We didn’t actually have a cottage, just a really nice suite with a really nice view of the Caribbean. We’re leaving in a few minutes, off to the airport and back home.

It was a great trip.

-30-

Keeping with our apparent strategy to alternate days with some kind of excursion with days spent at the hotel, today we are hangin’ out. Which is doubly nice because we leave tomorrow for the airport and back home.

We did make a brief trip to a food market a few minutes from the hotel to try and get some snacks for the flight, as we’re expecting the airline food to be mediocre at best and the airport selection poor. We just picked up some chips and Cliff bars.

And then we returned the rental car. Hertz is extremely convenient, as they have an office right here at the hotel. They’re also not very reliable – when I went to pick it up last week, the agent showed up 1-1/2 hours after his posted opening time. I rented for three days, and he said I could extend if I needed. The process for extending is; don’t return the car. It turns out the office is closed Sunday (when our three days were up) and Monday. And when I went to the office this morning around 10, it was still closed. So I dropped the key in the lock box. A couple of hours later I received a receipt from Hertz for the five days, exactly as expected.

Longue Baie (Long Bay), where the hotel sits, is apparently a popular destination for day tripper boats to drop anchor and allow their passengers to play. They dive off the boat, swim, snorkel, play with noodles and float on rafts. As the beaches are all public, they’ll swim or be ferried to the shore and lie on the beach. We’ve noticed these boats every day, but today the frequency of arrivals and the total number seems out of control.

We get group tour boats with 5-15 passengers on a three-hour (or five or six) hour tours. At one point this morning I counted six catamarans and a couple of other single-hull boats all anchored at one time. As I’m writing this at 2:30, there are eight boats, including one very large private motor catamaran and a two-masted sail boat that is designed to look like a very old ship.

I suppose some of the hotel guests are annoyed that these people are using “their” bay or “their” beach, but the fact is that both the bay and the beach are open to the public.

As we no longer have a car, lunch and dinner were at the hotel.

Zelda and Mateo left this morning after breakfast, They arrived here in St. Martin two days ahead of us, which enabled them to get the lay of the land and guide us through our first day here. We’ve taken a few trips with them now, and I have to say I enjoy their company. I’ve known Zelda for over 55 years now (Sally knows her even longer), and Mateo since they started dating more than 45 years ago. Old friends are the best friends.

As this was our last day with the car, Sally and I decided to drive up to Grand Case, a little town at the north end of the island. Grand Case is known for its fine food. In the evenings, it has reputedly the best French food on the island. During the day, simple restaurants called “lolos” are strung out along a single street in town, their backs open to the water, and all offer the same menu: barbecue. They are found in different places in the Caribbean and have evolved over the centuries. Today, they are open air, often with long picnic-style tables, and arranged so the barbecue grills are adjacent to, or in the center of the tables.

After walking around a bit, we carefully chose the first lolo we came to and sat down. Neither of us are big barbecue fans for different reasons, but it was fun watching the controlled chaos as the chefs cooked on the open grills, the waiters ran around getting orders and delivering food and drink, and the patrons all having a good time. The portions were huge and the prices were low.

We got back to the room mid-afternoon, rested a bit and then planned dinner back in Maho. It seems like today’s agenda was all about planning and eating meals. We went back to Mr. Chow, the Asian place we enjoyed a few days ago, and had another good meal. After dinner we took a quick walk through the casino (1) next door. We weren’t impressed. A couple of 21 tables, a roulette table and a poker game were open. Lots of slots, mostly sitting idle. We didn’t play, making this the least expensive casino visit ever.

(1) The casino was named “Casino Royal”. Very creative.

After the excitement of our trip to Philipsberg yesterday, we decided to stay at La Samanna today. We relaxed by the pool, did some exercise, had a nice lunch in the Beach Bar.

I started the day as I do everyday, sitting on the balcony, enjoying the sounds and the view.

You access your accommodations by walking down a path through a garden, with the main building and restaurants at one end and our suite at the other end. It’s quite a long walk! But it’s very nicely landscaped, and is usually mostly shaded, so it’s a pleasant walk.

I mentioned that La Samanna is designed so that every room faces the beach and the Caribbean. This is accomplished with a series of buildings that stretch the length of the property, each housing from 1 to a dozen of the ~80 rooms, suites and villas. The buildings are each two stories. The first floor units have patios that allow access directly to the beach, but also allow anyone walking by on the beach to see in unless you keep the curtains drawn. We chose second floor units for the privacy. They all have balconies where you can sit outside and enjoy the sight, the sound and the smell of the beach in complete privacy.

This was Zelda and Mateo’s last night, so we went back to Maho for dinner at a steakhouse. The food was good, but I have to say that I was disappointed by the watered down bourbon they served me. I didn’t make anything of it, because we were all having a nice time. Overall, we’ve been pleased with both the food and especially the service everywhere we went this week.

And just for fun, one more shot of the beach in front of our hotel. All of the lounges appeared to be in use.

Philipsburg is the capital of the Dutch side of the island – Sint Maarten. It is also where the cruise ships dock, and it’s filled with jewelers, clothing stores, bars, t-shirt shops, and everything else that a cruiser could want. After parking on the sidewalk (1) we went for a stroll along the beachfront.

