Day 7: Excuse Me, Do You Have My Memory? Monday

Well today we… I have no idea. Come on, Brain, work with me here… don’t make me stop this car. I can’t believe I finally have an expiration date on my short-term memory. I hope I didn’t meet a movie star today and find a cure for memory lapse.

Oh, that’s right, today is a laze-about day on the beach. There’s not much to be said about hanging at the beach with a book under an umbrella but: ahhhhhhhhh. Harry Potter seems to be intent on making it through his mission in all kinds of dismal English weather. Poor Harry. He should come to St. Martin. Maybe then his scar would heal.

We float, we laze, we watch the water sports guys and the newlyweds (not together…). Then we eat leftovers for lunch (Spiga leftovers, mind you) and then, FAs 13&15 break the spell by needing to actually DO something. What would that be? Tubing at 125 m.p.h. behind a motorboat, perhaps? Sebastian, the water sports guy says it’s $15 for ten minutes, and says you think they’ll want more but really, ten minutes in a tube is enough. He’s right. They bob, bump, and jostle their brainpans just enough so the really expensive colleges are no longer a worry. Thanks, Sebastian!

This afternoon, FA13 and I walk into town for a shopping. It’s mostly closed in the afternoon but we stop at the southern end of the main road at a little café for an Orangina. It’s so lovely to sit with my daughter and chat under a patio awning and watch the cars go by. There’s a guy nursing a Presidente while watching a soccer game on a small TV set on a counter. We then head to the Pharmacy to get the one thing that would create instant world peace: Amilab lip balm. Be right back – ahhhh, Amilab….. Previously I had only been able to get this product in France. If everyone could just glide some tangerine-vanilla lip balm over their lips (or any chapped part, I suppose) when they get testy, oh, the world would be a better place – or maybe we’d just yell at each other with exceedingly smooth lips.

Country #1: Your foreign policy stinks!
Country #2: No, your foreign policy stinks!
Country #1: What’s that incredible smell?
Country #2: It’s my lips…
Country #1: Shall we have a little drink?

So I stock up on Amilab. We walk to the grocery store to get liquids and FA13 buys candies with French labels for friends at home. I buy shampoo and conditioner to take home just to make the vacation last a little longer.

Tonight is the GCBC manager’s reception. It’s served on a stone upper terrace of the club with lovely views of Anguilla. There’s rum punch, wine and sodas. FAs 13&15 scan the place and quickly make their exit, much like agents clearing the place for all signs of fun. The appetizers are typical munchies, but hey, it’s free and we meet some nice folks. Next time we’ll position our trip dates so we have the Mgrs. Reception earlier on and can meet folks in this convivial setting. Tonight we have reservations for dinner downstairs at the Sunset Beach Café. We have a lovely, oceanside table. We order the same bottle of Chardonnay we did at Spicy and it’s just as good except here it’s only $19 – the wine list is very well priced overall. We order the fish soup first and boy-oh-boy is it yummy – the stock is flavorful and there’s a garlic mayonnaise and croutons --just like I remember it in La Rochelle (which is an Atlantic coast vacation town in France). The tureen holds no traces of its contents when we’re done. FA 13 has a respectable shrimp cocktail and FA 15 has the smoked fish platter. Dad has a Provencal (he thinks) fish dish and it’s wonderful. I have the shrimp pasta and it’s good, but I probably should have ordered something else. It’s good, though. For dessert we split a Tiramisu. If it were called Frozen Custard Lincoln Logs I would have loved it. As a Tiramisu interpretation (having worked in an east coast Italian joint for a while) I just couldn’t get over it. My fault, probably. Anyway, the bill with a bottle of water, too, was $127 before tip. Not bad for fine food and we have leftovers again for lunch.

Tonight we find BBC America on the TV and watch reruns of Coupling, a show we only get once a week in Chicago.

Day 8: Postcards and Slow Walking. Tuesday

Last full day – you know how it goes. Don’t Cry for me Argentina. We walk a little slower and look around hoping the images will be burned on our retinas. We take a drive to Cul de Sac and Anse Marcel because, you know, we were planning on spending some actual time there, not merely observing for a future trip. At 10 a.m. we’ve reserved a guided snorkeling trip to Creole Rock, the marine park, with Damian the water sports guy. I’m hoping it’s at least as good as the snorkeling we did by the rocky shore the other day. Besides us the only other participant is a lovely Parisian woman named Nancy. She’s easygoing and smart and we talk a little about France. After we arrive at Creole Rock Damian tells us briefly about some of the fishies we will see and then says with a slight frown, “and today, ah, there will be some jellyfish” as though jellyfish are just something that go with peanutbutter. Not to worry, he will push them away when he sees them. FA13 is not feeling so well and not at all thrilled about the jellyfish. Damian says he will hold her hand and swim with her the whole time and he does just that. Good Damian! The fishes and barracuda were amazing, but so was the underwater world. At one point we were amid a thousand tiny silver fish catching underwater sunlight, wonderful. There were sea urchins and all manner of colorful fish and the trip flew by. Yes, there were many jellyfish but they were pretty easy to avoid, and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, beautiful. I highly recommend this trip – it was a highlight of ours.

