St Martin

There's no need to go to the airport beach to get jetblasted. Tropical storm Olga is in the vicinity, and it's making it very, very windy. We have had gusts to 50 knots which causes the boat to swerve around and blow 15 degrees onto its side. Like most sailors, on nights like this I don't really sleep...just drift a little below the surface with one weather eye open, and ears listening to every noise from the boat. Keeps you out of trouble, but not very restful.

So we're holding tight in the lagoon at St Martin. The weather is actually quite pleasant: warm and mostly sunny. It's just the wind that is problematic. The French coast guard was stopping boats from leaving bays on their side (we're on the Dutch side now) due to 6m seas.

The lagoon is a good place for boat maintenance; there's services of every kind and good hardware stores etc. But the water is not too clean: not good enough for swimming anyway, and swimming is nice in 29C. So we're keen to leave, finally, for St Barts. Perhaps Saturday?

Sounds like a fun place with great snorkeling.

Greg bought a case of Heineken and a case of sparkling water, and paid more for the water. Does that strike you as strange?