Heineken Regatta

The Heineken Regatta in St Martin is one of the larger racing events in the yachting world of the Caribbean. It ran from March 6th to the 9th, with 4 days of racing including a race around the island, buoy racing (where you have to make quick maneuvers in small spaces and sharp turns around marks, kind of like racing in and out of cones in a car), as well as several shorter races between Marigot and Simpson Bay. We had hoped to get someone to charter the boat for the race and thus have a good excuse to enter, but in the end it did not happen and it's a pretty expensive race to enter just for our own pleasure. So we decided to just relax and enjoy ourselves and the excitement of the whole atmosphere, as well as all the surrounding events. Of course, truth to be told - it's a race sponsored by a beer company, and their motto for the event was "serious fun." So most of the events center around getting wasted and acting crazy, but the boats were cool too.... It definitely was quite impressive to see some of the famous racing boats from around the world there in the harbor or outside practicing with all their crew. And at each bridge opening there was a parade of shiny pretty boats filing through in full regalia decked out and ready to be worshipped. The people on shore lined up along the bridge to take photos, wave and cheer as the boats went by. The lagoon was positively packed and it was like parallel parking trying to find a place to anchor.

Francis had returned for the regatta - having finished his business up north and a charter of his own in the BVI (British Virgin Islands). We welcomed him back with open arms as well as his friend Ben, well known to Sam as well. The three of them had taken their 200 ton off shore yachtmaster course together. So we were back to a crew of four for a while and there we were - me and 3 captains. I love them to death but it was a bit trying at times. Talk about too many cooks.... However, they are all very skilled sailors and I learn tons when I am around them.

Ben arrived the day before Francis and though I had heard a lot about him I had never seen him before. Sam was still busy with our soon leaving charter guests up in Grand Case so I went to pick him up at the airport. In Simpson Bay lagoon you can get everywhere you need to go by dinghy. All the bars and restaurants have dinghy docks, as do the fuel docks, grocery stores, internet venues, marine supply stores, and the airport, too... Despite not knowing what he looked like I picked Ben out of the crowd immediately, walked right up and said hey. We dinghied back to the boat and Ben got to see some of the improvements that had been made since last he had seen Zenaida. Our first order of business was to have a rum punch and welcome Ben to the Caribbean. He had come from snowy Boston and piles of work. Our second order of business was to hop in the dinghy and go to France. We ate succulent calamari, drank fine wine, ogled the sexy French wait staff, and became fast friends as we talked our way through life, the universe, and everything.

The next day I got to do it all again with Francis. Taking the dinghy to the airport was always a bit of an adventure because that part of the lagoon was like a wind tunnel and when I am alone in the dinghy and driving into the wind the bow has a tendency to get lifted up by the wind. This is a thirteen foot inflatable soft bottom boat. I don't weigh enough to keep it flat if the wind wants to pick it up. Normally you would drive the dinghy fast to get it to plane so you are riding on a cushion of air over the surface of the water making the ride more smooth. But in this case if I went fast the whole front of the boat would come up out of the water as if I were on a horse standing on its hind legs. And the wind could easily flip me over completely at that point. I could solve this problem by moving forward to put some weight in the bow, but we don't have an extender for the throttle handle so I have to sit near the stern to drive the boat. Quite a conundrum. We plan to make an extender, but in the meantime I have to drive slow enough that the bow stays down and fast enough that the wind doesn't blow me sideways on to the rocks. Like I said - always an adventure.

