SXM – April 17-26, 2015

We made arrangements with all of our usual suspects, Michael/Joseph at Unity, Sharon the Queen of SXM, Cecile and Delphine for lodging at Palm Court and Orient Plaza, and of course Jeannie of ShopnDrop Groceries (one of these days we will get together, Jeannie!) – all were wonderful. This trip was different and a little less relaxing because almost every day I had to spend several hours on the computer for work issues – just could not avoid them. Still better than working in the office at home.

Flew USAir from Richmond to SXM through CLT on Friday, April 17, 2015. A little late out of RIC but no problems making a connection in CLT that was listed as one hour on schedule. Arrived about 3:30 p.m. in SXM. Lines short at Immigration and not too long to wait for bags.

Mike was at airport directing the Unity operation. One Joseph drove us to Unity (traffic not nearly as bad as it would have been without causeway) and the other Joseph handled the paperwork. Once again, as a regular practice, I drove away without the phone from Sharon but realized I was missing the phone within a couple hundred yards, parked, and walked back for it.

Drove over to Orient Village and realized that I had no idea where we were staying for our first two nights. Work issues had required that I change our stay – they also had kept me extremely busy into night before we left, and then it continued. We originally were booked with Cecile in one of her third floor units at the Palm Court for the entire stay but she could not accommodate us for what were now our first two nights. She connected me with Delphine who had a place at Orient Plaza for us the first two nights. When leaving, with the usual late night work going on, I had grabbed a paper with Delphine’s name and address – when I looked at it for phone number for her or where we were staying, it had neither. Yeah, I know – pretty dumb.

Jeannie had delivered our grocery order and I knew she would have delivered to the place where we were staying – but I could not find her phone number either! So, I called Sharon who was kind enough to return my call quickly when I first missed her. She found Jeannie’s phone number just as Jeannie walked into the TTOL party (which we did not attend because of when we arrived) and so I talked to Jeannie – who was rather amazed - but managed not to be too obvious about her amazement at my not knowing where we were staying in Orient Village area. Jeannie kindly called Delphine and arranged for us to meet, we met Delphine and so we managed to have a place to spend the first night. I know the wife was not impressed because she said absolutely nothing about my performance with this.

Delphine rented us Unit 24 in the Orient Plaza building – it is a very nice unit with a huge lanai – everything very new. Great refrigerator – pretty big. Good TV with all kinds of US channels – best TV connection we have ever had while in SXM – not that we watch it much, but it was kind of nice to have available. Great wifi connection. No pool access but otherwise very good place. I know that you can find other Orient Plaza units online – you can just google it. Some nice units at low cost with great location.

Saturday - Next morning, lazed around until time to head to Cul-de-Sac for ferry to Pinel. Ferry was $12 per person RT. Lots of people heading over on a Saturday. Two chairs and an umbrella $25 at Yellow Beach – they were doing 1 to 1 on dollar to euro – most every place we were just did 1 to 1 – except Chez Raymond at Baie Rouge who did 1 to 1.10. Euro was about $1.08 when we were there – having bounced back up a little from the low of $1.04 or so. Now that Euro is up to $1.11 or so, wonder if some of places have dropped the 1 to 1.

On Pinel, I was sad to see that Isabelle apparently has given up on having her snorkel operation there on the wooden pier. It did not surprise me that much because I did not think she ever got much business. The buoy lines in the snorkel area were showing a lack of attention which might be a function of her not being there. Sea was a little rough this day away from sheltered area and visibility was not all that great in the water. Snorkeling so-so. Also, since our last snorkeling was in the Maldives, this snorkeling was on a different scale. We brought a little cooler with us with sandwiches and drinks – did not buy anything from Yellow Beach where we had chairs – they showed no interest in fact we had brought our own stuff to eat and drink on their chairs.

Sunday – hung out on Orient – set up with chairs and umbrella, and had a kind neighbor take a $20 to pay the beach boys as we had to leave beach for a good bit and move this day from Orient Plaza to one of Cecile’s third floor units at Palm Court. A pain but no problems doing it. This was first time we had stayed in #22 as opposed to #15 – both Cecile’s units - few differences but pretty much same. Afternoon – back on Orient for rest of the day. Club O beach very clean – no seaweed. Down at Mt. Vernon there was a big amount of seaweed.