Zelda and Meteo are experienced cruisers, and she knew where the stores are. So we strolled over to Front Street, which has jewelers, clothing stores, liquor stores and everything else that you might possibly want to buy on your vacation. All duty free!

Despite spending almost an hour driving the 10 miles to Philipsberg, we stayed for less than an hour. Sally bought something (2) – a nice Lilly Pulitzer pocketbook. I don’t think Zelda or Mateo bought anything.

By then we were hungry, but rather than wander around in the heat looking for a suitable bar to eat in, we headed back to Maho for lunch. We ate in The Deli. We all got hero sandwiches and we were all satisfied.

Since we ate lunch late, the rest of the crew didn’t want to go out for dinner, preferring to eat left overs from prior meals that they had squirreled away. I always prefer to go out, and went back to Maho for a pizza later in the evening. Here are some shots from the town after dark.

(1) Parking is very difficult in Philipsberg. There are allegedly parking lots, and there were signs for them, but no sign of them. I did in Philipsberg as the Philipsbergians (??) do.

(2) Sally and I rarely buy anything when we travel. Years ago we found that much of what we bought on vacation was just an impulse purchase whose desirability faded pretty quickly.

After running around the island on Thursday, our little group decided that Friday was a day to spend at our hotel “La Sammana”. It’s really very nice, but one of the best features is that all of the rooms face the beach and the Caribbean. The little bit of water that we adjoin is called “Baie Longue”, and the beach called “Long Beach” (1). Not sure why Google has one in French and the other in English.

I’m not even sure what makes it a bay. There’s a bit of land at one end, but the other end has no obvious demarkation. In any event, there are different boats anchored here everyday. This makes it even more picturesque.

We had a very leisurely breakfast, then some of us went down to the sauna beach. The temperature was about 90, as was the humidity. So despite the umbrellas, I felt that it was beyond my comfort level and declined to participate. My contribution was to take down a bunch of junk at 7:30 am to “reserve” three lounges for the others. There are lounges up and down the length of the hotel, although not enough for every guest so there’s always this need to mark your territory early. Despite all of the chairs near our section of the beach being so marked, I never saw more than half of them occupied.

I stayed in the air conditioned room, reading and occasionally venturing out to the balcony to enjoy the view and take these pictures.

We all just snacked lightly through the day, so by late afternoon we decided that an early dinner was in order. I collected a number of prospects to circulate to the group (thank you, Trip Advisor) and we settled on Mr. Chow in Maho, across from the pizzeria where I ate the night before. Asian Fusion was what they said, and it was very good (3). Some of us even brought leftovers back to the hotel. We went across the street to a little dessert shop and had ice cream, and sat at a sidewalk table for a while in the evening. Very pleasant.

Maho has a one-block long commercial strip with about a dozen bars, a couple of restaurants and some souvenir and clothing shops. I posted one of the bars yesterday. All of the clothing stores are oriented towards women for some reason (2).

This morning I am sitting on the balcony to our room enjoying the mild weather, the sound of the waves, and the quiet of the beach.

(1) The main street that the hotel is off of is called Rue Baie Longue.

(2) Yes, I know that two of the mannequins are male, but pretty much all of the merch is for woman.

(3) Sally says “excellent”.

First, I need to apologize for the number of typos in the prior posts this week, not to mention mixing up the dates and days of the week. I promise to do better (1).

We have been discussing for a while now whether or not to rent a car while we are on St. Martin. The major disadvantages are having to park it every time you go somewhere. And the cost. And some people really don’t like driving very much, especially in strange (to them) places. They hate getting lost. All valid points.

One advantage, which in my mind significantly outweighs those disadvantages, is that taxis here are anywhere from $20-40 per trip on the island; thus dinner out can run $80 just for the taxi. The car rental is only a bit more per day. And if you make more than two trips on a day, you’re already ahead.

Second, you get much more flexibility. No waiting for the taxi to come. No problem changing your mind if you arrive somewhere and don’t like it. While you do have to find a parking space, that usually isn’t a real problem.

And finally, I like driving. I always have. I’ve driven all over the US and Canada, all over Europe, in Australia and New Zealand. On several Caribbean islands. No stress, no worry. And with our phones’ GPS apps, it’s easier than ever to find somewhere (3).

So today we (4) rented a car and went exploring to find somewhere to eat lunch. Just by eating outside of the hotel we pretty much paid for the cost of the rental. And we got to visit three areas (2), and found a nice place with typical tropical ambiance for lunch.

I went back to Cupecoy in the evening for dinner. Like many places, it has much more atmosphere after dark (3).

(1) In the past, Sally played a major role as Editor of all posts. She has not been fulfilling that role this week as I foolishly imagined I could write two sentences with no mistakes.

(2) Our first destination, Simpson Bay, didn’t work – because we went down a dead-end street by mistake and gave up. But I wasn’t fazed; we simply adjusted our plans and went to Cupecoy instead,

(3) As it turned out, I couldn’t get a cell signal coming back to the hotel from dinner – so no GPS. Fortunately I was able reconnect when I was half way home and finish the trip successfully.

(4) Did I mention that Zelda & Mateo, our traveling companions from the Med cruise, are with us on this trip? Always good to have them around.