Trip to St. Maarten/St. Martin
We just got back from a wonderful trip to St. Maarten/St. Martin. The island is shared by the Dutch and the French with free passage between the two sides. The goal for this trip was to a) snorkel and b) relax on the beach. Our typical day was to do something in the morning (snorkel, shop, etc.) and then sit by the beach to read and relax under the umbrella while enjoying the nice breeze and some cold beverages (thanks to Chaz who recommended and loaned me the first two Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell- I’m hooked). We had a great time and would definitely go back!! Here is a link to our flickr photo gallery with all the pictures from the trip:
Also, you can click on the various links throughout the text to see a selected relevant photo- it’ll pop up in an overlay and you can navigate the pictures via the arrows which show up when you hover over the middle right and left sides of the picture and close it when you are finished so you don’t have to keep going back and forth between the photo and the text.
Our trip started with an early flight to Fort Lauderdale on Friday. For some reason, there was a delay on our flight to St. Maarten- odd that the pilot never mentioned why we sat on the runway for an hour. The landing in St. Maarten is pretty incredible- over water until right at the last minute where you fly over a beach with people on it just before touching down. Just to let you know what the landing looks like from the beach, check out this video:
The rental car place wasn’t all that efficient but we finally got our tiny little Hyundai Getz for touring around the island (to get up some of the hills, we had to turn off the AC to get a little turbo boost). We drove from the Dutch to the French side where we were staying at La Plantation (official site), a nice little inn with detached groups of 3 rooms, a large suite in the middle with two studios on the sides. We stayed in the studio and the room was quite large with nice stenciling on the walls. We were about a 5 minute walk from Orient Beach and wandered down to check it out. Orient Beach is about a mile long with fine white sand and beautiful water. It is a full scale nude beach on one end and more conservative towards our end (but not too conservative, it is on the French side after all). We were hungry and tired so we took a short walk to a little village to eat at a French restaurant Cote Plages.
The next morning we got up and ate our breakfast (included in the room rate). The breakfasts were great- fresh bread, meats, cheese, tropical fruit, and eggs you could cook yourself. We enjoyed many cups of coffee from the magic coffee machine that made lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, etc. Also, we learned that you should definitely wear some bug spray to breakfast- they loved Liz and she had bites all over her legs after our first breakfast. We wandered down to Orient Beach in the morning. We met Carla and Sarah there- they were leaving that day and were enjoying their last day on the beach (we now know how they felt). They gave us some excellent information on restaurants (lolos at Grand Case, Shrimpy’s at Simpson Bay) and snorkeling at Little Bay by the Divi resort. We stayed at Orient until about noon and then drove to Dawn Beach for some snorkeling. The water was a bit rough and I had a bit of a fogging problem as I had not cleaned my mask well enough initially. The snorkeling wasn’t bad, and many people said that they had their best experience at Dawn Beach. We were so glad that we bought our own snorkeling gear. The folks at Huron Scuba really helped us pick out stuff that fit us well, and it was amazing how much better snorkeling can be with good stuff that fits. Plus the info/techniques we learned from them allowed us to do more diving too to get a better look at the fish and plants. For dinner we took Carla and Sarah’s advice and ate at the lolo “Sky’s the Limit” in Grand Case, about a 5 minute drive from our inn. Lolos are local barbecue places along the beach. Jason took care of us like old friends. The garlic shrimp was awesome and all the beers were $1. Can’t go wrong there!! We went back multiple times over our stay.
The next day we went snorkeling at Little Bay. This spot is accessible via the road to the Divi Resort (just tell the guard that you are going there to snorkel). No one owns the beaches so you can go wherever you like. Our experience snorkeling at Little Bay was awesome- we ended up back here several more times. Note that the beach is a bit rocky as you enter the water but we found if you go to the right near the rocks there was far less rocks. This time out we saw a nice sting ray. We also had the most unbelievable thing happen. A tiny little fish, maybe 3″ long with beautiful purple and yellow colors swam with us the whole time. I tried to get Liz’s attention that this fish was swimming with her, just below her. The fish would stop when she did and then would continue on when she did. Finally she saw it. At one point the fish swam over to me and then continued swimming with me, even going back to the beach quite far from the other fish when we were done. All in all, this fish swam with us for about 30 minutes. We didn’t get underwater cameras this time to document but it was amazing. After snorkeling we stopped at Cost-U-Less (like a Sam’s Club) to get some water, Diet Coke, bread, lunch meat, chips, cookies, etc. This was great as we were able to make some of our own lunches to take places. In the afternoon we sat at the beach, enjoying the cool breeze and the waves. For dinner we went to Grand Case and has a wonderful meal at L’ Escapade. Wonderful ambiance, French food, and such beautiful presentation!! Plus lots of restaurants took $1 for 1 euro in cash- a great deal considering the exchange rate was about $1.36/euro. For dessert we grabbed some ice cream from in front of the pizza place (yummy chocolate and coconut).
On Monday we decided to try out the shopping at Philipsburg (thanks to Carla and Sarah who told us that there were no cruise ships on Monday). The shopping was interesting- tons of places to buy tourist junk and lots of jewelry shops (duty free, 80% off). There were probably about 6 blocks of shops and we were there for quite a while. We had a nice lunch beach side at Taloula Mangos. We went to the Guavaberry Emporium (official site) to try the locally-made Guavaberry Rum and Liquer. We ended up buying some of the liquer for making fruity drinks when we got back. While we were shopping, some folks on the street tried to get us to go to a presentation on some cruise where we would get a luxury vacation, $1000 cash, or a $500 jewelry voucher just for listening. They kept saying, “It’s not a timeshare” but we declined. In the afternoon we went back to the room, made some sandwiches, and sat down by the beach.