Anyway, back to the regatta. Basically boats race all day and then there is a big beach party at different venues each night. The Soggy Dollar, one of our regular hangouts, had a pre-regatta party the day before it all started sponsored by Mount Gay Rum. At that point the charter guests were still there and we went in and had a lot of fun dancing thanks to the help of a whole lot of rum and red bull. Later that night after I had taken everyone else back to the boat then returned to continue dancing with some of my friends, I decided to enter the wet t-shirt contest. I hadn't planned on it. I had been in one years before in Alaska and didn't really feel a need to do it again, but there was a Canadian girl who really wanted to enter and was a bit shy to enter on her own, and besides the prize was $1000, so what the hell. I'm sure that some people look down on such contests as furthering the objectification of women, as being crass, uncouth, or dirty. But truthfully, I feel like so much of our lives are spent all bottled up in a world that wants us to believe that sexuality and nudity are dirty things to be hidden away and ashamed of. When I was 21 and in a small fishing village in Alaska I entered a wet t-shirt contest. It was a huge deal for me. I had grown up with a terrible self-image, huge problems with the way I saw my own body and not wanting anyone else to see it. For me to have the courage and confidence to get up and declare my own value, my own beauty - enough to display it for everyone - was a big step for me. I didn't really care what the motivations of the audience were. They could be and probably were all a bunch of leering lecherous sleazy people for all I cared. It had nothing to do with the declaration of self worth I was making. Someone who joins such a contest trying to FIND their self worth and allowing other people to judge their value would be in a different place than I. I truly did not care if I won or not. It had nothing to do with anyone but me. In Alaska, they soaked us with champagne. Here it was a bit different. There were shower head sprayers all along the length of the stage, so as you danced about it was like going through a car wash - I could barely see there was so much water pouring down my face. In the end - as most of these contests go - one girl really wanted to win so she took off all her clothes. That's always the girl who ends up winning, and there always seems to be only one. Not my style - so it wasn't me. But it really didn't matter. All the girls had bonded throughout the contest and we were all laughing about it. Plus we all got a bottle of rum for entering. Not like we really needed any more alcohol... It was about that time I noticed someone had swiped the dinghy. I was extremely pissed. I left my bottle of rum with the Canadian girl and went searching all up and down the dock. It wasn't that unusual for people to "borrow" a dinghy. My concern was that someone may have used it to get back to France rather than call a water taxi. Or anywhere that I couldn't get to by foot for that matter. I searched all along the marina and finally found it up near some of the big yachts with a few extra beer bottles in it. At least they tied it up well. Or well enough anyway. By the time I got back someone had kicked over my bottle of rum and smashed it so all I got was this wet t-shirt... Haha. Talk about drunken shenanigans. I decided it was time to get back to the boat and take a nap.

We actually skipped the party on Thursday and Friday was just another typical night at Soggy's because we were too lazy to drag ourselves out to Phillipsburg. Saturday we spent much of the day sleeping, recovering, lounging in the hammock. I love laying in the hammock on the boat because the hammock rocks, but so does the boat. So, it's like you are rocking exponentially which lends a very intriguing feel to the whole experience. Being that we didn't actually race in the regatta, I didn't get to experience the whole racing scene as I had hoped. With Francis on the boat you always get a taste of it because he is a racer and is always tweaking the sails to get every last ounce of speed and efficiency out of them. But I wanted to experience being on a boat full of people like Francis. Where speed is the only goal and sails are being changed constantly and people are worrying about tactics and routes and tacking around marks in close quarters. Due to the fact that we were also preparing for another charter we spent much of our days during this time finishing up some more boat projects preparing Zenaida for her next gig. So we missed most of the actual racing. But we did tool around the harbor to check out many of the boats. I got to meet the crew of Soma, a black catamaran that's thought to be one of the fastest boats around. We hung out on her nets and chatted with her first mate after the racing was done. They had won the first day, leaving all the gun boats in the dust. But then they had had some bad luck as they blew their spinaker and a few other sails and so weren't able to keep her up to her usual lightning speed. They were an excellent bunch of people and I hope to bump into them again when we go through the BVI's, where they are based. I also got a chance to tour a larger racing boat, the 68 ft Chippewa. It's amazing to me how these can be gorgeous boats with teak interiors, a lovely salon, and beautiful staterooms - and then they gut it all for racing. Everything gets stripped out and put into a storage container on land and the whole below decks area just becomes a place to store sails.

So we watched the last of the boats pulling in from the final race and were zipping about Simpson Bay in the dinghy just admiring boats and chatting up anyone who was above decks. At one point we saw a boat flying the Sailing Anarchy flag. SailingAnarchy.com is a website forum for sailors online. They publish a lot about racing and all sorts of other related topics. So we zoomed up to check them out. Someone said "you should flash them." And, well, it seemed like the thing to do. I mean, sailing anarchy, freedom of expression, and all that.... Needless to say they filmed the whole thing and I got my 2 seconds of fame on the front page of their website the next day. Haha. Good thing I have no interest whatsoever in a career in politics, right? Francis was pretty peeved that I made the front page of Sailing Anarchy before him.

All in all the whole thing was primarily a big drunken party. As I said before, what's to be expected of a regatta sponsored by a beer company. I would have liked to experience more of the racing side of things which I am sure were a bit more serious but what with still having a charter on board for the first two days and preparing for another the day after, two more people arriving on consecutive days in the middle and continuous dinghy trips to the airport, as well as various repairs to be made and trips to Budget Marine - it just wasn't the best time for us to focus on racing. The parties were fun and we did meet some excellent people. We may make it down to Antigua for the regatta there in April so I may still have another chance then to get on a racing boat and see what it is all about.