I miss you too...wait is that a burning tire behind you?

First off, apologies for the delay in posting. You may have been wondering where we've been...read on.

So, what’s worse then leaving paradise? Leaving it for the snow. Jk jk jk…we all really love the snow and the cold. It’s all about wearing the right stuff. For 5 months. In the dark. Until June.

I had to head to Ottawa last week for some work and I left Greg and the kids behind. Now this was something planned for well in advance and, likewise, we had our plan for how we were going to handle him being solo with 3 kids on the boat. We considered which anchorage would be the most protected, the best holding, most convenient in terms of access to stuff they might need or want (basically food) and most secure (i.e. is in not too remote from help). Of the Leeward Islands we planned to be close to at the time of my travel, St. Martin was the least expensive in terms of flights; so, within St. Martin, we decided anchoring in Marigot for the week would be best. So I left last Wednesday, feeling pretty good about where they were. We had gotten a sweet spot fairly close to shore so it would be a short dinghy ride for them to some treats. It was going to be a quick and busy little 'sans-mom' time for them. They had a long to-do list since my parents were coming back with me on Saturday for a vacation over the holidays. I was feeling confident they could manage everything and be fine.

That is until the riots broke out.

A picture Greg took from the front doorstep of Shrimpy’s (where they did laundry) once he heard the first explosion.

So I'm on the plane in Toronto, Thursday morning, and Greg sends me this text "Dude there's some kinda riot going on"...we were taxiing down the runway and I whipped off several quick replies asking about their safety and whatnot and he didn't reply right away. Super. So I whipped off a few more to the tune of "WTF you can't drop that on me and not follow-up!" When he did reply he proceeded to tell me that there were fires and something the "sounded like firecrackers" right where they were, on the bridge they had to dinghy under to get back to the boat. Effing Super. He contemplated waiting or going but things seemed to be getting worse and he felt they needed to get out of the lagoon where they were so he told me they were going to "go for it" and as we are taking off I followed him on the Find Friends app until I could see they were back at the boat and then I lost cell signal in the air.

Oh ya, it was a totally relaxing flight, thanks for asking. I didn't think about this at all while I had no cell signal or internet. Eff.

Greg and the kids got taken totally by surprise when the first riots broke out as they were picking up laundry. Here’s the raw unedited footage.

I'm not on Facebook - never really appealed to me - however I realize that it's a good source of information about local news, like hyper-local news, as in, don't go down that road because someone is burning a pile of tires on it right now. So not being on Facebook and not searching Instagram properly enough to find information there, and St. Martin not being big enough to be in international news, we had to rely on Greg talking with locals and trying to figure out the half-French-half-English story. And then he would text it to me in his Greg-way (that is to say very very brief). Our understanding of the situation is that the land along Marigot Bay that was heavily damaged by Irma is either going to be seized (or some other word less grabby) by the local government / French government or some combination thereof, for developers to build waterfront properties. We were told that the people that own the land there who can't get their insurance to pay (if they had insurance) for a rebuild have run out of time and they needed to go somewhere else because it was now going to be government land to use as they see fit. To be clear - I don't know what the official story is - this is all just heresay. However, the story was fairly consistent after speaking to taxi drivers, restaurant owners, customs officers, other cruisers and just random people on the street. If this is the situation, seems like a seriously unfair situation for the people who live along the water.

To help get the attention of the powers that be (and probably, like everywhere, attracting some people who just like the action) road blocks were set up around the island and piles of refuse were set alight. There were reports, and later a video, of people throwing rocks and burning stuff at those taking their dinghies under that bridge I mentioned (it's the only way to get into the lagoon and over to the Dutch side from the French side). Pretty scary stuff for us fairly peaceful Canadians.

So each day I was gone I was getting information from Greg about new fires, new bangs, and progress on their chores. Oh ya, forgot to mention...this was all happening when there was a big front bringing 35 knots at anchor to Greg and the kids for 2 solid days. He said the swell in the bay was so bad it was impossible to move around the interior of the boat without clinging to something fixed. Yet he still managed to do a deep clean of the boat in anticipation of his in-laws (and my scrutiny). I spoke with him a few times but was pretty busy getting to, and then doing my thing in Ottawa, and then getting back.

So I get my parents at the airport in TO and give them an update on the situation so that they, mainly Dad-the-retired-OPP-officer, don't freak out. They were ok and trusted we would keep everyone safe and we got on our flight to St. Martin on Saturday. When we arrived it was a bit hectic...some taxis wouldn't go to the French side, some would but not Marigot...I found one that would and tipped him heavily for his trouble because you could tell he was stressed about meeting a burning pile of garbage along the way (or worse). Some other people at the airport weren't so lucky - the road blocks had been moved down to Grand Case on Saturday and no one was getting through there.

