Grand Case-St Barts and Dale and Lynn

03/01/09 The Pictures that are in the file today show a day trip up to the top of St Maarten on the French side......we stopped at Grand Case for Lunch....most shops are closed from 11-3 ...the French you know......Pretty trip ...the French side is much prettier but very dry.....the pictures on the beach were from Qrient Bay...very busy with foreign tourists.......Americans in St Maarten are probably only about 20% of the tourists...

We then took two days and sailed to St Barts.....going over we had to motor upwing for three hours....but coming back we had a wonderful sail with about 15K on the hind quarter......Maltese Falcon we saw coming out of St Barts as we entered....it was going to fast and could not catch up to it.

St Barts is really French, all the fancy shops Hermes, etc. etc.....very expensive ..only take Euros......good for one night....had a so so French dinner that was way to expensive and went back to the boat. Big swells in the harbor kept us up all night as the boat rolled around........ah back to St Maarten via sailing toward Saba before we tacked back.

Getting home we got in touch with Dale and Lynn and their group.....we met yesterday at the boat and we took then to Sunset bar at the end of the airport waiting for Peter Lund to catch his plane home.....they enjoyed seeing how close the planes came to the bar coming off the ocean.....then over to the St Maarten Yacht Club for the 5:30 bridge opening.......it’s a big event......watch the huge boats sneak thru this small bridge......check out these big sailboats coming thru...
Off to get my sails at Fedex for the race......Everyone starts arriving for the Heineken and Sheery and I have much to do to get ready. Cap Jim