New Island, New Brain

The neurologist manifestation of Mel is a big fan of neuroplasticity. I mean, the fact that we are walking around with an entire organ that can change its structure and internal connections, and subsequently the way we experience the world, blows her mind. The concept is especially appealing to someone who by now has likely passed the midpoint of her life and yet does not want to acknowledge any upcoming negative slope in her potential to learn new things. Neuroscientists have shown that exposure to novelty boosts neuroplasticity in multiple ways, facilitated by Mel’s chemical frenemy, dopamine. So what is Mel’s prescription for aging well in your 50’s? Cruising!

Cruising with guests aboard is even better. You are motivated to max the days out. Over the last week we have taken our daughter Allie and her boyfriend Anthony to three different islands, anchoring, mooring, or docking eight times. We have navigated a narrow channel between reefs, had multiple water days, broke in our kayaks, explored inland, and basically had a novel experience every 30 minutes. This included going to the first island we haven’t visited before: St. Bart(h)’s. Nothing tickles the dendritic ivories quite like a new island! Mel’s brain has been renewed!

Mel, designated trip planner, had the challenge of constructing cruiser-friendly itineraries for each locale. Such a feat is a challenge in this region especially, with a tourist industry that tailors to cruise shippers, megayachties with massive crew manifests, all-inclusive resort clients, and those expecting to pay to be shown around by someone else. So TripAdvisor was out, and travel blogs of other cruisers were in. Accordingly, to pay this forward, Mel will list the outline of their travels here, peppered with the novel bits, to keep it interesting. If bored, skip down to the pics!

1. Sint Maarten

We spent a day walking around Philipsburg, exploring the boardwalk, which has seen better days. After walking past the 10th jewelry store in a row and trying to pick out the ones that were legit and the ones that were money laundering operations, Mel realized that Philipsburg’s sister city in the US is probably: Atlantic City. Time to go!

2. Anguilla

The southeast winds told us where to go next. After a couple hours of motor-sailing, we checked in at Road Bay, Anguilla, and watched a beautiful sunset while bobbing in the water after snorkle-exploring a sunken restaurant sitting in the harbor. The next day we made the short trip to the Prickly Pear Cays, where we anchored in the southern harbor and took our dinghy around, dragging it up a very steep beach. After doing a post-mortem on what at one point was supposedly undead coral, and saying hello to the 10 remaining fish working their butts off to entertain the tourists there, we discovered the reason for the name. Don’t go in the volleyball pit in your bare feet!

Our next stop was Island Harbor, in the north part of Anguilla. This required a fun negotiation between rocks, and a few pleasant locals came out to see us through the passage to the anchorage.

For whatever reason, although the water was nice and clear, we didn’t find any coral here either. A couple of small manta rays congratulated us for not running aground. So back out we went, this time to a mooring ball in the northeast corner of Crocus Bay. Finally! This is where cruisers should go for the most bang for your hook! We enjoyed some lovely kayaking near caves and watched brave tourists jump off a rock into the water. Snorkling near the small beach revealed a small amount of coral in clear water that sustained a decent population of fish, with two squid fiercely defending the fragile ecosystem. The rules forbade an overnight on the moorings, and so we booked it back to Road Harbor for the night. After we filled our whale gulpers with layers of sunscreen and sand, we had a lovely meal with wonderful service and live music at the Sandbar restaurant, and then we collapsed in our berths.

3. St. Bart(h)’s

After fourish? hours of motorsailing past SXM in light winds, we arrived at the check-in anchorage in St. Bart’s, in the wake of about 300 billionaires, who congregated there for New Year’s Eve. When we rolled through one week into January, there were probably still about 100 megayachts left, likely bereft of their owners/renters, being scrubbed raw by exhausted-looking crew. And photographed by Mel.

St. Bart’s revealed that Mel and Greg experience co-existing with megayachts in different ways. Mel is a “yachtwatcher”, snapping photos of the different boats, googling their history and owners, and observing the crew at work with her binoculars from afar. She feels like an anthropologist or exobiologist when she does this, as if she is observing the activities of a different species. But it is not the charterers/ owners she is fascinated with — it’s the boats. “How long does it take to buff the four glass staircases? Are all of those giant white globules atop the roof by the radar really functional, or do they serve as some sort of mating display? How do they take on provisions for thirty people — which hatch do they use? How long did it take to build the third floor? Do they tack things down with museum glue?” she asks herself. Greg, on the other hand, diverts his gaze from the floating, diesel-spewing palaces, as they trigger concerns about income inequality and the evils of unrestricted capitalism.

Despite their different takes on the view as they maneuvered through the megayacht minefield on approach to St. Bart’s, both Greg and Mel were surprised when they got to the large Gustavia anchorage. It was stuffed to the gills with liveaboards and charterers! Despite the massive size of the anchorage, we had to pack ourselves in like sardines. Greg likened the experience of overnighting there to camping in a parking lot. However, Mel’s curiosity was aroused — there must be something awesome in St. Bart’s beyond the yachtwatching!

Here’s how you find the cruiser’s secret itinerary for St. Bart’s. From the Gustavia anchorage, you dinghy past the docked megayachts and their special giant douche-canoe dinghy dock to the humbler dinghy dock — the one with the half-deflated Caribe attached with a proper cleat hitch. Then you skip the main street by the docks — the one with the Gucci and Louis Vuitton stores. After all, you are on a quest for novelty! Just one street back, you discover the best damn bakery you’ve encountered so far and wolf down a crack-filled raspberry croissant. Walking past the restaurant that inspired Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, you climb a hill to the remnants of Fort Carl and watch the sun set behind a packed harbor. The next day, you manage to rent the last car on the island at the airport. You then take off on a thrilling roller-coaster ride through the hills, finding hidden pools by a coral-covered beach, dining at a resort picked because you could actually park there, and standing under airplanes landing on the cutest island airport you have ever seen. You turn your car in just in time to get back to your boat, pull anchor, and motorsail for one hour over to Ile de Fourchue. You grab one of the ten mooring balls in this cute horseshoe of an uninhabited island, kayaking around as the sun sets, thankful that your risk of being awakened in the middle of the night by an imminent collision with a poorly anchored charter boat has dropped to nil.

The next day, you spend a few hours going back to SXM. Fun’s over — time to get to work!

Mel of course took 8000 photos. Peruse at your leisure, her freezing Midwestern friends!