......... a terrific two and a half weeks in St. Maarten!! And for those who traveled with us, thanks for coming along and I hope you weren't totally bored to tears with my ramblings, and now I leave it to the next set of visitors to continue the task of keeping us all abreast of all things St. Maarten - St Martin.

And to recap the details-

As usual, we took AA down and had a great flight and a very easy arrival through immigration and baggage in St. Maarten.

For our on island needs, we used Lesley Bruce of Kenny's for our rental car as is our norm, along with Sharon Harris, The Queen, who handled our cell phone concerns and Jeannie who gave us her typically great grocery stocking and provisioning service through Shop and Drop Grocery Service, and for the first time, Bob Craig of Pack Lite services and each and everyone of them were great and I give them all my personal kudos, for what that's worth. And for sure, I have to include in that list my longtime personal favorite jewelry store - Caribbean Gems. They always manage to make me happy......

We stayed in a beautiful two bedroom penthouse unit at The Towers for the first two weeks and Unit #14 at Beachside Villas, right next to the pool - for our last four nights - perfection, all of them, and I didn't make a bed for all that time which is a big plus for me.

We had perfect weather if you could overlook the Sahara Sands, the Sargasso seaweed and the rougher than usual waves at many of our favorite beaches, and at one time our pool was almost as warm as my bathtub water at home. The only thing we didn't experience were those pesky mosquitoes but since they haven't had any real rain to speak of in ages, that's almost self-explanatory. The island really is hurting in that department. The golf course looks like burned straw and almost all the cars are constantly dust covered.

This is always an unusual time to visit the island with all the annual Carnival activities going on, coupled with Kings and Queens birthdays, Labor Days and any other holidays you can think of to throw into the mix but it seems to put most of the residents in good moods so good for them. Who doesn't enjoy a holiday?

We had only four breakfasts out with just a couple more lunches but they were all good - ribs at Rosie's a couple of times, an incredibly good lunch at Friars Bay Beach Cafe one day and likewise, another at Anse Marcel Beach Restaurant.

And dinners? OMG!! They were all delicious even including the grilled steak and baked potatoes we prepared ourselves while at BSV. Is it possible to have a bad dinner on this island? My two favorites? No surprise here - Antoine's by the Sea one night and Moulin Fou another but we also enjoyed Le Bateau Ivre, FIG, Bajatzu, Chesterfields, Luna Rosa, and Boca Marina though each time we visit the latter, it's anybody's guess - this trip was very good. And perhaps a few other places as well, but the names escape me at this moment.

We didn't do any other islands again this trip and we never really saw Saba but for 36 hours the whole time we were there. We did redo the Eco Around the Island Tour again this trip - nice but not as nice in December.

We enjoyed our evenings with some local friends; Sharon, Barbara, Dee, Lyn and Bob - thank you all for making time for us, and Jeannie, I'm so sorry we were never able to reconnect after that first day, but we'll be back.

And lastly, my only regret was not connecting with Norm and Betty, whom I've looked forward to meeting for so long. I offer my most sincere apologies to you both for the confusion, which I'm sure was mostly on my part.

The trip home on JB was totally eneventful. We purchased sandwiches for the trip at Zee Best. The check-in at PJIA was a breeze and the flight was right on time and actually the best JB experience I've had so far, and coupled with the on-time arrival and the easy passage through T5 at JFK, the hardest part of our entire trip was connecting with our limo driver for the ride home to CT. JB is really stretched thin in their pick-up and drop-off space, but it is what it is.

It was truly a perfect trip in every way and now, I really need to reset my countdown clock for the next one, and at the same time, I also want to wish all those who follow us a trip just as pleasant as ours was. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />