Fun times at the St Barts Bucket Regatta watching all the magnificent machines, old and new, large and larger race around the island for 3 days and lots of adult beverages requires some relaxation time.
JClass Finish
The party the final night was excellent, we had anchored in the mix of boats, right in the middle of the local live aboards whose halyards (ropes) continuously bang against the mast all night long with every wave / wake that rolls through. We dove on our anchor and yep, we are definitely over many of the anchors that belong to the boats behind us, depending on the wind direction. Waking up the morning after and the anochorage had all but cleared out by 9am. We were lazy and did just about nothing, but we did manage to get a snorkel run to nature park where all the dive boats were taking folks from land.
Noticed a lull in dive boats and dinghies so we made our way over and checked it out. First went left toward the Atlantic, then back to the right closer to the harbor, crystal clear water. Can see down 30+ feet at the bottom, lots of little fishes and pretty decent coral life. As we were swimming toward the harbor a dive boat came in and used the same mooring that our dinghy was tied to and motioned us over as they had united one our lines and it wasn’t really secure. They suggested we just tie to the cleat on the dive boat (super nice) which we did. They were giving the pre-tour speech to the boat guests and we continued on with our snorkel. As we were getting closer to the harbor out of the corner of my mask I see a fish being chased and turned just in time to see Barry the barracuda catch a fish 1/2 its size by the tail. (the fish was 1/2 its size by length but almost wider). Sinking its backward slung teeth into the fish, the fish squirmed and tried to get a way, in a moment of panic, Barry grabbed another bite that included biting off the tail section of his breakfast. Breakfast was still trying to swim away but without a tail wasn’t getting anywhere fast, then Barry was back again for another chunk and then another, in no time only a 1/4 of the fish remained (which was the head and to Christine’s horror was still alive). We slowly backed away and while keeping an eye on Barry and Barry keeping an eye on us, well I was cold anyway so enough of this for the day. As we swam past the dive boat, just mentioned to the deck crew – hopefully quiet enough not to spook the guests that the dive was great and the barracuda just had lunch.. Rest of the day was spent lounging around.
Amongst all the boats anchored in close proximity, the anchor we were over was to RAN Sailing which we had met in Chatham Bay back in December on our way up from Grenada. I waved to them as they were heading in.
Our neighbors had cleared out and it was our turn to go do the formalities and clear out of St Bart’s, we had the uninhabited island of Ile Fourche on our agenda as a stop on the way back, just a few miles away from St Bart’s – but needed to get our clearance to enter back in the Saint Marten. Customs office was busy with all the race boats checking out, but made it through after just a short wait. Decided to walk to the supermarket to see if we needed anything, we ran into Malin of RAN sailing at the grocery and chatted about their plans which turned out to be similar to our “proposed” itinerary so we will probably be bumping into them a few times in the next month – be sure to check out their popular video blog.
Lazy day for our lazy ways, a quiet evening and dinner on board, out like a light bulb while reading what the internet had to offer. Tomorrow we motivate and seek out new spots in these parts.
