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Arrival and Day 1 StMartinFan 35 minutes ago Flight in on Sun Country from MSP went smoothly, and for some reason the security person at the airport randomly diverted the 3 of us from the long regular line to the nearly empty one for crews and residents. A great start to the trip!

Picked up our car from Lesley Bruce and headed to Divi only to get stopped at the end of the runway by a massive traffic jam. Inched our way down Welfare Road, often just sitting for long periods. The usual 15 minute drive took us nearly 2 hours! Later learned there had been a fatal accident when a scooter hit a parked bus, so that plus rush hour traffic at 5 had created the bottleneck.

Dinner at Divi with a surprisingly good experience at Gizmos, with fast service and two well made salads. Not usually a fan of food or service at Divi but they got good marks this time.

Sunday beach time with a small amount of seaweed along the Divi beach and some in the water. Not pleasant for swimming. When we drove out for dinner, we saw a large mass of seaweed had accumulated in Great Bay along side the road out of Divi. Nice dinner at Mark's Place, as always. Never been there on Sunday night before and realized it's a good time because the grocery store is closed.

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plane crash RonDon 2 hours ago Air Canada plane crashed into a firetruck at LaGuardia

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Sargassum Grand Case? DtDanTanna 2 hours ago Hey everyone! Does anyone have a sargassum report for Grand Case? Anyone staying at GCBC who can report? Thx!

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Anybody stay at B.O. Paradis SXM??? Reviews?? TJTrippe 12 hours ago Anybody able to give a review of this place?

B,O, Paradis SXM
18 lotissement Baie Orientale, Orient Bay, 97150, Saint Martin

Thanks

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Sargassum Update Simpson Bay Whale Tail 13 hours ago I looked out at the Bay earlier today with my binoculars and the bay looked like people have been busy cleaning it up. Except along the airport stretch where nobody cleans it up

Then we came home from Rendezvous and went out to the balcony to check out the neighborhood and then we saw it!!!!

No longer are there streamers going by. But instead there are huge and I mean really huge mats of it just off shore to the south approaching Simpson Bay. Where it will go I don't know but I'll check in the morning. It doesn't look good.

The pictures might not represent what I saw but it is there.

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Rendezvous Last Visit This Trip Whale Tail Yesterday at 11:38 PM Well it was a good one!! We met up with WWll also known as Warren a long time visitor to the island and we gained the knowledge of his years visiting. I think that he enjoyed himself as he was singing along and I don't think that he has ever been to the Rendezvous brunch. And Warren you shouldn't have not done that and next time it will be our treat, thank you. Warren did not know how to attach pictures to his posts and I think that I have him straightened out on doing that. Post away Warren. Then we had a nice lady that came over to our table to meet us as she saw my Whale Tail necklace and wanted to meet us, kind of embarrassing. She has been a member of TTOL since 2013 and has a total of 2 posts. Very nice to meet you.

The band was awesome as usual but was missing Ronnie Santana this week as he wasn't feeling well. Whatever bug is going around down here is still around. We had friends come in from Halifax last week and 3 out of 5 got it and they were only here for 1 week.

WendyK was present as always and was having a good time dancing, always good to see her. We also thanked the owner of Rendezvous Nathalie for looking after our reservations and changes every year we come. We book months in advance and she is in a picture with the 2 horn players with their arms up.

Rendezvous has a new menu for the Sunday Brunch which is scaled down from their new menu that I posted maybe a couple of months ago. I think that with the expanded seating and limited staff they could not keep up with a large variety of food orders and my sliders are no longer on the Brunch menu. D*m!!
But I figure that during the week you would get the full menu. We just had an order of wings and fries to share and they were dry crunchy and big.

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Day 3 and 4 eilandmens Yesterday at 09:32 PM Contential breakfast for 2 on patio. $10/person includes orange juice, coffee, yogurt, butter, jelly, 2 pain au chocolat, 4 mini croissants.. very good and served to room. Went to Orient lots of sarragasum but the breeze was great. We did not find 14mph breeze sandblasting. It was cooling. Relaxing day. Wine, complimentary for our stay (repeat customers )on porch. Later we went to Rancho del Sol for dinner. A first for us,made reservations online, ( all in French). My wife taught French so we were cool. Menu online is French with no English translation. My wife came through again.we had Jack Daniels on the rocks, a very generous pour for both of us. I had flank steak with “smashed” potatoes; she was not hungry and had an app -roasted oysters, (never heard of it) not oysters Rockefeller, but oysters roasted in oven. She liked them. I recommend the place.