Monday – a great day on Funseaker out of Anse Marcel marina with Sebastien, and Matthew as Second Captain (Matt has his Captain’s license but was working with Sebastien). 16 pax – with two leaving before lunch to handle a dog rescue thing, I think. We went to Tintamarre, then Creole Rock, then over to Cove Bay to eat at Smokeys. Sea a little rough on north side of Creole Rock. On days other than Mondays for this Three Island Tour, Sebastien goes to The Place on Rendezvous Bay which he thinks and I agree is a more attractive setting – The Place is closed on Mondays - but hard to beat food at Smokeys. Sebastien always gives us a good time – I really enjoy going out on Funseaker with him.

Tuesday – We went to Divi Little Bay. Had a story all ready to get past guard at gate if he wanted to tell me to park up hill from gate but he just waved us through when I said “Good Morning.” Apparently, he did not want to hear my story or maybe they just are not hassling people about coming to resort to use beach and other facilities. A beach boy set up an umbrella for us at two chairs and I was getting my money out and he just said have a good day and walked away – I guess he thought we were staying there but we did not have green towels so not sure why he thought we were guests there. I thought maybe he or another would come by later to collect money but no one ever did. I looked for guy who had set us up for no charge when we were leaving to give him a little something, but did not see him. Oh well, saved $15 or $20 – chair and umbrella is $5 each. Lots of people coming to Tiki Hut off cruise ships – did not bother us on our snorkeling. We did the usual snorkeling along rocks to left to Tiki Hut area.

I did the usual walk up and around Fort Amsterdam while wife did second afternoon snorkel. No Divi sign at entrance – nothing changed on grounds of Fort. The same explanatory signs that have been there a few years now. Jody of “Jody’s Place” at Belair definitely has retired – it was within last year because I think she still was there last June, but I could have forgotten change then. It is now called Belair Mini-Mart. I forget name of new owner/manager. Divi now has a nice little market and from what I noticed, it seemed to have reasonable prices.

Wednesday – took ScoobiToo out of GCBC to Prickly Pear – good trip – same as always. Good people running Scoobi – always have a good day. Ribs lunch on Prickly Pear did not seem as good as usual. Reef there does not strike me as improving any over last few years – maybe still declining. We thought GCBC was looking great.
As is common for our GCBC/Scoobi days, we ate supper at Rib Shack – one of lolo’s in Grand Case - for dinner. The Sky’s the Limit guy out front was really being aggressive trying to get people to eat there. First time visitors really have a tough time being able to decide which lolo they would like to try without being hassled.

When we drove down from GCBC to the municipal lot across from Calmos Café, the old guy who looks like the stereotypical wino approached me as I was getting out of car and asked me for $2. I told him it was a public lot and asked him why should I pay him. He looked at me with a serious look and told me “OK – One Dollar.” This made me laugh. I asked him what would he do with money if I gave him some. He said he was not sure. This made me laugh again. I asked him if he would go home to his wife and take her out if I gave him money. He said “No!”. Again, good delivery. I am not sure if he said no because he has no wife or because he was not about to go home to his wife. I figured he had entertained me enough to be worth $2 – so I gave him $2 and told him that I expected him to change the oil and fill it with gas – he laughed and thanked me for the money. I assume that he headed over to the grocery store to get something to drink with my $2 and whatever else he had conned out of others. I really should not have given him any money and normally never give to anyone “on the street” but this time I just figured “what the heck.”

Thursday – slow start to morning. Walked down to Club O and swam to Green Cay – wife was having foot trouble and did not want to swim over so she got a guy to run her over and then pick her up on a jet ski for $10 round trip. She gave him $12 after he brought her back. Met her over at island and then we snorkeled for about 90 minutes along the island. Reef continues to get better there – it is the only place around SXM where I feel like I can tell that reef is improving – very slowly of course. Saw a good number of boats with snorkelers: one was Capt Alan – I think another must have been one of Bob Cass’ boats – not sure of others. Couple divers out at end of island – I think they may have been Marine Gendarmerie but not sure. Hung out on Club O beach rest of afternoon. Most of day just absolutely beautiful. Wife thought there were more clothed cruise ship walkers than usual on other trips – I thought it about average.

