ALLEN'S TREAT

1500 hours, February 21, 2015, Grand Case Bay, St. Martin: With winds scheduled to blow over 30 nmph on February 22, we headed back to Simpson Lagoon, and the 1700 hours opening of the bridge for inbound traffic. Before leaving we had all taken a swim off the swim step, including Jackie with her vest.

With the sand water color we saw when we were rounding Pointe Canonnier going north, we headed significantly west of the point going south, as the light conditions for reading water color were poor. As we started to round to bring us along the south side of St. Martin we suddenly hit very shallow water. The seas were 4 to 5 feet, we were nearly a mile west of the Pointe and the chart plotter was saying use should be in 50 ft of water.  We were getting readings of as little as 1.5 feet below the keel. Scary. We quickly turned west and fortunately the depth increased. When we reached the edge of the bank, we turned and followed the edge until we were well east of the Pointe.

Once inside the Lagoon we looked for a place to anchor in the anchor field immediately north of IGY's super yacht marina. The anchorage was nearly full and it took us three tries before finding a spot that would give us room to swing. Besides the oily water in the Lagoon,  the runway for the primary airport on the Island ends at the edge of the anchorage and planes take off directly over head. As soon as they are airborne the planes bank to the south and fly over the IGY Marinas which are also noisy when the planes take off.  Our anchorage was 700 to 800 feet off the end of the runway but only a little noisier than what we had experienced at the Marina.

For their last night with us, Allen made fantastic seafood shish kebab on our fly bridge grill. Although the best, this was not the first great meal Allen BBQ'ed for us during their stay. The next day we took Julie and Allen back to the St. Martin Yacht Club where we had picked them up 10 days earlier.