Next day going to timeshare on KimSha beach. Traffic not too bad on a Saturday. Check in about 2:30pm.went to Carol’s favorite place Garden Market for supplies. Gin and tonic on patio. Then walk to BBB for dinner. Walked on Welfare road to avoid beach which is dicey since Roxy left. Buccaneer Beach Bar was crowded. It was our fave night reggae night. A fun night. The food was disappointing though. Had better there in recent past. Hamburger over done, fries ok, same with my wife’s Maui Maui burger overcooked. Reggae night was fun however. Love that music. January our food was great.

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Vintage Yacht - “Talitha” Teresasxm Yesterday at 07:55 PM A beautiful old yacht has pulled up in front of Mary’s Boon in Simpson Bay. Built in 1930, it was originally owned by J. Paul Getty and served in World War II as the USS Beaumont. The 262 foot yacht was refitted in 1993 and currently is owned by Mark Getty, co-founder of Getty Images.

It’s been a luxury yacht show in Simpson Bay recently and it’s so cool to lay on a beach chair and read up on them. I love history.😊

p.s. In honour of Pat’s recent birthday, I took the photo in front of Saba - one of her favorite islands.

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Takeaways from our Spring Break Charter Matt W Yesterday at 03:03 PM Hey all - just back from a fantastic week in the windy BVI. I took my two kids (age 5 and 9) and 5x adult family members that were charter first-timers. Kids punched their first ticket last year in the Exumas.

This was my first time chartering in more of the high season and wow was it windy and crowded. 20 knots most of the week with two days of 25+. Had to re-work the itinerary a bit so we weren't sailing to Anegada on those windier days. I was determined not to reserve a Boatyball all week, and managed to pull it off. Here's where we ended up each night.

1. Diamond Cay - FCFS ball
2. Benures Bay (Bight was full at 2:30) - FCFS ball
3. BEYC - anchored
4. Leverick - anchored
5. Pomato point - anchored
6. CGB - ball
7. Peter Island - slip

The only anchorage I didn't particularly care for was the one at BEYC since we were in 50 feet and it was pretty crowded at 2:30 when we arrived.

A few firsts...

As I mentioned in another thread, we rented a safari truck and did the Baths via land and it was really enjoyable day. VG has great views and it's really a fun drive. Those views at Hog Heaven alone are worth it.

I've always wanted to try Pomato Point and frankly it's unclear to me if that area is redlined, but I dont see why it should be. With how crowded Setting Point was (~75 boats), there was really no reason to try and get in there and anchor. I've also had a FCFS (non-boaty) ball fail on me in the Setting Point anchorage. The Pomato Point anchorage is easy to approach, has excellent holding, and has a lot of space. There were 6x boats with room for plenty more. We arranged a truck delivery from Dean, and later that evening dined at Sid's which was excellent. Great vibe, friendly staff, and the food was really really good. Downside is it's a beach landing, and we had a little bit of wind swell to deal with. Perhaps others can comment on how this is in different weather conditions. We had east winds of 18-20 knots and it was a little bit rolly.

I reserved a slip at Peter Island a couple weeks before the trip for our last evening. First time ever being on the dock during a charter and we also wanted to check out the new marina facilities. Beautiful setting and the facilities are really well done - perhaps they could use some more seating area at the pool. Crew enjoyed coming and going as they pleased. 30 min motor the next am back to Nanny Cay. We had planned to just grab some pizzas at the Drunken Pelican but I wasn't aware it was bbq buffet night and at $70/pp that added up quickly! A word of advice - be floating outside the channel entrance 20 or so mins before 1:00. I arrived right on time and had to wait for 4x boats which took over an hour and a half to get in.

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Saba Whale Tail Yesterday at 12:30 PM This is the clearest Saba has been in a month and the sea is calm and it's hot at 8am.
This is the type of weather we would expect at this time of the year but for the past month it's been very windy and cool in the evenings.

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