Friday – went to Baie Rouge – it was very rough and the visibility was close to zero. Did have a good rib lunch at Chez Raymonds - of the ribs we had at Prickly Pear, Rib Shack, and Raymonds – Raymonds was the best. On way back to Orient stopped in Philipsburg to go to Scotia Bank to get some cash – I had miscalculated our cash needs – I also had forgotten my ATM card (kind of my theme for this trip – “I forgot”) so was going to use the wife’s. Unfortunately, she decided to wander around front street while I went to bank and I messed up the PIN for card – entered wrong number first - it immediately locked me out even when I had right PIN. Among other things forgotten, I had not done the online notification of our trip to the Bank.

We walked down to museum off Front Street, which I always like to visit. Talked to an older fellow there about John Hodge and Methodism on the island – I had done some reading on Hodge (someone born a slave on Anguilla who obtained his freedom and became a very significant Methodist missionary and preacher – fascinating history) over last year and was wondering if they had any books that talked about him – they did not. Turned out that this fellow was a member of Cole Bay Methodist Church and I very much enjoyed talking with him for a while.

Saturday – first called BOA and got access to cards set up. Stopped in Philipsburg and things went smoothly at the bank. Then, we went to Divi Little Bay again. Guy at guard shack again just waved us through. This time I told Beach guy that we were not guests of Divi and wanted to get two chairs and two umbrellas – he got us set up and I paid the $20 for the 4 things. As to snorkeling, visibility not as good as previous Tuesday and a little rougher – but good enough to enjoy the snorkeling. We had been told that a storm in the Atlantic would affect SXM to some degree and so we were expecting an effect on visibility.

Went to Piazzi Pascal for dinner – very nice. I can recommend it. We shared a salad and I had the lobster ravioli thing – very good. Donna and the waitress (from Spain?) were charming.

On this night, when we drove past the municipal lot where we had parked the other night we saw the police (I think the local police not Gendarmes) ordering the same old guy to get away from the lot – apparently some people had complained about him. I later saw him wandering down the street muttering to himself. This night we just parked at the lot with the booth closer to Piazza Pascal and paid the $6 charge – many restaurants pay the parking fee but Piazzi Pascal does not.

Sunday – went to Club O beach and swam over to Green Cay for a last snorkel there. Great visibility and good snorkeling.

Drove to Royal Palm and returned phone, got gas, and then went to airport to check in before returning car. USAir/American was a mess because kiosks were not working and there was a 2:20 pm flight as well as the 4:20 pm flight we were on. We went in priority lane because of business class tickets, which turned out to be a mistake because there was some couple at that counter that took FOREVER – the computers were acting up as usual, as well. We learned that a few people ahead of us were not really “qualified” for priority lane but they told us as we were chatting that an airline agent had told people to use the priority lane because “on St Martin we treat everyone equally.” In any event, a good number of people who arrived well after us and just entered the regular lane were done at the counter before us.

Because of how long it took to get checked in with luggage, I just took car back to Unity. I had damaged the car at Baie Rouge a couple days before – nothing too terrible but enough to do a CDW claim with the credit card thing. I had called the credit card CDW people, who were very nice, and they emailed me information and a claim form. I took pictures of the damage and then emailed Unity the pictures and the claim information, so that they would know what was going on before I returned car. They were very helpful and understanding as usual. They will get me the information to complete the claim process - I will need a copy of the estimate and bill for the repair.

For flight home, we had a plane that normally is in transatlantic service – very nice. I normally do not pay that much attention to the flight attendants, but we had a guy named Rick whose service was well above average – excellent.

We had a wonderful time on SXM as always. Because of the work issues that I simply could not escape, the time seemed to race by even more than usual. We did not do even more things than we usually fail to do. One thing different, we did not enter any jewelry stores – a loss for DK Gems but a win for my wallet. We also did not eat a single lunch at Andy and Cheryl's, which is a first in many visits over many years.

Wow, you were certainly busy! Can't imagine doing all that AND working several hours on the computer each day!! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Crazy.gif" alt="" /> Glad everything turned out OK in the end, with not knowing where you were staying!! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" /> Sounds like you had several little boo-boos on the trip but glad you were able to enjoy yourself overall.

Hi Snorkeller,
I think we were on the Funseaker trip with you. We were the ones that left after the Creole Rock portion of the trip.

I have never dinged a rental car so I don't know if they ever get them fixed, but with all the dings I see in SXM I wouldn't be surprised if they just pocket the insurance money.