Thursday
This is our 5th consecutive trip to St. Maarten. We left Cleveland at 3:30 AM and drove to Pittsburgh. 7:00 flight through Charlotte went without a hitch. Arrived at 1:15 in pouring down rain. Got our car from Thrifty/Dollar. No problems. Planned to stop at Taco Macho but forgot they moved. Headed to the Flamingo and decided to have a couple bagette sandwiches and a few beers at Bon Appetite while we waited to check in. Both of our sandwiches were very good. Went to Market Garden for essentials, water, beer and wine. Headed off to SMYC. Ruth took good care of us here as we had our first rum punch. We stayed and decided to have dinner there. Beth had coconut shrimp, I had a jerk chicken wrap. They were both fabulous so we offered our compliments to the chef. We were introduced to Charlie who happens to own his own restaurant and works part time at SMYC. We decided that we definitely wanted to come back when he was working there again. While we were there talking to people, we found out that the Lady C is gone for good. The owners moved to Curacao
Friday
When we woke up, the skies were overcast so we decided to drive around the island. First we went to Maho and shopped a bit. Then we headed off to Marigot and ate at Bistro de la Mar. Beth had a salad and pizza, I had beef carpaccio and stuffed mussels. We had a wonderful dining experience there and the food was great. We headed up to Grand Case and walked around a bit and then headed back by way of Orient/Phillipsburg. We had our token rum punch at Toppers by the sea. Low and behold Fiona was working behind the bar. We had a lot of fun with her last year. We went to Lal's for dinner. Beth had the spinach chicken, I had Bhouna Gho. It did not disappoint. We absolutely love this place. From there, we headed to La Bamba. Sharon was our bartender. I struck up a conversation with Dino, a local police officer. Our goal for the evening was to get Dino to smile. He didn't like to smile.


Then Martin, the beach chiropractor entered into the fray.

The night didn't have a fairy tale ending, but everything turned out alright.
Saturday
We set off for Club O. Ahhhhh! We had lunch at Chez Leandra Beth had the chicken ceasar wrap I had the conch creole wrap. What can I say, amazingly delicious. On the way home, we stopped at SMYC for a rum punch. Ruth was bartending again. Low and behold, they were giving out some sort of yacht racing awards awards.


Since we weren't really supposed to eat at the buffet, Charlie brought out a few little plates of the buffet food for us to try. He was a really, really nice person and we enjoyed talking to him very much. Then, along comes Simon.

He was a trip and a half. The stories he told about fights, sailing, losing his toe in a bicycle accident, and the love of his life (maybe), kept us thoroughly entertained. We left there and had Left over pizza and Lal's in our room.
Sunday
Back to Club O but stopped along the way for Baguette sandwiches at Tap 5. Buccaneer Beach Bar was the destination of choice today for rum punches. There we talked to Kevin quite a bit. He works at the desalination plant as an electrical engineer I think. It was interesting to learn that if they lose power, there is only a 2 day supply of water for the island. Next stop—Bamboo Bernies for undoubtedly the best dinner we had all week.

Beth had the filet mignon and I had the red snapper and noodles. Then we headed back to La Bamba to listen to rock-n-roll band of some sort. They were good and we had fun (again).
Monday
We decided to try the made to order baguette sandwiches from Peli Deli and went back to Club O again. Peli Deli baguette sandwiches ended up being our favorite for the remainder of our stay. Unfortunaely, we got rained out today about 2:30. On the way home, we stopped in Phillipsburg, because the sun was shining and walked around and shopped for an hour or so. Once again, SMYC was our destination of choice for rum punch. This time Melody took care of us. This is a picture of a yacht owed by some Japanese guy. We met some of the people who worked on the yacht.

And here is another picture just because.

While we were sitting there, I noticed a man and his son trying to push their broken down pick-up truck across the drawbridge. I ran over and helped them push it across and it went much faster. I was surprised that there weren't more people willing to help. We got cleaned up and headed back to SMYC for dinner because we knew that Charlie was going to be there. I had the Cajun shrimp wrap, Beth had the spicy sausage marinara over Penne pasta. What can I say, it was wonderful. He has a real talent. We actually discussed cooking for quite some time. He said that he actually cooked for the Queen twice and the Prince once. His own restaurant is called Charlie's Rooftop Cafe, located upstairs at the Belair Community Center. He is on facebook under 'charliesrooftopcafe'. We actually found the place on Friday before we left, but there wasn't anyone there at the time. Then we struck up a conversation with Collin and John. Collin won 3 Heinekin regattas and I think raced in the Americas cup. Together they are involved in some sort of racing/sailing activity in Mexico called the 12 Metre Challenge. I didn't look it up, but in case someone is interested, the web site is www.12metre.com . Off to the Red Piano to see the Blue/Soul band. We met Bill and Elaine because we were sitting beside them at the bar. Yet another fun night.

Tuesday
Something new today, Mullet Bay, but not before getting our Peli Deli sandwiches. But in so doing forgot about Rosie's ribs. So we had ribs and only ate half of baguettes, saving the other half for Wednesday. In our opinion, the Driftwood served the best rum punch on the island; however, last year we were a little let down. So we decided to give it a shot again this year. We weren't sorry. She mixed up the best rum punch we had all week, hands down.
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If I haven't completely bored you by now, we took a step back in time to 2008 by what happened next. As we are sitting there Beth looks up and yells, “Dirty Mike!” 3 years ago, we did a snorkel/tintamarre trip with Timmy and Julio. Dirty Mike drove the boat. These pics are from 3 years ago.
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We happened to like Dirty Mike and had a lot of fun with him. He let me drive the boat.
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He told my wife that he loved her.
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Sure enough it was him at the bar.
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Off to Pineapple Pete's for dinner. Beth had coconut shrimp, I had Lobster Thermidor (1st time ever). Both were very good.
Wednesday
Back to Club O with the other half of our Peli Deli baggettes from the day before. It was overcast, but it ended up being a decent day on Orient because it had rained most of the day on the Dutch side. We chose a new rum punch destination today, Pineapple Pete's. That's where we learned that the drink we have been having all week is really called a Planters Punch. We stayed there until the rain stopped. Tonight we had dinner at 3 Palms. We got a Brushetta appetizer. Beth had chicken cordon blue. I had lobster ravioli. Another fabulous meal.
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Thursday
At least one day of the trip has to be spent at Pinel. Here are some miscellaneous pictures.
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