Arriving in St. Maarten

We made it to St. Maarten OK. It took about 30 hours to skip over 1/2 of the leeward islands (must come back some day) and sail straight from Guadeloupe to St. Maarten. We had a lot of wind so had to really, really reduce sail overnight to avoid arriving before the sun came up. Highlight of the trip was probably seeing Montserrat (Monster Rat as the kids called it) venting on 2 sides. The island is on heightened alert so we didn't go ashore and decided to pass it on the safe windward side.

We arrived in the lagoon to a welcoming committee of fellow family/kid boats that we had met earlier as well as family! The kids had a great time at the crab races and movie night on the beach last night and I caught up on sleep after the long sail and the 2 days tearing apart our dinghy engine's carburetor (a small pice of something was clogging the low-speed jet - a squirt of carb cleaner and compressed air cleared it in seconds once I found the problem).

Now we settle in to a little cruising life, connecting with the "local" boats and getting to know the area better before Iain arrives next week. Oh, and, um it's *hot* here! The beaches are very white here so several of us got a bit of a burn yesterday. Oops.