Antigua - St. Maarten

I am aware that this blog is long overdue. . . we left off in Antigua at the red hat party. We all went and waited in line to get our red hats. Free rum was going around and everyone was dancing to a funky band called Sound Citizen. Needless to say it wasn’t all peachy, 3 of us had our hats stolen while we were dancing. We went back to the counter to see about getting another one but unfortunately no ticket no hat. The lady told us that in the past people have gotten violent over these hats and actually punched others to take theirs. . . can you believe over a hat! Anyway the night just got worse when we arrived back at the boat to find one of our fishing rods and my snorkel gear were taken off the boat in Falmouth Harbour when we were at the party. To top it all off my dad lost his phone that day as well.

Krista, my mom and I with our red hats

My dad with his friend, Richard

We spent the next two days at the police station to get reports for our insurance, what a mission that was. If you can avoid the Antiguan Police Station, please do, if not, well goodluck getting what you need sorted.

Saturday afternoon was a most splendid one as we spent it drinking cocktails at Catherines with Secoudon and Truant while Sound Citizen played again.

The girls with their cocktails

The next day we sailed with our spinnaker around to Jolly Harbour to have lunch to catch up with some friends we had made previously, Dino and Debbie.

Lunch with Dino, Debbie and their son, Luca

I departed 2 days later to California, to visit my boyfriend for 2 weeks. My parents stayed in Antigua for a few days more, visiting with some friends, Stephen and Gayle from Canada and Richard and his wife Sue from South Africa. Whilst sailing between Falmouth and Jolly harbor my mom caught a Kingfish, which later got thrown overboard again as we have heard of a few cases of Kingfish carrying the reef poison.

Mom and dad with their friends Richard and Sue

Mom with their friends Stephan and Gaelle

My parents took a sail to St. Maarten and met up again with Secoudon. In California, Travis and I packed for a roadtrip and drove to Nebraska to visit his oldest brother, Nathan, and his family. On the way we drove through Colorado where there was snow! It was actually snowing in Colorado on our drive back to California. We had an amazing time in Nebraska. I flew out of California on the 11^th May and had 3 flights to get back to St. Maarten. On my one flight from Dallas to Miami, I had a great dane sitting in the row of seats behind me… can you believe! When I arrived in St. Maarten, Krista and Bill from Secoudon were waiting at the yacht club when I arrived with my parents, just to welcome me back to the boat with some fireball shooters!

My passenger behind me on the plane

Fireball Shooters!

We moved from Simpson Bay in St. Maarten to Marigot Bay, where the water was a actually swimmable. Secoudon had barnacles growing all over the bottom of their boat from sitting in Simpson Bay marina for 2 weeks! My father kindly offered to help clean his hull and arrived back at Jangles completely covered in tiny small shrimplike creatures – which we later discovered were actually barnacle larvae. . . so gross!

Barnacle larvae

Secoudon had left to head back south to Trinidad, and my brother has arrived in St. Maarten to join the boat for 5 weeks!

After a day of rest for my brother after his long journey from Australia, we spent the afternoon at the famous Sunset beach in St. Maarten where you watch the airplanes land at the airport. After a few frozen margaritas we headed back to the boat.

Airplane landing in St. Maarten

My parents and my brother

We checked out today on the French side of St. Maarten and set sail tomorrow for the BVI.