jillybird

I sailed all around St. Maarten, Anguilla and St. Barts for a week this February, trolling all the way. One thing you should know is that the sea conditions are pretty rough - 6-9 foot seas and more are common. This time of the year the marlin may begin to show, and you can catch mahi and kings. You can do an Internet search for charter boats. There are only a few on St. Maarten and they aren't particularly cheap though a lot cheaper than on St. Bart's. A few miles west of St. Maarten is a nice drop off. Otherwise, it is pretty shallow all the way down to St. Bart's. Trolling from the sailboat, we got nailed a few times but couldn't keep them on the hook. At anchor, I jumped a bunch of tarpon. From the dinghy we trolled barracuda. Fishing can be pretty good there, especially down towards Saba on the Saba Banks.

Yikes. I wonder how rough it was when they capsized. A 25 foot Grady should be able to handle pretty rough stuff. The only time I was in crazy weather -- when a squall line hit in Block Island Sound and I instantly had 12 foot waves and lightning everywhere, I had my ditch bag next to me and my life raft as well. Fortunately I didn't need them. It just shows you that even after the EPIRB distress signal is sent, it is extremely difficult to be seen at night. These guys were super lucky since they didn't seem to have had a life raft. Floating in the Bahamas isn't that much fun. They were also lucky to find rocks to grab onto.

I have an EPIRB with GPS, a PLB, an offshore 4 person liferaft, 4 immersion suits, a backup handheld GPS, two back up VHFs, plus installed Raymarine chartplotter, radar, sounder, AIS receiver, FLIR infrared night vision, Sirius weather, and I hope to God I never need any of the emergency equipment. I just got the immersion suits because the water up here is in the 40s and those NFL players died from hypothermia with water in the mid 60s. That got me thinking.