We've pitched up in the lagoon in St. Martin, just this side of the imaginary line that turns the water from French to Dutch, and just about under the shadow of the hill called the Witch's Tit. Charming, eh? In the evening, the goats scramble around the treacherous rocks at the top, and there's an osprey up there that oversees everything.

We came into the lagoon to enjoy the absence of chop and swell, but there's so much traffic that everything seems to bobble a bit, or a lot, all the time. There's just too many boats, and some drivers ignore courtesy and safety. There's a guy who makes a regular habit of sailing around in a little dinghy for a couple of hours after dark, no light. There's high-speed tenders from the big yachts screaming by at 30-40 mph through a crowded anchorage, sometimes in the dark. Somebody was killed in a dinghy a couple of weeks ago. Think of us, staying aboard after dark! Surrounded by a citadel of fiberglass! No nightlife! Listening to NPR, in bed by 9.

Perfectly okay sail from St. Barth to St. Martin - two weeks ago now - no fish, but Randy did spot a whale, two whales, mother and calf, and in my excitement, I shot about half-a-dozen absolutely useless photos. All we saw were their elegant backs, flashes of white belly under the water, and they slid away west. Our first big whale. Randy thinks it was probably a humpback.

Marigot is still the same dirty old town. You expect tropical French elegance, and there's a bit of that, here and there, but there's garbage in the streets, dog crap, and buildings that seems to have grown like a bunch of concrete boxes out of a maze of cruddy streets that never have a proper sidewalk or ditch, just stagnant trenches full of garbage. Nobody ever planned for people to actually walk around, let alone enjoy doing it. There are some great restaurants, but checking them out involves going out after dark, so we just remember the great nights we had out with Gord and Marj last year. There just isn't enough incentive to get off the boat, when we're loaded with great groceries.

We're very careful of traffic in Marigot, particularly the tourists on the four-wheeled machines....Philipsburg is not much better, only with lots of jewellery stores and cruiseship passengers on those Seguay machines (is that how it's spelled?). Never walk if you can pay to ride. It's a rule. Randy and I had lunch on the boardwalk and people-watched until we couldn't take any more. Whoo-eee. On the back street there's a mile or so of cheaper shops, and in a window I saw a fetching women's top printed with big silver letters across the front "FLAT BOARD PANEL." I went in and had another look (you could get it in three different colours) and I asked the East Indian shop lady what it meant. "Oh, nothing bad lady!"

Tourists are everywhere, and are encouraged to rent high-speed machines and tear around on land and sea during their brief stays. Here in the lagoon, they file by at high speed on jetskis and jetski dinghy things, following the leader in a row like crazed duckies, too fast to see anything, and bouncing over each other's wakes until everybody's kidneys are jangled and all the sailboats are rolling. Today we saw one lady in the bow of one of the little duckies with her head hung between her knees in vomit or faint position, while her large male partner kept zooming along, bounce, bounce, bounce, back to the cruise ship. (Are we having fun yet? asks the capt.)
Lots of Canadians here in the lagoon -- we're in a veritable pocket of Canucks just now. Speaking of, I had an email from Dr. Steve, formerly of the good ship Carapan, who is now freezing his everything off, somewhere in northern Ontario. He refered to my recent catch as a "nice bait." Steve, while you're treating your 50th snot-bound sniveller this week, I'll be catching little fish. I win.

We went for a walk in Marigot a couple of days ago, looking for the hardware store and the chandlery (branching out just a bit) and came upon it just as it was re-opening after lunch (2 pm). A Gerard Depardeau-type (it's probably not spelled right, but you know who I mean) helped us out with spending another small whack of Euros on fishing lures, and he was wonderfully entertaining. He promised me Tuna!Tuna!Tuna! And he gave us all sorts of guidance about where to get fish around St. Martin and Anguilla. Lovely fella. Weird Gallic haircut, showing the effect of years of French bread and cheese and wine and probably tuna, tuna, tuna, but his fractured English was charming.

It's winter here too, and there's been a week or two of windy rainy weather, and sort of cold at night. Below 20C one night. I had to leap up and put on my polar fleece. Marjorie is back in the water, patched and painted and I've been happily rowing around the lagoon every day. A guy on a derelict concrete boat with a big hole in the side offered me a whiskey as I rowed passed (Charlie on Mi Amante has dubbed these boats "hovel craft"). I really missed the rowing while Marj was out of action. We're both hauling around extra poundage. Cheese and bread - it's a killer. And we're agog with the incredible deals on wine, cheese, cookies, chocolate, anything with fat is great and cheap. Real meat too. No chicken feet or lips.

We've shopped til we've dropped. There's a new D400 wind generator in boxes on Tom's bunk waiting to be installed. Same day, the mate went shopping in Philipsburg (Sodom and Gomorrah South) with Ann from Rasi and Michelle from Mi Amante, and came home to find the captain positively faint from all the day's expenditures. All will be well - from now on we won't have to run the engine everyday to provide the paltry amps we consume. I'll unpack the hairdryer, eh?