and when the wind and the storms come and the jack stand starts vibrating, the little board under the foot flies out because the stand's moving and the board flies out and the jack stand sinks into the sand and gravel and the boat falls over Concrete. That doesn't happen. You're sitting on a concrete pad, way more stable, and then they strap you down with eight hurricane straps, four on each side, two from midship, and then balancer on each side into the concrete footers and winch those down.

Hayden Cochran:

We took 220 mile an hour winds in Hurricane Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico. We didn't fall over. We were on concrete, we were strapped down. A building blew up and sheet metal wrapped around our mast and broke our mast. So you don't know about flying debris, but the boat didn't fall over. It's how they get strapped down is the key and what surface are you on?

Capn Tinsley:

Another tip of the day from Hayden and Nadine right here on the Salty Podcast.

Hayden Cochran:

Get on concrete. Get your jack stands on concrete.

Capn Tinsley:

That's going to be a clip. That's a valuable tip that you just gave me.

Hayden Cochran:

Let's see what the next slide is. The next slide from French Marigot. I think I zoomed in on Marigot and we look at the harbor up there.

Capn Tinsley:

Did I go to the right one.

Radeen Cochran:

I don't see a slide. Oh, I'm sorry.

Capn Tinsley:

It would help if I added it to the screen. Yeah, oh there, it is.

Hayden Cochran:

Yes wine, cheese, cafes, bakeries paradise. It's france dinghy to france. This is why we love it. We're back down in the bottom of the lagoon in the dutch side, but this is a five minute dinghy ride now that seems like it's more convenient than going outside.

Capn Tinsley:

Here it is, it is two ways to go.

Hayden Cochran:

We normally go on the inside, sure, and then you walk over to town. But if you got to pick up a lot of stuff, like a case of nice Bordeaux red wine, you go outside and you and you have a less distance to walk to carrying your case of red wine. So you got, you go out the little channel there and you go across the moorings. Now, sadly, the town of Marigot put in moorings here. We've anchored here where it says moorings, and the city put in, I'm going to say, 40 mooring balls, 50. They covered the entire anchorage with mooring balls. Wow, well, the cruisers said sorry, we don't do that. So the cruisers moved. They moved to the top around the marina. You see the circular marina at the top with an arrow says anchor. They all moved up around there. They went on the north side of that marina and they anchor there, and they went to the bottom of the mooring field to the left of the channel and they anchored there and all the mooring balls are empty.

Capn Tinsley:

It's a joke. Are they really expensive or something Probably like 40, 50 bucks probably.

Hayden Cochran:

I don't know what they cost, but nobody uses them. I don't care if they're five bucks. The cruising community is like no, we are not paying for a mooring ball. We used to anchor here and it was fine, so it's kind of been a bitter thing. It didn't really work out, but there's probably 50 empty moorings right there. So you dingy through the mooring field zig work out, but there's probably 50 empty moorings right there.

Hayden Cochran:

So you, you dingy through the mooring field zig zigging and zagging, like you should just make them free. Yeah, they really should. They really should, and the dinghy dock is great. And then you walk in the town and tell them about the town a little maradona dinghy dock right here yeah, dinghy docks at the end of the arrow. At the end of the arrow there's this dinghy dock. Okay, right, right there dinghy dock and there's another one down at the other arrow that's inside the lagoon.

Capn Tinsley:

Right. So you got two dinghy docks right there in Marigot and they're close to grocery stores.

Radeen Cochran:

Right. Each one of these is close to a great grocery store. Why?

Hayden Cochran:

don't you describe a French grocery store?

Radeen Cochran:

Well, they are different. It's surprising how they have meat and cheeses like we would have for sandwiches, and they're sliced and packaged beautifully in individual or maybe a serving for two people, and so there's just packages and packages and everything's very fresh. It feels a little wasteful because it's so much packaging for such a small quantity of food, but that's how they do it.

Radeen Cochran:

And then there's more yogurt than you've ever seen in your life and more juice than you've ever seen in your life. A small grocery store will have an entire aisle of just juices. It's amazing.

Hayden Cochran:

Piles of baguettes.

Radeen Cochran:

Oh yeah, baguettesettes by the dugout?

