Steps – 10, 332
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| Canada II |
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| ours is the baby |
account for at least 5,000 additional crew. We didn’t ever notice the crowd – there definitely was a crowd, but it was totally manageable.
The island of St. Maarten has a French side and a Dutch side - where we were today.
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| grinding the winch |
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| Canada II senior crew |
Our tour stayed very close to the ship,
so close that we could see it throughout our tour. Not that we’d have time – we
were busy sailing the Canada II home to victory on the America’s Cup winning racing
sailboat.
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| whole crew |
From the port, we walked about 5 minutes to where we boarded a tender boat to take us to Canada II anchored off shore. Once on the 12 Metre Class sailing yacht (the class is 12m not the actual length of the boat), we each learned how to perform our jobs – I was both team captain and primary grinder, Chris was also a grinder – our job was to operate the ship’s manual winches to move the boom. According to Wikipedia “It is a physically demanding role with a significant impact on a racing yacht's overall performance” – yup, these are real jobs, we were flat out working to move the boom (moving the sail back and forth.) The job of a primary grinder
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| yachts abound |
was to move a bicycle pedal type mechanism with our arms – Chris and I were both partnered
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| post victory chill |
with 2 others. There were 3 crew, one who gave the grinder commands – when he said so, we moved the pedals like our lives depended on it. There were 3 gears, 2 forward and one back. All of this was while the boat was listing, and we were trying keep balance – it was AWESOME!
We were on the water for about 2 hours,
we practiced and then raced 2 other boats over 5 legs. Finally, we celebrated our
victory over a post race rum punch.
Of course the crew was super fun. It doesn’t take much to surmise that the people are what make our experiences memorable.
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| lunch |
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| awesome server |
After the rum punch, we did a bit of shopping for crew shirts and then lunch. St Marrtin is exactly what we expected but didn’t find in other Caribbean ports. This is established, commercial, tourist-ville. Neither is better than the other, but we’ve expected a bit more infrastructure to help us spend money.
We wandered the beach-front strip looking for a place that called to us. Although we are on the Dutch side of the island, we found a French grocery store we had
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| conch fritters, beer and ICE |
to check out. Firstly, there was AC. Secondly, there were things we remember of French supermarkets…chips! For the past 3 weeks, we’ve been searching for new flavoured chips…today was the day. We try to get compté chips in Europe, and hoped for them as soon as we walked in, nope…what we did get was BETTER…chevre! Had to come to the Caribbean for French chips.
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| road margarita |
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| score! |
half the bucket of ice cooling myself down. We hadn’t needed a bathroom since leaving the ship 5 hours ago…we were sweating. This was a great place to chill for a while. The most interesting aspect was the kids that were put to work here. About 6 kids were running back and forth from the restaurant to the beach with menus and drinks, all the while messing around with each other…I loved just watching them do their thing.
On the way back to the ship we stopped for one last margarita for the walk – we needed hydration!
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| working kids |
kids working
By the time we got back we stopped for a bit of food to
take back to the room, showered off the sweat and salt of the day and took a nap.
and more
1 comment:
Oh I absolutely love those chips. You can buy them at the Italian Supermarket on Edmonton Trail. They come in many flavours. Sooo delicious 😋
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