Day 5: Phillipsburg & Zipline. Saturday

Whistling a merry tune I stroll to get my “pour aller” at the Sunset Café, and then stroll right back to the unit to get my forgotten tray. All is well -- they give you two chances. Today we head into Phillipsburg for shopping!! My perfect husband is super (Soo-PEHR!) happy to be dragging along behind us. We leave at 8:45 a.m. not knowing how long it will take. To avoid Marigot we head of out Grand Case towards Orient Beach follow the road into Phillipsburg and get there by about 9:05. It’s nice to see the other side of the island and pass by restaurants as though they’re historical monuments. Look! I heard about that one on TTOL! So we park as close as we can in the public parking by Rima’s and walk to the boardwalk. My radar is a little up, as there aren’t many tourists around but no one else seems concerned but me. The boardwalk is deserted – I mean deserted and no shops are open yet. FA 13&15 are beginning to give me the look. So we walk and quite by accident find Kangaroo Court. Go Mom! She’s heard of this place on TTOL! We get tastily caffeinated until the shops open which isn’t too long. Today’s mission? Earrings. There are over than 10,000 jewelry stores in Phillipsburg, and, amazingly they all have bargains for me. We finally find DK Gems International, which we’d heard good things about on this board. I enjoyed negotiating with the young man who helped us. We received a very good price for a pair each of blue topaz, peridot and garnet earrings nicely set in 14k. It was a better price and I could have found in the States or in a catalog, plus, no tax. I knew what I wanted to pay going in, and the price was more than met in a friendly, little pressure setting. Obviously we weren’t big-ticket folks but I enjoyed hearing the lines:

For the first customer of the day, only $---
Because you are TTOL customer, only $---
For all three pairs, a special price of $---

Then we chatted with another man who seemed like an owner for a while and it turns out he has a friend who owns a jewelry store not two miles from where we live in the Chicago suburbs. Small world -- great prices. So then we walk into about a dozen Purse/Everything-Else stores and amazingly don’t buy anything. One guy chases us out of a store saying, “You won’t come back! No one ever comes back!” Um, okay, they sure take their purses seriously. We’re all getting a little hot and cranky, but the cool blast of air at Rima’s as we enter spurs us on. I see now this is the only place to buy souvenirs and they pack your purchases in a colorful cloth sack. Oh crud. I was supposed to bring some kid’s clothes I got from Target for the orphanage that burned to TTOL Barbara at her shop. I forgot them at the unit. Double crud.

We drive back to GCBC for lunch and a rest and then to the Lotterie Farm again. Will Teresa-the-Transmission be born today? Nope. She’s just not ready yet. The Zip-line park is a lot of fun if you are even moderately athletic. One nice feature is they have a drinking water tank up in the trees about half-way through the course because, YOU WILL do more than glisten or glow… you will sweat. I found the park to be very safe and the guides very helpful if you need it. Afterwards we had a cool, cool drink in the treehouse bar. Very cool. The service was great – lime and an iced glass for my Caribe and little crispy munchies. It was expensive but if you take into account the view and service, it was a bargain.

So, tonight we try out Calmos – that place on the beach. Our server was a hoot. We mangled our French as usual, but instead of looking sideways at us he says, “You are Lucky, because Tonight you are sitting at the table where you can ONLY speak French!” We had a ball and he taught us a few phrases, too. I had really excellent beef brochette and hubby and the girls thought the shrimp and ribs were great, along with a goat cheese salad. He brings the rum bottle to the table: it’s ginger and (if I remember) lime flavored. Nice little kick. Lovely. Along with 2 beers and two sodas the bill is $77 US. Calmos was not offering one-to-one but I think this is an example of a place where you get good value for your money, regardless of the exchange.

It’s blackjack night for cards. Dad bets the mortgage and as dealer, I win it. The girls can still go to college. Off to bed.

Day 6: Scoobitoo. Sunday

After expertly procuring breakfast with my trusty tray we get in the car and drive to the other side of the isla—wait no, the Scoobitoo picks us up right at our resort. Here’s how it works: They pick you up at the dock, they deposit you on the boat give you the first of however many liquids you want, motor you to Tintamarre, sail you to Rendez Vous Bay, Anguilla, deposit you in front of BBQ lunch and a knock-out beach, and then sail for a couple hours till they set you back on the dock at your resort. It was a lovely, sunny day. In fact, the whole of our time on St. Martin the only time we had a few drops was the morning we went to Phillipsburg. One cool thing about taking a day sail is getting to see St. Martin from offshore. It really gives you a perspective of how the different towns cling to the edges. On Tintamarre, if you ask the crew they’ll give you a plastic bucket to gather mud with which to ruin your bathing suit. For some reason I thought they gathered it for you. No matter, two other women and I scraped and clawed at the rocks until we got enough red mud in the bucket proving that, given the option of lying on a breathtaking beach or clutching at rocks like cavewomen... The mud was a little sandy, but we sure were exfoliated afterwards, as we reapplied sunblock to our scrubbed skin. Even FA15 tried it while pretending she was too cool. We also observed a two-foot stingray skating close to shore. If you’ve ever stepped on a stingray, as my husband has, you know to give it a wide berth. We did relax well on at Rendezvous Bay and lunch was fine. Overall it was a worthwhile, if expensive trip. I think next time we would try the ferry to Anguilla just to compare.

That night we decide to try Italian. The menu at Spiga looks good and offers one-to-one exchange. It’s one the road that leads to Grand Case Airport and where cars fly like planes. Spiga is located in a cottage with a main dining room with muted light. One odd thing. During our whole meal a woman dressed entirely in white sat at a desk with an office lamp quietly doing paperwork in the corner like nurse Ratchett in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Disappointingly, we were not offered our Meds before dinner. The appetizer was excellent: fresh mozzarella treated three ways: olive tempanade, avocado, and eggplant. The flavors were so delicate. I had pork and gnocchi stew that was so good I would have made everyone in the restaurant try it had my husband not advised otherwise. Good Dad. He had a chicken and goat cheese dish that was equal and the girls had a pasta & marinara, and pasta Bolognese -- all freshly prepared. We also had three glasses of wine and a bottle of water = $111 before tip. Really wonderful.

After dinner we go to bed and feel the boat still rocking in our dreams.

Karen