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, I don't eat bread because you know it raises my blood sugar too much, but piles of baguettes and pastries and a French grocery store is amazing. And the wine I do like wine, I like Bordeaux wines, I like heavy red wine and cheese is great. So you know, cheese and red wine. I'm in paradise and they will sell some of the finest tasting French Bordeaux wine for eight euros. You know it's subsidized by the French government. These islands are. They help to pay for things, to keep the cost down for the locals. Well, you travel to a French island, you sail into a French island and you'll notice things are reasonably priced from a cruising standpoint because the French government is helping the locals afford to live here. So, bordeaux wine I've had four, five, six, eight, 10, $12 bottles of Bordeaux wine.

Capn Tinsley:

They're all fantastic it's amazing, and so how much would that be here?

Hayden Cochran:

oh, a euro is a dollar dollar right now the conversion is one to one euro is one to one, so eight, eight dollars for a bottle of wine, the best red wine you've probably ever had. It's amazing. So yeah, they, they have really good wine shops. But we like the coffee shops. We drink a lot of coffee and teas and Radine likes her pastries and I like my cheese. Yeah, we're pretty happy there we're pretty happy with the coffee shops.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, that's great. So we'll go back to the next slide. I think the next slide I go up the island to the Grand Casse. No, I think you go back to the next slide. I think the next slide I go up the island to the Grand Casse.

Radeen Cochran:

No, I think you go back to the Dutch side. You're alternating, so you're digging to the Dutch side.

Hayden Cochran:

Let's see what the next slide is.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, oh, it's right, it's not up there, sorry.

Radeen Cochran:

Yep, we're on the Dutch side.

Hayden Cochran:

Oh, yes, I went down to this cruise ship town. On the south side of the island is the cruise ship terminal and there'll be two, three, four six cruise ships in here at one time and then they taxi people into the shops because the ships are a little bit out of town. You can walk. It's a little bit of a hike.

Capn Tinsley:

Is this it right here? What is it, Phillips? Oh no.

Hayden Cochran:

The shops are.

Radeen Cochran:

The shops are up where it says shops and then the cruise ships are docked at those long piers.

Hayden Cochran:

So you got the shops in town. The town is called phillipsburg. And then you, it's a beach, a beautiful beach, crescent beach. There you can anchor your boat off of it, and there's a marina there bobby's marina's there, and there's a beautiful boardwalk the length of that whole beach and there's a marina there.

Radeen Cochran:

Bobby's Marina is there and there's a beautiful boardwalk the length of that whole beach.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's a great, great little city to walk around the shops and and buy touristy things and we've never anchored in here. We've been in this town 10 times probably. The first time we were here was 1996 on another person's sailboat. So, um, yeah, it's, it's great.

Radeen Cochran:

There's a great bus system in st martin so we often just take the bus.

Capn Tinsley:

It's either one or two dollars to get wherever you want to go okay, we just made sure we were not in phillipsburg when the ships were in yeah, yeah, very smart of you, yeah, good idea to see what the ship schedule is, but pretty much every day there's ships in there. We could see them offshore coming in. Right, we were staying on the Dutch side.

Hayden Cochran:

Right.

Radeen Cochran:

Oh, okay.

Capn Tinsley:

Let's go shopping, Hurry quick.

Hayden Cochran:

Well, they run, yeah, they run, between here and St Thomas. They're going back. You know it's a standard run, because St Thomas is only 90 to 100,. No, it's maybe 100 miles up to St Thomas, whatever, yeah, so that's Phillipsburg, on the south of the island. Now the next slide, which I think might be the last slide, goes up to the top of the island. Yes, yeah, grand Casse. Wow, french little town here. Describe this reading.

Radeen Cochran:

It's a little village. On the chart, every little square you see is a building, so you can see how small it really is. You can count the buildings.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, you have to drive over there. It's like a real beautiful beach.

Hayden Cochran:

It is. They're all on the beach. They're all on the beach. They're all restaurants and cafes and shops.

Radeen Cochran:

So you dingy in. There's a dingy dock where you can dingy onto the beach and it's just like four or five blocks long and wonderful restaurants, and the first time we were there was in 1991, I think, and I actually had found a restaurant by using a this is going to show how old I am a website called Prodigy and there were discussion boards in Prodigy, and so I found a St Martin travel discussion board and found a restaurant that we tried. So that was a good memory. There's another harbor at the very north side of this chart called Ants Marcel, and we drove up by car there this time for the first time, and we found out that we probably will never go there by boat. It was very narrow and very crowded and so that's not our kind of place.