So we left as soon as we got to the boat right? Nope. Given that it was now late Saturday night we had to check out / clear customs and we needed food . We really needed food (that was not a feasible job for Greg with the 3 kids and road blocks). So food would have to wait until Sunday and customs would have to wait until Monday since really nothing else is open Sunday besides the grocery store. So keeping in mind that a) I don't want my parents to have a sh*tty vacation and b) Everything is closed on Sunday morning in Marigot...we took my parents up to Fort St. Louis for a morning walk and a beautiful view. We then left them to find their way down while Greg, Liam and I took the backpacks over to the Super-U to get as much as we could carry and as quickly as possible. We weren't stressed at that point to be honest - more like, aware. It seemed as though things started up mid-late afternoon each day and the mornings were quiet. We were still late morning / early afternoon so we were feeling generally fine...but keeping an open eye for trouble. There was no trouble (other than I couldn't get zucchini at the Super-U). So after ferrying the food back to the boat and putting it away, picking up some beer and taking that back too, we picked up my parents and the girls at a cafe and returned to the fairly well-stocked boat (minus zucchini). during all of this we had periods of beautiful blue sky and 25 knots, and then rain storms and 30 knots. It wasn't a day for sailing. Especially with my parents who do. not. sail. So we stayed put with an eye on Monday....planning to clear out of customs first thing in the morning.

But oh ya, also we needed propane. Greg tried to get it filled up while I was gone but the road blocks stopped that from happening. Monday morning, on the Cruisers Net (kind of a daily call-in radio show for cruisers to learn about stuff going on in the island) we heard that the Island Water World on the Dutch side was taking tanks on Monday...so now our window to leave Monday would depend on if we could get our tank filled in time. We still had 3/4 of one tank but the other was empty and we had 2 birthdays and Christmas dinner coming up and we wanted to be sure we could feed everyone. We had also been warned that it can be pretty hard to fill gas bottles on other islands and we were best to do it in St. Martin. Soooo, first thing Monday morning Greg, Liam and I busted over to the Dutch side (yes under that bridge again) with our tank to be filled...the process is that you drop it off before 9:30 and pick up after 1:00pm. Correction: that is their process for non-riotous occasions. On this day we dropped off at 9:30am and came by at 1:00pm to pick up but didn't get the tank actually until 4:00pm. Good-bye window to leave St. Martin on Monday. The good thing about this 3-hour delay to get the tank was that we knocked off several other things (some spares, some extra gas for the outboard, and checking out / clearing customs) so by the time we had the tank we were truly all set to leave Tuesday morning.

D’oh! After dropping the propane while I was away, Greg and the kids weren’t able to get it filled because road access was limited and the store couldn’t get to the filling station.

Which we did.

We are now in Anguilla and had a lovely day of snorkelling and swimming, celebrating Grace's birthday. Relief. And a bit of mental space to blog.

Now I should say a few things here that are important:

At no point did my parents seem stressed, scared, or even wary so that's good (they were aware but not wary)
At no point did Greg or myself put us or the kids at risk of being injured (they were scared at times but were ok)
We had planned to leave St. Martin after a few days there with my parents anyway...the riots didn't really change our original plan, just added a feeling a pressure to them for Greg and I
We loved being in St. Martin and found people to be friendly, open, honest, inviting and not at all judgemental of my terrible French accent.

I am a huge control freak so for me, sh*t going down that I don't have control over makes me feel a bit anxious so I was def ready to leave when we did. Also I was surprised (but shouldn't have been) how stressed I felt a) not having my propane bottle in hand so we could bounce Monday during the day if things got bad and b) not being to check out during regular hours because the places that are set up for the process had variable / riot-flexible hours. I was starting to feel a bit trapped and not until then did I realize how free I felt before. Free to go where we wanted, when we wanted. What a f*cking privilege. I kept telling myself that if we needed to, we could just leave, and it would be fine. Really it would be fine. If there was looting, or unwanted traffic in the bay, we would have bounced - gas bottle and customs be damned. We had that option.

My heart goes to those who might lose their land...where the f*ck are they supposed to go? Maybe they don't have a boat they can hop on and a passport that gains them easy entry...maybe they have, you know, jobs, kids, responsibilities, history, family, legacy, roots. Maybe they want to keep their house, even if it is in ruins, rather than hand it over willingly to a wealthy development corporation that will generate huge dollars from it. How trapped do they feel? I don't know but honestly, we didn't begrudge the riots.

We left because it was the plan, we left because we couldn't get what we needed there anymore, and we left because in lieu of options, sometimes people do desperate things.

Much love,

M