Trip Report - October 13 - 22

As trip reports go this is our first one so please bear with us as we recount our latest trip to St. Martin. Most of the references in this report will be from our experiences on the French side as we have gravitated to the pace found on that part of the island.

In the past we have always flown either Continental (redeeming NWA ff miles) or US Airways from Detroit. In shopping for decent fares this time we were unable to find anything for less than $620/person (including all fees and taxes) out of DTW for our selected dates, a Tuesday through the following Thursday in October. On a hunch we checked flights from Chicago O’Hare - what we found were fares for $345/person (including all taxes and fees) from US Airways so we booked it! No problem driving an extra two hours to save $550!! What’s crazy about the fare was that both the DTW departure and the much cheaper ORD departure each connected through CLT for the same flight to SXM. I’ve given up trying to figure out the airline’s pricing schemes.

So we’re off at 4:00am Tues 13 Oct for ten days in SXM… no problem with ORD check-in or the connection in Charlotte for a smooth flight down to Paradise. Typical SXM immigration lines, we grabbed our bags and met Duane from Unity who took us to meet Michael and our new silver Toyota Yaris. We’ve used Unity the last seven trips and have had nothing but positive experiences with them. We do pick up the extra $5 per day for the additional liability coverage… it’s there if we need it is our outlook.

We are not tethered to our cell phones but this trip we decided to rent a phone from Sharon for the extra peace of mind knowing our families could reach us if necessary. It worked out great for us. We bought just enough minutes to touch base w/ home a couple of times. Something we’ll continue to do on future trips.

From Sharon’s place at Royal Palm we headed for Paradise Bungalows in Orient Village. This was our second stay at Bruno’s. We really enjoy Bruno and Geraldine’s hospitality and location. Unpack and off to the Fresh Market. Arrival day afternoon is usually spent getting set-up for a great week ahead. We learned long ago you can’t do it all so we just concentrate on the essentials - food, drink and the beach.

For budget reasons we didn’t eat at any of the more upscale restaurants in Grand Case this trip - we’ve found you can find excellent meals if you know where to look… (and a big Thank-You to all TTOL’ers !) Our first meal on Day One was dinner at Villa Pizza in the French Cul de Sac. Very good.

We generally have breakfast in the room… each morning I’ll head down to either Tap Five or over to the Boulangerie Bakery (off the Cul de Sac road to Sol ‘e Luna.) for one of the simplest pleasures we enjoy when we visit St. Martin - French bread… particularly fresh baguettes and raisin pastries. Still warm in their wrapper I head back to the room with the bounty! Most days breakfast is yogurt, orange juice, some fruit, baguette w/ preserves, coffee and the view from Bruno’s veranda.

After breakfast we head for Club Orient. We’ve pretty much settled on the beach at CO. Pick up a weeks worth of coupons at the Watersports Shack (7 days of chairs & umbrella for $100 + two 2 for 1 drink coupons) and we are good. This was our first trip during October and we both agreed it was the best time we’ve ever had. The weather was perfect, mid-80s w/ very little wind all week - most days the umbrellas hardly flapped in the breeze - calm water, no bugs of any consequence and smaller crowds than usual. About perfect.

Day Two - Our first full day on the beach. Hanging out, SPF 45 allover, a few beers, a twenty minute afternoon Rain Delay, nothing we weren’t equal to. Our chair neighbors talked us into joining them on the Tiko Tiko cruise scheduled for the next day. We are having no problem adjusting to our new daily regimen. Dinner that night at Cito’s Place. Thanks MarcG and peconic for the recommendation!… excellent food and great service! I had ribs and rice and Joy had a vegetarian dish w/ rice and fresh salad. Ample portions and great flavors… we would return (and did!).

Day Three - meet at Papagayo at 9:00am. Started raining like hell at 9:04 am. Philipe left it up to us - three couples and two gentlemen from Vegas. I was thumbs up, the majority went thumbs down. Now it’s raining even harder… drove over to Grand Case in a deluge for some more provisions (and for something to do). One thing about St. Martin’s infrastructure and heavy tropical rain - there’s no place to put it except in the largest road puddles imaginable!!… by noon the sky had cleared and we were salvaging some beach time in the yellow umbrella section of Orient Bay. Lunch at Papagayo - excellent - I’ve heard some complaints, but we’ve always enjoyed every meal there. Dinner at Calmos Café. New parking lot in Grand Case is really nice. We went to Calmos based on TTOL’ers recommendations and seeing the Three Sheets episode. We were not disappointed. Arrived too late for the sunset but still enjoyed the unique setting right on the water. Excellent food and service… we would return (and did!).

Day Four - meet at Papagayo at 9:00am. No rain. Perfect weather. Majority made the right call. This was our first trip on the Tiko Tiko. Unfortunately one of the prior day’s couples were a no-show. This was the Pik-Nik cruise, food fare scaled back from the gourmet lunch. Six of us and Philipe (no crew this trip). Still a great time was had by all. Drank all the beer and most of the Rum Punch. A great day with great people. Back to shore in time for Happy Hour at Papagayo. Had the obligatory end-of-day salute. Dinner at Germain’s Lolo in Grand Case. Not so great. About as we expected. After too much fun on the Tiko Tiko we weren’t sure if we’d appreciate dinner at a nicer place so Germain’s fit the bill.