Hayden Cochran:

But when you're anchored in this little Grand Casse, there's a snorkeling spot right to the north of there and we've snorkeled that a couple of times. It's fabulous and really, really good. And again, this little harbor is treacherous if there's a north swell coming, because the waves, the swell can be four, six, eight feet, it's far apart. It rolls in here from the north, hits the beach and recoils back. It's the recoil that really makes the anchorage, you know, very uncomfortable. So you have the waves coming in and then the recoil coming off the beach and it's really not good. So you had the waves coming in and then the recoil coming off the beach and it's really not good. So you will not be anchored here. If there's a north swell coming, people will go around the island and come down to the bottom to Simpson Bay, simpson Bay Lagoon, and come into Lagoon. So you have options. You don't really get stuck if it's bad weather.

Capn Tinsley:

Do you pretty much like to hang out in in simpson bay?

Hayden Cochran:

yeah, it's too easy.

Radeen Cochran:

It's too easy another resource to know about on this map is um south of here, back in marigot, there's a business called shrimpy's. It's a laundry service and an outboard dinghy service and that gentleman for over 20 years has run the cruisers net, which is in the mornings every day. I think it's at eight, 30. His name is Mike at shrimpies and he does the weather and he helps people sell and buy things that they need. He helps people find parts they need.

Capn Tinsley:

It's like a.

Radeen Cochran:

Georgetown. It's the same kind of thing and all social events get announced and and people say when they've arrived and people announce when they're leaving. So, yes, you're right, it's just like Georgetown and it gives a real sense of community to the whole island.

Hayden Cochran:

We've given a lot of things.

Capn Tinsley:

And what channel is it?

Radeen Cochran:

Oh, you stumped me. Oh, I don't remember.

Hayden Cochran:

I should know, but I don't I know, I think it's 12.

Radeen Cochran:

I'm pretty sure it's 12.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, here it's 74.

Hayden Cochran:

Each island is a different VHF net 68 is Georgetown, I know that. Yeah, and the other thing all of these islands and all these harbors, they all have Facebook groups.

Radeen Cochran:

Okay.

Hayden Cochran:

So you know, when you cruise into an island, the first thing you do is you check out the facebook group and and you join it. There'll be a group and you can sell things, buy things, trade things, you know, help somebody fix something on their boat.

Radeen Cochran:

It's really kind of fun in most countries a lot of people, especially the island packet people yeah, yeah, we're a um a thing that's nice to know is it's often not legal to sell parts to someone who's local without paying the duty on it, but to sell from one cruising boat to another cruising boat is legal.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, oh good.

Radeen Cochran:

Yeah.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, I don't think I have any more slides there, tinsley, you'd have to go back to the first one and look at the big overview picture again.

Radeen Cochran:

Oh, I see Jeff Gaber's watchers, yeah drinking Bordeaux.

Hayden Cochran:

now, jeff Gaber, that's my boat buddy right there.

Capn Tinsley:

What did you meet him there?

Hayden Cochran:

No, Jeff Gaber and I have been sailing together 30 plus years and he's sailed on Island Spirit many times.

Radeen Cochran:

Yes, yes, Jeff and his wife Sharon had three island packets. They had a 31, a 35, and a 420. And they don't anymore. No, they've sold their Lucille to another cruising couple Now the boat's name is Mango.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, mango, mango 420 now, oh, that's a great name yeah. Yeah, but yeah, jeff, enjoy that Bordeaux. That's a fine bottle, I know you. Back to the overview picture again Tinsley, which was the first slide.

Capn Tinsley:

Did you want me to bring up that restaurant Lagoonies? Oh sure.

Hayden Cochran:

If you can find that. Yeah, see, there's the lagoon back there. Let me see if I can pull that up. Go one forward.

Capn Tinsley:

One more. I thought that was the first one. No, that's the first one.

Hayden Cochran:

Go forward one. No, that's the first one. Go forward one second there. Oh, one more, I'm sorry, One more forward there. That's the big picture. That's, that's the whole concept of what you would want to know about, about, uh, St Martin and with, with the French side of the lagoon, the Dutch side of the lagoon, the beaches down at the bottom, the, the, the French Island, the French town of Marigo at the top, the French island, the French town of Marigot at the top, the airport runway beach, the Maho beach right there, the Dutch businesses down at the bottom. And the first time we came here we just sat on the anchorage out at the bottom down there, which is anchor. We anchored there for weeks on end. It gets a little rolly and I was nervous to go under the bridges and to go into the lagoon. But after we sat a week or two out there rocking and rolling, we said let's get, let's get in the lagoon and check this out.

