TWO WEEKS AND STILL WAITING .......................

Not so long ago "MARI-CHA III" was the fastest sailing yacht in the world, setting a great many records for a monohull including the Trans-Atlantic crossing, doing that passage in just over 9 days .................(Check out the size of it by seeing the bicycles on the foredeck) ............ That same record fell recently to a French trimaran that did the same passage in 3 days, 3 hours and 37 minutes (or close to that) .......... Leaves you wondering if they ever actually touched the water.................. Another record was recently set in "Grande Anse" (Big Bay beach) in St. Martin where the "Queen of Florida and the Bahamas" was momentarily escorted by four French 'Gendarmes' ............. The occassion was a street festival in preparation of " Grande Carnivale" to be held later next month in all the French Islands .............. We strolled through the waterfront street and caught a glimpse of the ocean swimming pool, tethered and fully surrounded by plastic floats .............



Restaurant keepers and stall owners were out in full................ Giving you the low-down on all the specials in fluent French ................. Very colourful, very loud and very French .....................Amazingly we think that all the European smokers have escaped to St. Martin and are catching up on the times they were restricted ..............Robin Williams, puts it so beautifully when he said about the French in his comedy skit " We give a cigarette to the baby, here my Darling suck on it, we don't care, 'Life is sheet', get used to it "............ You have to go into a bathroom if you want to escape the smoke zone ...............DO NOT GO OUT IN THE OPEN .............. Our Aussie friends Peter and Sandra on the Yacht "BONDI TRAM" took us to the street carnivale in their rented car ..............



Now you may not have a car, but you can still put out great music by linking your 'ipod' to a battery powered speaker system on your extended bicycle ............. Big speaker in the the 5-gallon bucket and the sub-woofer just behind ............. There was plenty to listen to and plenty to see, for young and for old ................



Back in Simpson Lagoon there is this volcanic peak known as "Witch's Tit" that begs to be climbed ................It really is steep, and our friend Arnd almost made it to the top ..................... Double-click on the photo to enlarge it still further ................ It definitely is not insurmountable ..........



So while the wind still howls outside we do the repairs on our awnings, replacing the windscreen in the dodger and the canvas over the cockpit ................... Teamwork in the sewing department ............... Joined the French couple on the boat " VARDES" next to us, for sundowners ...............Sailing and living the artistic dream on an exquisite laminated plywood marvel .............. The French yacht, has a beautiful interior, very well laid out and thought out .................



And if you think you have seen it all, well here's a new one ...............A super yacht tender towing a floating platform with an exercise machine on it ................ It was loaded from the 'garage' on a superyacht "SLIPSTREAM" to be taken to shore for repair ............... Now that was an 'exercise' in itself ................

We know how lucky we really are, for the 'Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow' slid right past us ............................. We could almost have touched it ............ May be next time..................... And yesterday who should slide out under the opening bridge on the Dutch side of the lagoon ? ................. None other than 'LAURA BEKKER' the 15-yr old Dutch girl on her way round the world to set the new record as the youngest ever single-handed circumnavigator .............. Still trying to work out why she called her yacht "GUPPY" ............ Her yacht is nowhere near as small as a guppy ....... The other people on board were a video crew as she went through the bridge opening to anchor again outside in the bay ................