My St Maarten Sailing Trip Pt 2: Day 1 on Water Super Fun-Then Terrifying!

After a great 3 day stay at the Royal Palms, we crossed over to the Franch side of the island, bought our provisions for the boat and the next day took it out and grabbed a mooring ballat Tintamarre- an uninhabited island just north of St Maarten.

We had a great day, playing the sun, and going on to the island. While most of the group hiked to the far side of the island. My friend Karen and I stay on the beach at a picnic table under a huge tree that gave us shade..and an upfront view of a large and active group of Igaunas and Hermit Crabs.

Across from us on the other picnic table was a large group of French men and women, having a celebration...laughing and singing and when the started singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" Kare and I decide to sing along- we were immediately invited over to join the group- one of which was a local hotel owner of a small resort called "The Forest" and another of which was the chef for the resort. We dined on fine wine, champagne and cheeses and sang the afternoon away.

A fantastic afternoon with creatures and new friends!

We decided to stay on the mooring ball off the island that night and we had the entire area to ourselves after our new friends and everyone else left....

Later is when it got...interesting.

Just past midnight under rough seas and high winds we snapped our mooring line...one of the crew noticed we had passed other mooring balls as we were drifting out to sea away from the island- a SCAY though when you are in total darkness!

But our hero Captain Dave sprung into action...using only the instruments (once again we were in total darkness with only flashlights to see ahead), Capt Dave got us back to where the morring balls were and we dropped anchor. Then we took shifts (mine was 2am-4am) to watch those instruments so we didn't drift into shore if the winds did change.

It was a scary night..but the last of the dramam for our teip.

Photos and video of the day are below.