Capn Tinsley:

Now why were you nervous?

Hayden Cochran:

I don't know. I just was nervous with the bridge.

Capn Tinsley:

You've got your boat there, I think you can handle it, the bridge.

Hayden Cochran:

I've been on thousands of bridges, but this is this bridge is little. But so I was worried about going into the lagoon and not knowing the lay of the land, but the whole lagoon's six, eight, ten feet deep everywhere, and we just went in and found a place to drop anchor and it was sort of near the end of the runway. The jets take off towards the lagoon, so you were anchored right in here, yeah, and that's a no anchor zone.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh no.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, it's marked off like you can't anchor there because the jets could hit your mast. But they don't obviously, so I was right up against the no anchoring zone of the airport takeoff runway. It was kind of fun but, uh, yeah, it's really exciting, it's real nice. But now I know now I know the guy that has the mooring balls and we rented a mooring ball. A mooring ball in in this lagoon was 15 a night oh my gosh was that a deal?

Capn Tinsley:

that is a deal 15 a night so is that on? Is that labeled here where's?

Hayden Cochran:

that labeled here. Well, he's got 10. Up on the French side, he's got one more.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, you're talking about on the outside. No, no, no Inside.

Hayden Cochran:

Inside the lagoon. They're all around that little island right there where your mouse is Right here, they're all right around there, okay, yep.

Capn Tinsley:

He's got 10 mooring balls there and one down in the middle of the Dutch side, where we took. We took the one in the Dutch side. Okay, so that's where you like to be is right there.

Hayden Cochran:

I prefer the Dutch side, but it's ridiculous to check in with the Dutch. It's kind of stupid.

Hayden Cochran:

You're better off to come to the top side and come in Marigo, check in at the French side, which takes 32 seconds, and then you're into the country and then you drive through the lagoon wherever you want to be that's a good tip yeah, when you come into the bottom side and you come into the dutch side, it takes you an hour and a half and your first born son to be able to check into the dutch side, and then you get through the dutch customs and you're welcome into the dutch side. So yeah it's, we've done both. We've done both. We like checking in on the french side okay but since we've been.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, another tip of the day, another tip of the day dutch side hour and a half french side, 32 seconds all, right, now I'm gonna pull up this uh, yeah, lagoonies yeah, look at lagoonies. It's such a it's such a happy spot. It's one of those happy places cruisers go to you.

Capn Tinsley:

You have a lot of happy places well, we enjoy where we are usually okay, so this is on a website, but this is what came up is this, there it is okay, yep. So local gym which combines delicate taste of the french side with fun well, they have a french chef they have.

Hayden Cochran:

Well, they have a French chef. They have a French chef, which we love.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay.

Hayden Cochran:

She's wonderful. Oh, so they make wonderful meals and it's a little bar and all the cruisers hang out here.

Capn Tinsley:

When the locals clock out and the sailors docked at Lagoon Marina in the day Lagoonie.

Hayden Cochran:

Lagoonie and I think dockage here is like a dollar a foot. It's cheap to dock here, but we've never docked. We don't dock anywhere. We always are an anchor.

Radeen Cochran:

The trick about docking at all the marinas on this island is it's always a mid-moor. There's no finger piers so there's no side tie. Yeah, so you have to have a way to be able to get on and off the back of your boat to get onto the dock, no, that's too difficult for us.

Capn Tinsley:

I'm looking at this one dollar fifty beers and two dollar rum punches oh yeah, it's true.

Radeen Cochran:

True, that's like wait, that's like 1970s prices happy hour every every day from four to six those other prices, and their rum punches are delicious. I can vouch for them.

Hayden Cochran:

It's a good live music.

Radeen Cochran:

Two or three nights a week.

Hayden Cochran:

It's just, it's the best. Everybody goes to Lagunas.

Capn Tinsley:

Here's the menu.

Hayden Cochran:

Yep, it's number one. You'll go to Lagunas and you'll go to the Yacht Club and then you'll go to Marigot. Those are the three places Three hot spots.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah.

Hayden Cochran:

Well, that was fun, Tinsley.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, yeah, we got it. Let's see, we're at 49 minutes.

