Our fifth trip to St. Martin. Travellers: Myself, Husband, and 18 year old daughter and daughter’s friend. Travelling separately, but at the same time were two more 18 year old girlfriends and another set of parents. Goals: relaxation, rejuvenation, and NO “girls gone wild”.

Travel was on American Airlines, Boston-San Juan- St. Maarten, and unremarkable in both directions,

Rental car a Hyundai Sonata from Michael at Unity, and no problems there at any times. As soon as we got into the car, the girls did some FM searching and found the soundtrack for the week: Radio Calypso, 102.1, a great mix of hip-hop, reggae, and pop in French and English. Streaming at www.radiocalypso.net !

Lodging was booked thru Sandy Molloy, at Villa Marlene, in Le Village d’Orient. The villa is half a duplex, located approximately behind Kontiki. It has two bedrooms upstairs, each with king-sized bed, and a bathroom with sink and shower off the bedroom. The only toilet upstairs was in the communal hall. Downstairs was a small but fully-functional kitchen (washer, dishwasher, stove, oven, fridge), and two adjoining living rooms, one of which I think could have been converted to a bedroom if the couch was a sleep sofa. There was also a more conventionally laid-out bathroom, with sink, toilet and shower downstairs.
(Anyone willing to offer an opinion on why there are no shower curtains in the islands? How do you keep the water off the bathroom floor? And why would you have a toilet without the sink? Employees must wash hands…)
American satellite TV, and a nice radio with speakers rounded out the LR. The girls quickly took the radio up to their bedroom (see Radio Calypso, above.) The entire villa is air-conditioned.
Outside was the dining table in a small private yard, with our own private pool. Very nice!

Our first day coincided with the arrival of high surf – at 4 PM, after getting up for the airport at 2:15 AM I was fading but ready to hit the (rapidly-closing down) beach. We stopped at Kontiki, nearest open beach bar for a much needed libation. All the chairs were coming in, the wind was up, and we had margaritas in hand. Feeling a little peckish, we ordered some sushi. Life don’t get better.

Now I was really crashing at 5:30 (2:15AM, margarita) – nothing open yet for dinner in Le Village! Except great pizza at Tap Five. Early to bed.

Next day up rested and ready, hoping to get in a full day at OB. The girls were up even earlier, and found no sun, high surf, came running back with pleas to “take me to the sun!”. Consulted the maps—decided our best bet would be Le Galion, a great choice, especialy once the sun came out! Still windy, but not rough, and lovely for swimming and sunning. Several cruise ship buses also were diverted there with message “Orient is closed”!

We returned to OB around 2 to get some lunch—Baywatch, Kokomarina, all shuttered. Ended up[ at Bikini Beach Club for a delicious lunch of grilled shrimp and tropical fruit salad, fried calamari, edamame, and gazpacho. Then down to La Playa to find the gendarmes trying so shoo everyone out of the water and off the beach. “Dangereuse! Look out for ‘rogue waves’!” So the end of the day was spent poolside, in the sun. Not bad.

Next day the girls were up early again, off to La Playa to the “free” chairs – back in 15 minutes with the news “The beach is gone!” High water, high winds, tres dangereuse!
So back to Le Galion and another perfect day.

The beach had returned by Friday, and finally we got to enjoy Orient. As the week wound down, more and more sand reappeared, and travellers can be reassured that the beach is back! The water never settled down enough for snorkelling, however, but stayed too cloudy and churned up.

We also visited Baie Rouge, a favorite, and found a lot of erosion, and high surf, but lots of fun in the waves there.

Restaurants: At Orient, we enjoyed Kontiki. Bikini, and Tap Five as previously mentioned. We also ate at Le Cadre, and loved their charcuterie (meat and cheese) plate. Lunch of mussels at Baywatch was great, pizza and dessert crepes at Le Piment was good. Dinner at Cotes Plages of risotto with foie gras for me, red snapper for my husband, and steak for one girl and scallops in an asparagas veloute sauce for the other was also good. Our last night was had sushi at Tai Chi. The lobster tempura roll was wonderful, an entire lobster tail in huge chunks. My daughter had noodles, nicely seasoned. She realy liked the deep-fried ice cream for dessert.
Twice we went into Grand Case for dinner, the first time to La California for a nice meal (and still 1:1) and the second time for one of the best meals of my life at Le Cottage. I had duck, a plate of duck breast with a spoon on the side of wine sauce, a duck leg confit, and foie gras, served with perfectly steamed vegetables, and a packet fo suteed mushrooms wraped in endive. Husband had shrimp in a vanilla sauce served over sweet potato. I don’t think they had to wash his plate after he was done. Daughter had steak, cooked perfectly, and served with a bundle of haricots verts wrapped in bacon and sheared off to look like a little barrel. Friend had sea scallops, served with fried guacamole fritters the just melted in your mouth. For dessert we had souffles - chocolate, Grand Marnier, and pear-pestachio, and they were all good.

The trip was too short, the weather iffy at times, but it all made for a great adventure!