We had been told many times by friends and cruisers that we met that we would love the French islands fo the Carribean.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some things we did enjoy about St. Martin. Overall, however, our time there did not meet our expectations. We can’t blame the island for some of the mishaps that occurred, but we still left without a desire to return anytime soon.

We arrived in Marigot Bay, St. Martin in January of 2023 from a short sail from Anguilla. From a distance, you can see that Marigot is much more populated and less tropical than Anguilla. There were boats everywhere in the bay but none seemed to be picking up the many mooring balls. We decided to drop anchor and head in to clear into the country, which ended up being a very casual process at a marine store called Island Water World.

There really wasn’t to see in Marigot. Throughout the week, we tried a few different restaurants, picked up croissants at either of the two bakeries, and walked up to the small fort ruins. A highlight for dinner was a food truck that sold pizza in the parking lot. We enjoyed stopping in to a local butcher’s shop to pick up some inexpensive but delicious wine, cheese, and salami that we offered when hosting some cruisers on our boat for happy hour. During the day, there were those cheap stalls used to lure tourists coming by on a ferry or cruise ship. We didn’t have a chance to stop by the local fish market in the early mornings during the week, but we imagine we would have enjoyed that. The town was much sleepier than we expected, but we felt pretty safe at night when we walked around.

The other areas we explored in St. Martin were Grand Case and Oriental Bay. Both have beach clubs where you can rent beach chairs on the sand. Oriental Bay seemed to be popular with the cruise shippers, and there is a nude beach on far end so you get an interesting crowd. Grand Case seemed to be more our vibe. Rainbow Cafe has DJs come play tropical house music while you dine on expensive but delicious food, and Lolo’s by the dinghy dock is a more lowkey, cruiser-friendly vibe with great barbeque.

We also took a hike to Peak Paradis. We rented a car and parked at the entrance of Lotus Farms, then walked up the steep road. The hike was mainly just a walk on the road, but we did get to see some monkeys hanging around the tree canopy at the top. There is a small sign on the left hand side that says hike, which directs you to a small dirt path that leads you up to a nice view of the island. It is a short ways once you get off the road to reach the viewpoint.

St. Maarten definitely seemed more lively. There are many more restaurants and late night bar spots. A popular spot for cruisers is Lagoonies, which has a great happy hour and had the best food out of any place we had tried on the Dutch side. I did my scuba diving certifications at Ocean Explorers, and I could not recommend them more. The dive masters were helpful, safe, attentive, and fun, and the groups were very small. We saw sharks, turtles, puffer fish, an octopus, and really any sort of fish you could imagine.

The grocery stores in St. Maarten are AMAZING. Roman and I were stunned by the size of the stores and the selection. The food also seemed to stay fresh and avoid mold longer than the other stores of the Caribbean, including the Virgin Islands. The meat options were still very expensive, so Roman and I opted to stick to our plan of saving meat for when we are eating at restaurants.

The difference between the Dutch and French sides are pretty clear. The Dutch have done a much better job at rebuilding since Hurricane Irma, which we learned from locals was because the Dutch government gave strict and near deadlines for covering or leveling buildings that had been ruined, as well as provided money to rebuild with the ultimatum that no more would be coming if they didn’t use the money to rebuild. On the contrary, the French gave the people of the island money, which ultimately did not go towards rebuilding. As a result, there are many more destroyed buildings on the French side, while the Dutch side seems more modern and clean. There are even new fancy developments going up on the Dutch side.

We had some mounting boat projects that we were hoping to get done in St. Martin. To name a few, we had a spun prop hub and our wind turbine was still not spinning. I won’t bore you with the back and forth trips to the many marine part stores, and the multiple failures of having the wrong parts. The mechanic at Shrimpy’s, which is in the channel connecting Marigot to the lagoon was able to fix both the dinghy and the wind turbine, not without some challenges of course. We had the prop hub replaced and it still didn’t work, so he ended up screwing some magic into it to get it working, and our wind turbine had some corroded bearings that just needed to be replaced.

After a few calm nights in Marigot with clear waters and skies, a huge storm rolled in that brought a massive swell. Unfortunately, we had guests visiting us and staying in Marigot so we had changed our plans to stay in the bay instead of moving around. We came back to the boat one evening after exploring Oriental Bay to crazy conditions. Thankfully (but maybe not), we had decided to tie up to one of the free mooring balls that morning. As we were getting back on the boat, we looked behind us and saw a boat crash into the rock. We later learned that it had been tied up to one of the mooring balls, but because the mooring balls don’t have enough line to accomodate large swells, the boat’s cleat had been ripped off… something that could have happened to us! It was horrifying to watch. We stayed pretty alert the whole night, but it would have been hard to sleep with the yanking from the mooring.

We woke up the next day to see that our teak under the cleat on our starboard bow had cracked, which explained the sounds we heard all night.

In the middle of the night, Roman tried a few different methods in an attempt to stop the yanking, from lengthening or shortening our line to attaching a snubber. We later learned that we probably didn’t lengthen the line enough to accomodate for the swell size. When the bridge opened from Marigot into the lagoon that next morning, we took advantage of the opportunity to get away from the crazy rocking.

Going through the small channel under the bridge was terrifying. We had to circle around in the bay as we waited for the outbound traffic. The swell was still huge and waves were crashing near the opening of the channel. We finally made it through and were following the channel markers when we suddenly stopped moving.

WE HAD RAN AGROUND!

We were right next to another monohull that was anchored, so it didn’t make any sense. Unfortunately, they were French, and it became clear that their English was not great. Roman tried hopping in our dinghy to pull us backward, but the dinghy wouldn’t start. Of course.

We called a German friend in the bay who came under the bridge in his dinghy with another friend. Between the two of them and the Frenchman, we were able to pull ourselves out of where we had ran aground and safely navigated through the lagoon to a spot where we dropped anchor. Everyone else seemed pretty calm as they had all ran aground before, but we never had so we were embarrassed and stressed. We spent a few nights in the lagoon surrounded by darelect boats but enjoying the calmness.

On our way out of the lagoon, we followed the same path that we came… but we RAN AGROUND AGAIN! It seriously didn’t make any sense. Thankfully this time, we were able to back ourselves out and make it out of the lagoon unscathed. We were ready to get away from this island.

We checked out and spent a night in the Grand Case before our trip to St. Barths. There are some buoys that mark where you cannot anchor because of the air traffic that passes by. We took the dinghy to shore to enjoy dinner and spent the night looking up at the stars. It was definitely calmer here than it was in Marigot.

Feel free to send us a message on Instagram to @apres_sail if you have any questions about our time in St. Martin or St. Maarten. We’d be happy to provide you the location of where we ran aground (twice) to help you avoid the same problem in the future.

Cheers!