Hayden Cochran:

Hey, we're trying to keep it at 45. We're doing pretty good. I was trying to keep it at 45. I didn't want to bore anybody.

Capn Tinsley:

No, no, they don't have to watch the whole thing.

Hayden Cochran:

I know they can listen.

Radeen Cochran:

And we'll be doing the clips, so you made some good.

Capn Tinsley:

You gave us some good inside information to do some clips with.

Hayden Cochran:

So Wonderful, wonderful. Well, thank you so much.

Capn Tinsley:

What's the next one going to be about?

Hayden Cochran:

You said about putting the boat away, but that's pretty boring. I don't think we want to do that. I think we want to just focus on French Islands, martinique.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, we can do Martinique, martinique, and you might be home by then.

Hayden Cochran:

Yes, we should be home in May 5, hopefully Okay, and I'm hoping, but you will not be. I'm hoping to get to Georgetown for the first time on my boat.

Capn Tinsley:

Nice maybe november, december.

Hayden Cochran:

But you guys won't be there. No, no, we won't, but I'll be flying back here.

Radeen Cochran:

December, december 2 okay but you will have 350 other boats to have fun with.

Capn Tinsley:

Is that smart on my part?

Hayden Cochran:

yes, it is yeah, that should be your base.

Capn Tinsley:

That should be your base we got a couple of uh remarks here. Let's see William Lyons. Hi guys, Thank you for the helpful tips.

Hayden Cochran:

You're welcome, thank you.

Capn Tinsley:

And Mike Kuntz. He's the one that got the 380.

Hayden Cochran:

You're very welcome.

Capn Tinsley:

In Key West. So he's always on here, and then William says Bell's watching too.

Hayden Cochran:

All right, right, yeah, that's my miami team man. That my best favorite miami team right there.

Capn Tinsley:

So much fun and if anybody else wants to comment you'll have to meet them sometime.

Hayden Cochran:

Tinsley, yeah, go to miami go to miami and go go to no name harbor yeah, before you go to the bahamas go to Miami and meet Belle and Bill Yep.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, I'm going to be going through all these podcasts, especially the ones about the Bahamas.

Hayden Cochran:

You need to get them on.

Capn Tinsley:

I'm going to be timing it just like you do it with the wind and the front.

Hayden Cochran:

You need to get them on to talk about Biscayne Bay.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay.

Hayden Cochran:

Biscayne Bay is the top sailing destination on the East Coast.

Capn Tinsley:

Absolutely Bay is the top sailing destination on the East coast. Absolutely, you said that's your happy place too.

Hayden Cochran:

Hands down it's there in Block Island, you got to have Block Island.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, william, please email me at salty abandoned at Gmail, cause Hayden says you have to come on, so that's a direct order.

Hayden Cochran:

There you go.

Capn Tinsley:

They have an island packet for 20 in Miami, yep okay, and let's they know, miami, they know, bis came back okay and uh, if you want to follow these guys, um, they're at sb islands period on everything, yes, basically everywhere yes um, and you can. Also, if you have an island packet, you can join the island packet owners association, orers Association Facebook page which these guys run, and it's the best, especially if you want to find some information about any island packet and you guys are also brokers, so let's give a plug for that Go ahead.

Hayden Cochran:

Yes, cj Yacht Sales in West Coast of Florida, st Pete area. We are yacht brokers with them. It was the former Whitaker Yacht Sales team that moved over with our lead broker, cj Clint Jordan. So yeah, we take listings and help people find the island packet that they want.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, so when sailing season ends for you, then you're back into helping buyers find packets.

Hayden Cochran:

I've helped a bunch of buyers this winter already.

Capn Tinsley:

You were doing it while you were out there.

Hayden Cochran:

Yeah, I help buyers and bring them in and turn them over.

Capn Tinsley:

William said he will email me. There we go.

Hayden Cochran:

There's our Biscayne Bay team. That's your next interview.

Capn Tinsley:

I'm going to be there this fall, so okay, guys.

Hayden Cochran:

Alright, thank you very much, tinsley.

Capn Tinsley:

Once again, a great podcast With you guys. Thank you so much and we'll see you again soon. And we're going to talk about Martinique. So what do we say? Salty?

Hayden Cochran:

Bandon Out. So what do we say? Salty Bandon, it's Salty Bandon Out Out.

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