On Tuesday we took the ferry to Pinel Island, a small island off the shore of St. Maarten. We thought the ferry ran every half hour but we got there at 9:10 only to find out that the ferry didn’t leave until 10 (we might have made the earlier one had we not gotten lost on the way). Pinel Island was fun and we snorkeled both sides. Yellow Beach by the snorkeling walk-out was definitely more calm. We trekked to the other side and met a nice German couple who were snorkeling on the other side. There was more coral by the water was definitely rougher (and there were lots of jellyfish). We saw a sea snake, eel, and ate one point the fish came all around me (clearly someone had fed them recently). After taking the ferry back, we had lunch at Paradise View, a nice little restaurant with a glorious view of Orient Beach, Pinel, and Caya Verte (another small island). There we met Gary and Kim who graciously gave us all sort of info about snorkeling spots (Caya Verte), restaurants (L’ Auberge Gourmande), and fun things to do (Marigot market, hiking, etc.). It was great chatting with them and we ended up seeing them many other times during our trip. Plus, we ended up doing nearly everything they suggested. Thanks!! For dinner, we went back to the “Sky’s the Limit” lolo in Grand Case and had a big meal of ribs, shrimp, etc. There was a great sunset as we were arriving so we got a chance to take that in. We also saw Gary and Kim eating as we strolled after dinner.
On Wed. we checked out the market in Marigot. Amongst all the tourist trinkets, there were a few gems. We bought some local spices and checked out some artisan jewelers. It started to rain so people tried to protect their wares but it was fun to browse around. We also met a guy selling chocolate from “The Grenada Chocolate Company”- turns out he lives in the village next to Pete’s brother who is one of the company founders. They were so excited that “We knew Mott” so we didn’t take the time to explain that we really only knew Mott’s brother. We also found a place that allowed you to make free calls to the US- we made some calls to say hi and also bought a bottle of the locally-produced Ma Doudou rum in a beautiful painted bottle. The banana vanilla flavor is so good- you can drink it straight. After the market, we came back and headed to our beach as the weather cleared up. For dinner we had a nice meal at the Pride of India buffet in Simpson Bay.
On Thursday we snorkeled again at Little Bay. No tiny fish swam with us this time, but we did see a sea turtle and 2 spotted rays. I saw a squid and Liz was able to spot this flat fish that swam from rock to rock, virtually unnoticeable while sitting on the rock. We snorkeled a little further out and found the sub that was sunk along with a few other small boats that had sunk. For lunch we ate at Shrimpy’s- awesome coconut shrimp. We headed back to Orient Beach and there were some huge waves as it was quite windy. For dinner we headed back to Grand Case. As we were wandering around, we went back to the Church that we had seen previously- Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church. It turns out they have a Thurs. evening service that was just about to start to we attended, along with about 5 other people. It was an interesting service what with the dog barking and the loud reggae music from the neighbors. Quite an experience!! We ate at L’ Auberge Gourmande - what an awesome meal!! The dessert was exquisite- it was this three chocolate delight.
On Friday we decided to take the trip to Caya Verte as Gary and Kim recommended. In fact, we saw them walking the beach as we waited for our jet ski shuttle. The jet ski takes you out to the island and you tell them when to come and pick you up. What a fun ride on the jet ski (I think our guide was just having some fun jumping waves as we held on tight). We basically had the place to ourselves- there was only one other couple out there. We snorkeled there- lots of good coral and some nice fish. It was a bit windy that day so it was a little rough. After snorkeling, we did some rock scrambling to get to the other side of the island. It was amazing- tons of shells on the beach. We didn’t bring a bag to collect anything but Liz expertly scrambled back down the rocks with the stuff in her hand. We later found out that it was a protected nature reserve so we left most everything we collected. After the return trip, we decided to sit down further on Orient Beach near where we caught the shuttle. We didn’t like it as much- thought the beach was nice it was quite crowded. Liz did see a dog run off with some guy’s shoe. We liked our quiet end of the beach better so we went back there for the rest of the afternoon. For dinner we went back to Shrimp’s for coconut shrimp and then took the long way back to explore the rest of the island. The Dutch side in general is a bit more commercial (casinos, fancy high rise resorts) and they are building a ton of new places on the western side of the island. We stopped at Baie Rouge to get a glimpse of that beach. In Marigot we found a small bakery where we got some desserts and a wonderful fresh baguette.
On Saturday morning we went back to the Marigot market to buy more spices. Liz also picked up some beautiful amber jewelry from the woman there who designs her own stuff. We took advantage of one last snorkel opportunity at Little Bay. This time we saw an octopus!! As we were leaving, we met Gary and Kim who decided to try snorkeling at Little Bay after we told them how much we liked it. In the afternoon we sat on the beach at Orient. We saw Gary again as he was heading down our way to ride some waves. For dinner we went back to L’ Auberge Gourmande for another exquisite meal.
Sunday was our departure day so we got up early, ate our breakfast, and walked along the beach. We took advantage of one last time to sit on the beach before heading back to the room to clean up and finish packing. We were sad to leave as we had a great time. We grabbed a few quick photos from Paradise View and along the way back to the airport. We took the long flight back home and arrived back at around 12:30 AM. Our stomachs definitely noticed the difference between fine French cuisine and the teriyaki lunch and burger dinner we ate at the airports. Back at work Monday morning!!
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July 11th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Well, its about time you blogged about something besides softball!