Day Five - Up early, baguette run, breakfast as usual… the day’s first activity? Open up Rima’s at 9:00 am. One word comes to mind when I think of Rima’s… quantity. You don’t go to Rima’s and buy just one of something. You buy three or four or six of the same item… all in different colors/styles. If we are ever down on our luck I’m going to suggest to Joy she open up a branch location and call it “Rima’s North.” Exit Philipsburg and head back to France. Grab our beach stuff and redeem coupon #4 for chairs and umbrella. Some days we bring our lunch, other days we check out one of the many lunch spots on Orient Beach. Today we search out Chez Leandra… again by TTOL recommendation (do you see a pattern developing here?). Found a shady table at Chez Leandra and ordered up. Joy goes for the Veggie Wrap, I’ll have the Saltfish Wrap… each order w/fries. Quite possibly the best wrap ever… a spicy sauce on the saltfish is really tasty. Joy concurs. 2 wraps w/ fries, 3 beers & tip = $27. We’re talking value. Back to work. Another beautiful day in Paradise.

It’s always fun to discover a great new place to eat… such was our luck when one of the Vegas gentlemen from our Tiko Tiko cruise suggested we try “that pizzeria in Orient Village next to the Safari Grill.” We’ve eaten a few times at the Safari Grill but never next door at Le Piment Pizzeria. The young lady who owns it, (Crystal in English, not sure in French) used to work at the Thai restaurant in Orient Village. Crystal was a very accommodating hostess. She explained the daily specials in a very “French” way with her language and gestures. We ordered one of the “Specials” and a pizza, sharing each. The special was a flaky pastry stuffed with peppers and cheeses served as part of a mixed salad. The pastry looked out of place among the salad greens but was it ever good!… and rich. Joy and I also shared a Toscane pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella, zucchini, artichokes, olives and garlic. Yea, it was good, really good. Our two entrees, bottled water and beers came to $54 + tip. Le Piment, highly recommended.

Sunday, Day Six - Today I resume work on the research project I began back in May of this year. On that particular trip the beach area at Club Orient was huge. Since we first visited St. Martin in 2001 I have never seen as much beach as was there in May, 2009. In May I paced from the railing at the back of the beach to the water’s edge. It was 165’. On 10/18/09, the same spot (the railing in front of CO Units 51 & 52) was 105’ to the water or about two-thirds of what was there in May. Nature’s quite amazing. Other need-to-know trivial factoids include a water temp of 82° and air temp of 86° on 18 Oct 2009. The water was really comfortable… noodles were the order of the day. Dinner this night was a return trip to Cito’s Place. We had intended to go to Le Pub in Grand Case but the traffic/parking situation in GC was too much hassle this particular Sunday night. Must have been the locals night out. Cito’s was as good the second time as the first.

Day 7 - For breakfast we decided to return to a favorite spot, the Sunset Café at the Grand Case Beach Club. Ever since we stayed there in 2005 we make sure to return each trip for breakfast. Beautiful view of Anguilla, a real pleasant place… good omelets too. They are completely remodeling the units closest to Grand Case, don’t know more about the project other than it appears they’ve gutted each unit doing a major re-model. After GCBC it’s another day at the beach… In keeping with our “try new places” theme we make plans for Happy Hour and dinner at the Dinghy Dock. Once we found it (near Captain Olivers), we had a great time. In addition to a number of locals, there were a couple tables of Gendarmes’ adding to the mix. After a couple drinks we ordered dinner. Joy had a Greek salad and I had their Fish ‘n Chips… the slab of Snapper served up was huge and very good. Needless to say we were stuffed. I asked our waitress, Jemi (from Spain), which side we were on…. She proceeded to tell us the bar being over the water on the dock was the Dutch side and the restrooms, because they were on land, were on the French side. She put it this way, “You drink with the Dutch and pee with the French.” (Actually she phrased it a little differently at the expense of the French!)…

Day 8 - Normally this would be the dreaded departure day but we added a couple “bonus days” to this trip… back to Club Orient for another beautiful day at the beach. We decided to cut short our afternoon on the beach in favor of some time at Bruno’s pool… among the “stuff” I have in my beach bag is a small plastic stream thermometer… this day the pool was a very warm 85°… really, really, really nice. Back to Calmos Café for drinks, dinner and two complimentary shots of the smoothest rum on de’ island… a perfect end to a perfect day.

Day 9 - Exact repeat of Day 5. CO beach, Chez Leandra for lunch and Le Piment for dinner. We cheated on the “try new places” idea, but hey, we get to make the rules! Bonus Day 2 is a resounding success…

Day 10 - Final day. Get up. Eat breakfast. Pack. Load. Get gas. Drop off phone & car. Check-in. Security. Wait. Depart. Actually it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, we made some baguette sandwiches w/ cheese and Danish salami for the plane ride back, even had time for lunch at the Carl and Sons counter in the airport (no saltfish, darn.) Took 20 minutes of waiting in line to get through Immigration/Customs in Charlotte, no problem. Arrived to rain and cold in ORD. Stayed overnight in Des Plaines and motored home the next morning where we were greeted by two very happy pups!

Epilogue - This, our tenth trip to SXM, was our best one yet. Next trip we are doing Carry-On! I know it can be done. A big thank you to all those on this board for your contributions, large and small… R.