St. Maarten

We have been waiting for the Regatta all week and filled our time by celebrating a carnival holiday with the locals.  There have been at least 2 parades with hundreds of people dressed up dancing around the whole town.  Everyone is dancing.  The guy on the sidewalk barbecuing the ribs is dancing, the spectators are dancing, and the girls dressed up dance from the start of the parade to the finish.  It looked hot and exhausting. 

We also jinxed ourselves when my parents were here.  We were bragging about how we haven’t been sick or sunburned at all since living on the boat.  We have spent 2 days recovering from some kind of bug.  We have our suspicions that it wasn’t an actual bug, but we both got sick from the filth here in St. Martin.  This island is split in two, a French side and a Dutch side.  The French side is dirty.  We can smell the sewer from our boat and they are constantly burning trash and the ashes shower our boat and lungs all day long.  We had enough energy yesterday to go check out Maho Beach (thanks Aaron H. for recommending).  I’m sure most of you have seen the YouTube video where the girl gets blown face first into the curb from the jet blast!  We didn’t get hurt, but it was an awesome experience.  I know my dad is jealous of our day yesterday.  He would have loved to sit on the beach all day as the different planes land and takeoff.  We actually left after it looked like none of the big jets were going to take off and turned back around when we were ½ mile away because we could hear one getting ready.  Boy are we happy we went back to have the jet blast our face with sand!!! 

The regatta started yesterday and it is unlike anything we have ever seen.  So many sailboats so close together, it is a sight to see.  We would make fun of ourselves as we watched because if we were out there we would have definitely run into another boat.  We also would be the lone boat coming through the finish line after everyone else was back at anchor partying on the beach.  Even though we live on a sailboat there is still something about seeing a sailboat glide through the water with the sails full of wind that takes your breath away.  The combination of Man and Mother Nature that moves these boats around is amazing.