In 1493, Christopher Columbus embarked on his second voyage to the New World. According to legend, Columbus sighted and perhaps anchored at the island of Saint Martin on November 11, 1493, the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours.  In his honor, Columbus named the island San Martin. This name was translated to Sint Maarten (Dutch) and Saint Martin (French and English).

In January of 2009, the Club embarked on a three-catamaran, week-long voyage of its own, adding in the islands of Anguilla and St. Barts. We arrived on Friday, the 23rd, and aside from one van load of crew getting talked into waiting until we got to Oyster Pond to provision with potent potables, the SunSail base was very accommodating. The Dinghy Dock Bar proved to serve an impressive rum punch.

Saturday 1/24 Marigot, St. Martin
The sail to Marigot allowed us to get familiar with the boat's systems. We didn't need any time to get familiar with the perfect temperatures and good winds. The exit from Oyster Pond proved a little on the narrow and rough side, but once we started heading north toward Tintemarre, that was forgotten. We learned that Tintemarre has "do-it-yourself" mud baths; one simply brings a liter of water up the island to a pocket of clay, scrapes the side of the depression to get fresh clay, add some water, mix, and apply. This has been described as an invigorating experience. Of course some serious wash-up would be required after the experience. We had intentions of returning later in the trip but more on that later.

After arriving at Marigot, the crew of Torridon opted to cook dinner on board and use some of the large amount of mahi-mahi that we had bought. For many this was a recovery from the previous evening; various crew swore off drinks with fruit juice, pepper, and other “secret” ingredients. The particular ingredient seemed to change over the week, but consensus was never reached on the possible culprit.

It was rumored that on Saturday evening, the Skipper of Torridon had a talk with his crew about wasteful water usage and confiscated all personal supplies of shampoo and soap to conserve water. As one of the parties that helped to spread this rumor, this writer can attest that this was pure fabrication.

Sunday morning some of the crew made an early journey into town to provision with baguettes and croissants (superb!). Some used the opportunity to get gifts for family back home. Ron Pate decided his son needed a rainmaker; thereby setting himself up as a target for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, Skipper Hamer had Ron shake the rainmaker around shower time, so the crew could shower off without using water from the tanks. This later became known as the start of the "Cranky Hamer" phase of the trip. The rainmaker seemed to work, but Ron's timing was off and the resulting showers were frequently around 3 AM. Even "Cranky Hamer" didn't make us get up to shower at that time of night.

Sun 1/25 Road Bay, Anguilla
The sail was once again invigorating. What started as a broad reach became a beat to windward as we rounded the SW point of Anguilla and headed toward Road Bay. While windward beats are not a catamaran's strong point, we had fun sailing until it became time to get into Road Bay. We arrived in plenty of time to complete the lengthy immigration check-in process.

As luck would have it, next door to the official building there was a diversion at Johnno's Bar with a very enjoyable jazz group playing a nearly continuous selection of jazz. Since it was Cecilia Sweeney's birthday, Carole Daniels wasted no time in letting one of the singers know. What resulted was an impressive tribute to Cecilia. The afternoon's events set a high standard for the rest of the trip!

We had dinner ashore at a very nice beach bar west of Johnno's. This was one of the few times nearly the entire group ate at the same place. After dinner we walked back to the area of Johnno's to discover a very different crowd, with a group playing music that none of us could quite recognize. There were a lot of locals there that may not have been able to decide what to do with this music either, since they were all standing around talking, making no attempts to dance or move to the music. We decided it was probably going to be a lot quieter on the boat.

Mon 1/26 Crocus Bay, Anguilla
This short hop eastward provided a change in scenery.We opted to pickup a mooring in the Little Bay section first. This protected park area has two secluded beaches and gave us great opportunity to swim and snorkel. Some of us spotted turtles swimming as we were snorkeling. The little coves and cave-like structures in the rock gave us lots of underwater life to view. Since no overnight stays were allowed at Little Bay, we moved about 1/2 mile to Crocus Bay and dropped anchor. Someone mentioned that there was possibly an eclipse around this time.

Tue 1/27 Grand Case, St. Martin
We retraced our steps going around the southwest point of Anguilla and headed east toward Grand Case. We used this opportunity to eat at a very nice French restaurant, Le Marina, that was a little east of the main strip. It was still close enough to the marching band with steel drums, several other drum types, horns, conch shells, and other instruments for us to enjoy. This was a family type celebration and the locals were out in force to relax. It was easy to get wrapped up in the energy and fun.

Wed 1/28 Gustavia, St. Barts
As usual, we got our efficient start once the coffee was working its magic. Thanks to Julio for his emergency ration of coffee with a Christmas sticker proclaiming "To Jeff, From Julio with love." Leaving Grand Case, we needed motor assist until we got near Spanish Rock. We then had an exhilarating reach to Gustavia with a reefed main and full jib. We bypassed the mud baths at Tintamarre, some would say to save the liter of water needed to mix the mud, others because the Skipper still had our shampoo and soap.

Laugh if you want but we were still on our first water tank, while the crew of Jessica needed to stop off at Oyster Pond to top off theirs. We arrived at Gustavia early enough to have a great lunch and adult beverages while anchored, and we watched the tenders shuttle the people from the cruise ships to town. We eventually ventured to town ourselves, enjoying the sights and eating our "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

Thur 1/29 Gustavia, St. Barts
This full day at Gustavia gave people plenty of time to explore. Walt Croom and Ingrid Vandegaer walked to and enjoyed a beach. Jon Stufflebeem talked to the locals, while Sweeney stayed on board to get away from us (or perhaps to guard our water tanks).  Carole, Jeff, Ron, and Bob rented motor scooters and toured the island. We stopped at Baie St. Jean for some swimming, snorkeling, sun, and some wonderful Thai Shrimp Salad. There were more turtles here; one was rumored to be on a sunken lounge chair smoking a cigar. This may have been after one of our members was seen riding the turtle's back. The bikers toured some more and visited Saline. There are many wonderful secluded beaches on St.Barts, and this is a favorite with some. We were impressed, but the sudden rain forced a change in plans. After a return to Gustavia and a wonderful land based shower, we broke into groups to find some food and entertainment in town. During the afternoon, Sweeney had to crack open the second water tank on Torridon.

Friday 1/30 Ile Fourche, St. Barts
The previous afternoon the scuba divers among us were able to arrange a dive, so we got an early start from Gustavia (after getting baguettes and croissants, of course) in plenty of time to meet with the dive master at 10 AM at Ile Fourche. This is a secluded island off the north tip of St. Barts, and a wonderful way to end our trip. The snorkeling was the best of the trip.

After a nap, we sent a party ashore to scale the mountain to see what was there. Dinner was “must goes” and Sweeney really showed her talents as we had another enjoyable meal aboard.

Sat 1/31 Oyster Pond, St. Martin
Every trip has to have a last day and this was no exception. You just have to start focusing on everything that needs to get done before getting on the plane. It is probably a good thing that we didn't know that our flight was delayed by over four hours, because if we had another rum punch at the Dinghy Dock, I might be writing this story on a WIFI spot on St. Martin!

Anyway, that’s how I remember it.

Bob Rainey