We got back Sunday night, and I'm still catching up. The vacation was 95% great! The other 5% was bad due to my own stupidity.<br> <br>Every morning Barb and I took an early morning walk, sometimes down the street thru Grand Case, or along the beach. Tuesday, we decided to take an early morning walk along Orient Beach, while it was quiet.We parked behind Kon Tiki, got out of the car and started walking towards the beach. I had a Nikon camera on my lap in the car, so I opened the trunk and dropped it in, next to our backpacks. An hour later, after walking to Blue Bay and back, I went to get some towels from our backpacks. When I opened the trunk, everything was gone - camera, backpacks and their contents. I've been warned many times but like many people, thought it would not happen to me!!! Wrong! I was really bummed for most of the rest of the day, then made some mental adjustments: no money, nor credit cards, nor passports or wallets had been taken. Only stuff. Some of it expensive, but still just stuff. We purchased some disposable cameras, had dinner at Mario's that night (reservations made one month in advance), and still had a great vacation. We've even got a French police report as memento.<br>By the way, the gendarme said the thief was probably at the car for less than a minute. He showed me where and how entry was obtained. The thief used a narrow blade, much like a hacksaw blade, pried an opening under the plastic molding around the drivers door handle, jiggled the blade and popped the lock. Then he easily used the remote trunk release to get into the trunk. After reliving the experience in my mind several times, I suspect that the thief, who could have been a local, or a beach bar employee, or anyone else, probably saw me put the camera into the trunk and knew that stuff was there for the taking. <br> <br>On to the good stuff.<br> <br>The Chez Pauline apartment was fine; typical cinder block and concrete, 2nd floor with a view of the beach. Its actually behind the other apartment shown on the Belmont.com website with the 2nd floor balcony. It was sparsely, but adequately furnished. I would have appreciated a little more comfortable living room furniture (2 steel rod framed chairs and loveseat). The beds were very comfortable. Rather than pay extra for maid service we spent a few nights on each of the 2 queensize beds. There were well over a dozen towels!. The beach was very quiet, almost too quiet, just an occasional European family or two along about a 1/2 mile of beach, and some occasional local users.<br> <br>We've been to St. Martin 3 times now. The apartment had the advantage of being private, larger space than a hotel room, and a full kitchen. The drawback is that we were completely on our own. That is, there was no hotel front desk staff to ask our occasional question to. I think that on our next trip we will probably stay at a smaller hotel, like St. Tropez, or something; hopefully one with a kitchenette, or at least a refrig.<br> <br>As stated above each morning usually started out with some stretching and then a 1/2 hour to an hour walk. Then we had breakfast. The Match supermarket just north of Marigot was really good; lots of fresh fruit, packaged croissants (not as good as sidewalk cafes, but good enough for grocery store bakeries), and really inexpensive good French wine. On a few morning we had breakfast at a cafe in Grand Case, just north of the turnoff for Orient. This was about a 100 yard walk. We also had breakfast twice at sidewalk cafe in Marigot, across the street from the courthouse. I don't remember the name.<br> <br>Then it was off to a beach or some other excursion each day. We finally made it to Dawn beach on this, our 3rd visit to St. Martin. It was ok by St. Martin standards. It reminded me of a typical American resort beach with lots of families.<br> <br>We also made it to the butterfly farm, and the St. Martin zoo. The zoo was very hard for us to find. Its somewhere on the northeast side of the big salt pond north of Phillipsburg. <br> <br>One day was spent on a catamaran cruise to Prickly Pear island. The sailing was great, the snorkeling at the beach was ok, the lunch was very good, and the drunks almost ruined it. I don't know why some people need to drink to excess in order to think they are having a good time.<br> <br>We tried Cupecoy one morning. Although the beach looked ok from the cliffs, we found that every 20th wave or so made it almost to the rocks, and if you did not have your stuff on the rocks or a chaise lounge, it got wet.<br> <br>We went to Friar's and never got out of the car. No one was there, and there were huge piles of some sort of stones all over the beach.<br> <br>Went to Orient beach on 2 afternoons. I actually liked it more this time than last, even though last trip was spent at Blue Bay. It's the other extreme of Grand Case beach - too busy!<br> <br>We eventually found what we feel is the ideal beach - Pinel Island. Made 2 trips there. There were enough people (singles, couples, and families) there to feel that you were part of something, but it was real laid back and quiet. We thoroughly enjoyed it; especially spending some time talking with the beach guy who runs the gift shop there. <br> <br>Meals<br> <br>As I mentioned in a TTOL post, I'm not a gourmet, so the expensive food generally did not appeal to me. However, we did have an exceptional dinner and overall experience at Mario's in Sandy Ground. Had dinner once at Cheri's - good, twice at Banana's - very good, once at Indiana's - ok. At the moment I can't remember where else.<br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 4/17/01 02:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>