Sailing in March - a look at the Misty Blue Journey

From the Antilles - Sint Maarten to Saint Martin to St. John to St. Thomas and landing in April in the Spanish Virgin Islands - Culebra

Capt. Stephen, First Mate Finley and I set sail on our Leopard 42, Misty Blue from Sint Maarten on March 18th.  After quite an adventure to get Finley to Sint Maarten (including his own private flight), we were proud of ourselves for managing the journey. (international health certificate, loads of permits and various airline travels).  

Sint Maarten is a beautiful island yet not really a pet-friendly destination.  Island life is not known for their love of dogs and so this was no surprise.  However, having experienced the Bahamas on other sailing trips, we were surprised to find no places we could really take Finley.  Therefore, we opted to move around to the French side of the island, Saint Martin.  

In Saint Martin, we anchored at Marigot Bay, enjoyed a few nights of delicious French food, did a hike with Finley to an old fort and tried to find some balance from the uncharacteristic wind gusts which made for an uncomfortable time aboard.

Though we wanted to explore Anguilla, we were not set up with the proper paperwork for Finley so we moved on to St. John.  We had received a permit to take Finley into the BVI but after speaking with a nearby cruiser on Hamisha, we decided to save the BVI until next season.   The high season is now and there are 100s of boats and only mooring balls - no fun for liveaboard cruisers who like peace and not partying.

So we landed in St John and stayed outside of Coral Bay and it was absolutely a favorite spot.  Once the winds died down, we were able to enjoy it ALOT, we took our lil Bluebird (our small dingy boat) over to the National Park and Finley ran and followed goats and chickens.   We also did quite a bit of snorkeling including discovering a few conch for which (it being conch season) meant we had dinner quite a few nights of conch fritters!  Amazing recipe of Stephens will be posted here in the future!

Hoping yall will be patient with me on this new blogging platform..it is definitely not in my comfort zone!  However, as Stephen and I forget the last stop on our way to the next, we decided it was important to document these rather diverse ports and experiences!

I will be uploading some fabulous photos from my Canon in the very near future!

Cheers, Stephen, Catherine and Finley

The beach on Round Bay, St John where we stayed anchored for a week.. WE LOVED IT