French West Indies: Day 1: "this is a boat"

We met our captain and chef at Bobby's Marina on the dock at Phillipsburg, St. Marteen, the Dutch side of this Caribbean island. We were setting out on a 7 day voyage aboard the 51 foot Lagoon 500 catamaran "VIP One" (http://www.charterbrochure.com/vipone).

We traveled with 6 other friends, 4 couples in total, all from Alpine, Utah, and zero sailing experience between us.

Scuba Diving:
We enjoyed breakfast on the yacht before returning to the pier where we checked-in and suited up with the scuba diving outfit that took all of us into the ocean just off St. Martin.  Six of our group of eight were recently certified and had never dove in anything other than a swimming pool and the protected confines of the "Crater" at the Homestead in Midway, Utah.  The dive boat took us about 25 minutes out into the waters off the island.  Matt was terrified with thoughts of being swept out to sea, possible equipment malfunction at 60 feet below, etc. etc., as we rode the surface swells.  We jumped off the dive boat and dove into 84 degree water (surface temperature) and descended to around 60 feet.  All anxiety (okay, most) dissipated as we descended into the crystal clear water free from any current and the equipment surprisingly continued to supply oxygen with each attempt at a breath.
Our first dive was to a sunken freighter, and the second was to an old Spanish galleon where the 19 cannons and various anchors could be identified among the coral. We saw turtles, fish, lobsters, eels, coral, and even a couple reef sharks.

(that's Scharman on the sunken freighter)

Captain's Briefing:
We returned to the yacht and received our instructional briefing from the french captain David  Gueguen (Daa-Veed Kee-Kan). Essentially, "this is a boat." If you get hurt, "this is a boat" and we can't run to a doctor (I think a few of us snickered...we brought out own doctor: Wes Spencer). If we run out of something (e.g., water/electricity/ice cream), "this is a boat."  Matt was waiting for him to say: "if we have a legal emergency, we can't get a lawyer" at which time Matt would raise my hand, but that was just his wishful thinking.  We learned all about emergency procedures from "man over board" (whoever sees the person go in the water never ever ever takes their eyes off the person in the water, while screaming "man over board" so the captain can take an immediate GPS reading) to "abandon ship" (we saw where the live jackets were kept and learned how all the tools attached to the jackets worked).  And, although it looked somewhat like a flight attendant routine, we listened, paid attention and asked questions.  Fortunately, we never had any emergencies.

The Boat:

We selected a catamaran for comfort (think sea sickness) and because it provided an opportunity for Matt to learn how to sail.  Each couple had their own cabin with full bathroom en suite; private, clean and comfortable.

Our room had an additional window a foot above the water, and occasionally you'd see fish swim by.

After our instructions we enjoyed a few hours of sailing along the west side of St. Martin up to the quiet and beautiful Mullet Bay.  Along the way we realized that sailing is slow and does not present the opportunity to visit places beyond neighboring islands during a one week voyage. But we learned that these islands (those we visited) had everything we could ever want to enjoy for a week.

As we sailed we determined that we (all 8) wanted to go to church if possible. Fortunately, we had cellular service while sailing and located an LDS church meeting house about a 15 minute taxi drive from Mullet Bay.

Upon arriving at Mullet Bay we relaxed, went snorkeling nearby and then enjoyed dinner on the boat and some games before turning in for the night.