Getting ready for our first family visitor!

Hi there! This week on St. Maarten we are preparing our boat for our first guest on board. Angelique, Jeroen’s sister, is coming for 10 days! We look forward to giving her a big hug in real life and we are very curious how she will experience everything here on board. But before she comes, we prepare the boat further and hope to be able to collect our boxes full of goodies from the Netherlands in Saint Martin. The sea is calling, and we can’t wait to set sail for the British Virgin Islands!

We sail into Marigot Bay and our hearts throb with excitement as we see hundreds of boats looming ahead of us. It’s a strange sight after being at sea for 9 days with only the occasional freighter to watch out for. After we anchor again in Marigot Bay, we give each other a big hug, a sense of satisfaction. We did it! We send various messages to let you know that we are safe. It’s Sunday today and because of this we can’t check in yet. However, we are eager to stretch our legs on land, so we do. Jeroen and Rajesh lower the dinghy together and mount the outboard motor on it. When we arrive at the dock for dinghy’s, we see more dinghy’s than there is room. It’s like a game of Tetris, trying to find the place to secure your dinghy with a chain lock. When we chained our dinghy to the jetty for the first time in the Bahamas, we couldn’t help but notice the reaction of the locals. They laughed and said, “You must be from the Caribbean!” We were surprised and asked why they thought that. They replied: “You don’t have to chain your dinghy here; your dinghy or other personal belonging won’t get stolen here in the Bahamas. Unless you’re in Nassau.” Now that we are back on Saint Martin, this is again very necessary and we make sure that the dinghy is secured with a strong chain lock. We climb over other dinghy’s and finally reach the quay and put our first foot on land. It feels strange to be back on solid ground, but we don’t feel like everything is moving below us as we thought it would.

The sun is shining brightly and there is hardly any wind on land. The oppressive heat is immediately felt. We wander through the narrow streets for over an hour and see very few people walking or driving. We wonder where all those people from those other dinghies are. We do see the well-known beautiful colored murals around us, which remind us of the lively culture of the Caribbean. The delicious smell of fresh pizzas caress our nose and we decide to eat a pizza ashore tonight. Jeroen says: “I think I can count on 2 hands the times we ate pizza in the Netherlands, now it’s almost a treat for us!” We have to laugh at how much we’ve changed since we left. Eating pizza ashore feels like a luxury that we can’t wait for. Back on the boat, everyone does their own thing and we get some rest. When we have enjoyed our Pizzas and delicious Crème Brulée ashore that evening, we return to the boat and soon fall into a deep sleep. We feel refreshed after a good night’s sleep. The sun shines down on us and the temperature in the boat quickly rises to 35 degrees. It’s a good thing we have fans to keep airflow through the boat while we begin our inside job of reorganizing the boat. We start by emptying the closets to make room for when not only Angelique, but also when Hanneke, Teunis, Tessa and Jasper come. They all need space for their clothes and belongings anyway, so we’re going to make sure there’s enough room for them. As we go through our belongings, we assess what to keep, give away, or throw away. Then we make an inventory of what food and drink we still have on board. After we have finished reorganizing, we look at what we would like to do before the first family members arrive. We make a list of things we want to buy or replace, such as mattress protectors, bedding and pillows for the extra beds. We also need fabric for curtains, new taps for the showers and kitchen and we want to try to improve the quality of the water from the water maker. We will also look for another water maker that can make more litres of water per hour (currently 20 l/h). We also want to have some stickers made for the dinghy. Our to-do list is getting longer and we’re excited to get started. We also hope to be able to collect our boxes from the Netherlands before May 7, so Jeroen would like to drop by the transport company to let them know that we will be here on the island until then. We cross our fingers and hope it works out! We do the big shopping at the end, these are much cheaper here on Saint Maarten than on the British Virgin Islands.

That evening we discuss our plans for the next few days and we all agreed that renting a car for three days was the best way. But before we started with our “to do list” we celebrated: Rajesh’s birthday! On April 25, we started the day with delicious coffee and cake at a French bakery. I can’t manage to make such a delicious pastry yet and we loved every bite. In the evening, we also went to an Indian restaurant on the Dutch side of Saint Maarten. It was an evening of laughter and good food. Rajesh was grateful for all the phone calls, WhatsApp’s and Facebook messages he had received and thanks everyone for this.

The next few days we spent driving to different stores and working through our list. It was a slow process, there are a lot of cars on Saint Maarten, a lot of cars, so we were stuck in traffic a lot. The island’s infrastructure is not built for so many road users. In addition, our timing was not really planned well, due to a series of national holidays (King’s Day, Labor Day, Carnival and Liberation Day) on the island, that we did not take into account, the shops were closed. With all the shops closed and we had the car for another day, we decided to take it easy and enjoy a relaxing day out. Rajesh suggested to go plane spotting on the famous Maho Beach. We had not been there before. We were lucky enough to witness the arrival of a few smaller planes and the landing of a huge jumbo jet. The adrenaline was palpable as we watched in awe as the plane descended overhead, just meters above the beach. The departing planes were equally exciting, as the deafening roar of the jet engines creates an intense gust of wind that sweeps across the entire beach. Some brave souls tried to stay in the jet blast, but the signs warning of the danger were clear. It was a beautiful experience, which we are happy to have finally experienced.

After we had collected as much as possible and returned the car, we started our tasks on board. I had been given the task of sewing curtains for the windows and skylights, a challenging job with my two left hands behind a sewing machine. Also in connection with the wishes to make the curtains a lot smaller and because of this I had no patterns, it didn’t make it any easier for me. However, with a little perseverance and determination, I managed to complete the task after two days and am very satisfied for now. Jeroen and Rajesh were busy with other jobs on board and together we worked tirelessly for six days to prepare the boat for our first visit. Unfortunately, we receive a message from the transport company that we can pick up our boxes from May 10th. That’s just too late for us. The boat stickers don’t arrive on time either.

This allows us to concentrate on the final preparations for the crossing to the British Virgin Islands. On Sunday evening we gave Neptune a sip of rum and weighed anchor at 7.30 pm. The moon was nearly full, illuminating our path as we headed for the British Virgin Islands. We sailed downwind and arrived in Tortola 16 hours later. Check-in was very smooth and fast; it was settled in 20 minutes. For us, the British Virgin Islands will always hold a special place in our hearts. Here we bought the boat and our sailing adventure started, now we receive our first family visit here.