On board of Elli Di
The six of us, after the meeting, made another attempt to prepare for the Atlantic crossing. While the others worked on a shopping list of the necessary supplies, I took all first aid kits on board and emptied them on the cockpit table, then threw away expired medications, googled names of the ones with unknown indications and labeled them, sorted the medications into containers and added to the shopping list a few more that, in my opinion, were good to have.
The actual shopping was postponed until the next day. The catamaran crew went ashore for dinner. Vladimir and Dmitry from Grace were taken to their yacht.
We, except Anna, ate cordon bleu at the same French café where the owner was Jean-Batiste and had a neutral conversation avoiding topics that might be controversial. Everyone was tired of arguing and did not wish more stress.
Anna sat down around the corner from us to call her sister in Russia. She needed to talk through the situation with someone. I helped as much as I could. At the same time, I did not want to influence Anna and could not advise her on what to do. It had to be her own decision to sail or not to sail to Europe. The sheer fact that I was not going already affected her. She would have felt better with another female on board.
When we returned to the catamaran, Konstantin suggested doing the final accounting or to check me out, so to speak. He did the math and according to his calculations, I owed him €40 for food and other expenses.
‘How could that be?’ I asked. I paid €500 in advance for two weeks and spent on board nine days. Even with the cost of food and everything else, it looked to me like I should be getting some money back since I was leaving earlier. Not that I asked for a refund or the €40 was an amount that I could not afford but it did not sound fair. I did not think that I should pay any extra money at all. Anna who paid €750 before the trip was worried about her account. She threw herself into the arguments supporting me and all the bickering began again.
Konstantin, in the end, gave up and said that all finances should be discussed with his wife which none of us later did. We sat uncomfortably together for a while and then went to sleep.
In the morning, we all pretended that nothing happened and tried to be casual with each other. I packed after breakfast and prepared to leave the catamaran. A word came from the other yacht that Vladimir and Dmitry decided against sailing to Europe. The reason was that Konstantin’s wife demanded a payment for their presence on board. So, three people were not going and Anna was on the fence. She had to make up her mind within hours; Konstantin insisted that he would get the catamaran ready for the crossing the same day. That sounded to me like a small miracle but nobody is allowed to contradict skipper.
The entire crew left the catamaran, I carried my backpack. We arrived at the same time with the dinghy from Grace. Valentin brought Vladimir and Dmitry who wanted to see the island and returned to his yacht to catch up on sleep.
Anna, Vladimir, Dmitry and I walked to the center of Marigo where I took a rapid COVID test. It was free and the result was ready within minutes. I needed it to fly to Paris in the afternoon. Then our company took a taxi to Phillipsburg which is on the Dutch side.
There is no borderline between French and Dutch territories. I did not even know when we crossed it. There was one obvious thing though ‒ the Dutch side looked better kept.
Nobody was in a hurry; we went into shops, had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, then the time came to say goodbye. Before parting with me, Anna said that after thinking long and hard she decided to stay in Saint Martin and not to go with the catamaran to Europe. I agreed that it was the right thing to do.
Soon, I was at Princess Juliana International Airport which is famous for its landing strip. It is so close to the shoreline that the jets fly directly over the heads of beachgoers sending them into the sea and covering with sand as they land. I did not have a chance to witness this myself but the Internet is full of videos of those who did. Here is one of them: Landing at SXM
All is well that ends well. I am glad that all ended good and that Anna decided not to cross the Atlantic too. The crossing looked to dangerous and unorganized. Jet blasts are spectacular! I did not know that such thing exists:)
Everything did end well, even for those who crossed the Atlantic which was very good news for me.