This afternoon we headed into Maho to see the planes land and return the rented cell phone to SXM Sharon. I rented the phone for emergency contact only, as blissfully, did not need it once. The comfort of having it (both for me and contacts in the States) paid off. Since we will be going by the airport to drop off the phone, I time the ride from GCBC to the airport going via the Marigot waterfront and through Sandy Ground, etc. It takes 28 minutes. I’ve been so trained to worry about traffic, after reading all the TTOL posts, so I’m hoping that tomorrow morning, the rush hour won’t add much time. We park at Sunset Beach Bar and encounter the first and only time-share come-on of the trip, which takes exactly 7.2 seconds to ward off with the use of my magic wand, whoops… no THAT’s an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Harry Potter and the St. Martin Odyssey.” So we buy some drinks and watch the planes land. Yup. It’s a sight to see. We caught a fairly large US Airways plane seemingly landing out of nowhere. The next rumble I hear is, “beach, beach, beach,” and off we are to our last dip in the ocean at GCBC. I scribble off about ten postcards and give them to the front desk to mail.

We go back to Talk of the Town for dinner and it’s just as good as the first night. I have snapper again. Tonight the service is poor, but this place is not about service, it’s about food. Then we walk back and start the awful, awful, cruel task of packing. Just awful. Did I say awful?

Day 9: Wednesday: Going, going, gone.

This morning I put the clothes from Target for the children on the dining table. I write a note that says, hopefully the housekeepers know some one at the Children’s Home or know some children that could use the clothes. Then we walk to breakfast early, and, nicely, they let us in before the restaurant has opened for a final French Continental Breakfast. We are leaving… I almost get teary eyed. In the vulgar words of Bart Simpson, “I can’t believe it’s possible for something to both suck and blow at the same time.” It takes 34 minutes in “rush hour” to get to the airport. But then again, it’s low season on a Wednesday morning and we take the alternate route.

The family goes in and I wait in the parking lot for Leslie from Kenny’s Car Rental. Have you noticed that half the island’s shops are named Kenny’s? Anyway, he arrives within six minutes of the scheduled time. Very good. He’s a nice man and, he’s got the rental contract already discounted for the day we missed. I sign and that’s it! All my up front worry is for nothing. Would use Kenny’s again anytime.

Than we go home. You know the routine. I had two beers in the San Juan airport to kill the pain.


Random Endnotes:

Sunset Café at GCBC has Happy Hour (1/2 price drinks) every night from 5:30-6:30. It’s a great place to watch the sunset.

Plugs -- At GCBC, if you forget your U.S. adapter plug, you can bring your small electronics that need charging to the front desk and they’ll do it for you.

Going through San Juan – If I never see San Juan airport again that would be fine with me. I’d much rather be stuck in Miami or Charlotte. The air conditioning there was spotty and it seemed crowded. Seems like the 4:00 flight to San Juan gets cancelled/overbooked more than anyone lets on.

Family -- If this trip were just my husband and I, we would probably have visited more beaches, eaten at some different places, and generally explored a little more. I would have liked to stroll the Maho beach area, for example, or visit Friar’s Bay. As it is, we had great time and the kids loved it.

Meltdown -- Once during every trip, our kids have meltdown and we have to have a corrective conversation. I don’t know how to avoid it. Once the air is cleared we can get on with our trip, and hopefully our neighbors forgive us.

Ice cream at Brasserie Des Iles – If you can, stop by for ice cream here. They have an area up front to serve you from the street. It was $2 a scoop. I think we had it three nights after dinner and walked around. Yummy.

Bugs – Not where we were. Had no issues what-so-ever. Never even applied bug lotion.

Crime – Thankfully, we experienced no crime, but, thanks to TTOL, we took precautions. We never left anything, ANYTHING, not a scrap a paper in the car, which we left unlocked. Our rental had a shift lock that we always used. We always locked our unit and put anything with which we couldn’t part in the safe. After that, we had a great time!

Restaurants – We wanted to get to Tabba Khady, Citcos, Poulet D’Orleans, Belle Époque and a few more. Next time.

TTOL –This board was invaluable when planning our trip. We have used similar boards for planning to France, Disney (I know, I know) and a few other places. Between message boards and Tripadvisor I felt well prepared.

Thanks to everyone who helped along the way.