St Martin: Simpson Bay Sludge and Leap Frog

Firstly, I must apologise for the title as it sounds more interesting that this blog will actually be, but read on.

In our first blog on St Martin (Life on the Lagoon) we wrote about the lagoon.  A lot has changed since we were last here, namely the large shallow anchoring space has been made a ‘no anchoring’ area while they build a causeway right across the lagoon.  Unfortunately for yachties that cannot afford the super yacht marina prices, we are all forced to congregate in a small area in close quarters to each other.  Which brings me to the title.

Simpson Bay Lagoon is a large landlocked puddle about 3m deep with only two entry/exits.  Because of this, and all of the earth works that are going on, there is a large layer of crap (figuratively and literally) that has collected in a 3ft layer on the bottom of the lagoon.  This is the Simpson Bay sludge.

This nice layer of sludge makes it practically impossible, even with our oversize “charter” anchor to get a good holding.  The other day we anchored with a 3 to 1 scope and found ourselves in very short order, about 100m from where we first dropped the anchor.  We realised this late at night and had to up anchor and try again in the dark.   The anchor came up unrecognisable as a big ball of crud.  Re-anchoring required 4 attempts. Now with a 7 to 1 scope, we have reasonable holding, but always are a bit apprehensive when we leave the boat. 

Late yesterday the wind blew.  Fortunately our oversized anchor and storm length of rode held us solid.  But not the boat in front of us.  To add to this, another boat had come in and anchored uncomfortably close to us.  As the evening drew on, and dark descended, we kept hoping that the owners of the dragging boat would arrive home and move before they hit us.  Moving our boat would be more difficult as our anchor was now underneath them.  Unfortunately, they never arrived home.  Perhaps this time the sludge helped us out, because in full throttle reverse we were able to drag our anchor out from under them and move. This time the anchor came up with an unexpected present of a new garden hose.  We played leap-frog and went in front of the dragging boat, taking their original anchoring spot. The boat that had anchored close to us was watching what was going on and before we had time to go and attend to the yacht that was slowly dragging, he was on board and moved them to the back of the herd.  Problem solved for everyone!

Now, with 35m of chain out in 3m of water we feel a little silly, but we still sleep with the anchor alarm on and get up several times a night to check our vicinity to other vessels.  Who would have thought that anchoring in a landlocked lagoon could be so stressful!