When you arrive on the French side, in Marigot, this is the dinghy dock where everyone must tie up to visit Immigration, and also, to pay for your anchorage on the outside. (The French do NOT charge to anchor on the inside, in the Lagoon, just outside. Crazy.)
Here is one at a supply house for boaters. If you want to do business with the cruiser, you must provide a place to dock.
About the worst place I have found yet. This is the French branch of Budget Marine, located just inside the entry to the Lagoon, before the bridge. The current is almost always flowing, and the wakes from the boat traffic will beat your dinghy to death here, making it crash up against the dock and the other boats.
My favorite store here, is Island Water World, and they have a very large dock for their patrons.
This is a dock shared by the rigging company, a marina, and Lagoonie's Bar and Restaurant, where I first met Davina. The marina operates a 'crew quarters' there, where, for $25 a night, you get a room with a bed - period. But, for the crewman looking for the next job or sailor looking for a boat to depart with, it is a great place to network with other sailors.
If you serve liquor and beer and food, you had better provide a way in for the boaters.
Just out of the picture to the left is the hulk of an old boat, tied up to that dock, and it is a very popular place for pizza and beer, and attracts a lot of the young tourists and yacht crews and the parties go on late into the night.
Perhaps the most pathetic dock I know so far, is at Barnard's boat yard. This one is mostly rotting pallets placed on top of the rotting dock structure. You really have to be careful where you step. Here is where my friend Jean, after a long evening of rose wine, fell into the water trying to navigate the dock, into his dink.
And I saved the best for last. This is the Marigot marina, where the fine restaurants and tourist shops line this 3 sided walkway, filled with tourists during the day, and the wealthy dining at night.
Today, the anchorage in Marigot, where AF has been now for a month, (I arrived December 24th) has very large swells, high winds with higher gusts, and AF is rolling, and pitching so badly that I cannot work aboard. The parts and tools slide away, and roll onto the floor, and I have just given up working on the steering for the day, and decided to run some errands, instead. I paid my anchorage fee for the last month - Don't ask how much! - and will pick up some good connectors for the wind genny, as the ones I used were very cheap automobile connectors. I also need to buy a slow fuse to put inline with the cable to the batteries. And a cash machine visit as well. And, perhaps a couple cold ones before the dink ride back to the French side and AF, to stand anchor watch. It is predicted to last another day or 2. (I saw, for the first time, a boat dragging anchor, inside by the moorings in Marigot. The captain must have put out only 10 or 15 feet of rode (chain) because it didn't take must breeze to move his boat.)
So that is a little tour of trivia, and what I see here, in my day to day travels around the area, here at the beginning of my new life.
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