An Unusual Paint Job - Marigot, St. Martin

While on our way to visit our friends aboard the charter yacht HANALEI BAY in Marigot, St. Martin (see below), we passed by this boat with a most unusual paint scheme.


It is a fiberglass boat but has been painted to look like a wood planked boat, complete with shipwreck accessories!

I bet there's a story here...

An Evening Aboard Charter Yacht HANALEI BAY

We were so happy to have received a call on the VHF from our friends aboard the charter yacht HANALEI BAY. They had arrived in St. Martin the day before and planned to stay a couple of days before continuing to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands from Trinidad. We visited Diane & Franz last night over in Marigot on the French side of St. Martin and had a wonderful time.

Here is a photo of Franz waiting to take our dinghy painter and welcome us aboard.

Diane & Franz sailed to Trinidad last summer where they hauled the boat for its annual maintenance and to prepare for the next charter season. They enjoy their time in Trinidad and have made many friends there over the last seven summers.

Hanalei Bay is a beautiful custom-built yacht designed and built to high Canadian standards for the charter industry. We enjoyed our evening lounging on the aft deck with the great company for our hosts, topped off with excellent French Cabernet Sauvignon, Camembert cheese, and wild boar pate that they picked up on Martinique.

Hanalei Bay still has a few weeks available in their charter calendar for the 2006 season. Please contact us (charters@paradiseconnections.com) for more information and availability for a Caribbean yacht charter sailing vacation aboard Hanalei Bay in the Virgin Islands.

They are an excellent choice whether it is for honeymoons, families, corporate incentives, or a group of friends! Hanalei Bay also offers charters for their annual passage down the Caribbean island chain from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad in June/July.

Veteran's Day in the Boatyard

We spent our long weekend on the hard in the boatyard. On Thursday, November 10th, we hauled out our Cal-34 So It Goes at Bobby's Marina at Simpson Bay Lagoon in St Maarten and we launched Monday November 14th.

We were satisfied with our accomplishments as we completed all the tasks we wanted to do and thus shortened "The List".

I drilled 4 holes in the bottom of the boat to reroute our cockpit drains. Bob applied the new antifouling paint, Sea Hawk Islands 44, with the help of his iPod. We'll see how it does. Simpson Bay Lagoon has to be one of the nastiest places for fouling... especially when we were anchored over in the part by Budget Marine. We are now closer to the airport extension and the water is much cleaner. We also drilled a couple of more holes in the bottom for our new depth sounder and log. Worked on the installation of our RVG windvane self-steering gear.

As we had to stay out for five days because of the long holiday weekend, we weren't rushed and didn't worry when the rain came (it usually waited until we were finished with an outside chore like painting).

On Monday morning, the travelift put us back in the water and there were no leaks from the new thruhulls... Hurray!

SINT MAARTEN COAST GUARD VISITATION

This morning we had a visit from the Sint Maarten Coast Guard to make sure our paperwork was in order (it was). They have stopped by So It Goes before, as well as a couple of other teams from the SXM Coast Guard over the past few months, and each time they have been professional and polite. I would guess that their boat is approximately 30 feet and find it quite impressive. Bob asked one of the officers "How fast does it go?"... The reply was "As fast as we want it to".