We had a great trip! Thanks to everyone who provided suggestions. I am missing the place already and can't wait to return. For now I will just bask in the afterglow!

Thursday morning we flew out of Bradley on American, no problems. (There was freezing rain in Granville when we left.) We were met at the airport by an affiliate of Kenny’s rental car-great car, no problems. We then went to pick up our cell phone from Sharon Harris. She was great and even gave us some directions.

We stayed at Caravanserai our first night (reservation was booked through the manager of Beachside Villas.) Cheap rate, nice room, lousy view. Would not stay there again. We did the Pub Crawl with Captain Neil. We had a great time(only 1 other couple and us). By the second stop I was "crawling" but happy. We decided to book the Friday Fun Sail for the next day.

On Friday morning we were up by 6 and checked out of our hotel. We were on the dock at SkipJacks by 7:30. Captain Neil had breakfast and lots of coffee for us. We had a great day sailing and drinking (no rum punch for me!). We snorkeled and he cooked a great lunch for us. The mud baths were -interesting. We got back to the dock by 6pm and then had to check into Beachside Villas. I was totally blown away by our villa. The view was awesome. It was wonderfully decorated with lots of bright colors and very spacious. I was literally in Heaven. However, we had to shower and change quickly so that we could go to the TTOL party at Shrimpys. We got there a little late. It was great to put faces to some of the names I had seen on the board. Everyone was nice and the waitress remembered us from our crawling the previous night.

Sat. we decided to hang around and enjoy our villa. Heaven!! We cooked hamburgers on our grill and enjoyed them on the deck. Later we took a ride to SSBB and had drinks and a snack. We had fun watching the planes. For dinner we walked to Mary's Boon and had our dinner on the beach. The food was excellent but the atmosphere wasn't what we were expecting. I was a little disappointed. Next time we would eat in the dining room.

On Sunday we again woke up early listening to the ocean waves. I thought we'd sleep in every morning by we were always up by 6:30. (The planes never started their runs until after 7am so they were not a problem.) We made breakfast and just enjoyed the ocean and pool. We went to Pineapple Pete's for lunch. Food and service was great. Later in the day we decided to take a walk from our villa. We ended up at Peg Leg Pub and had snacks and drinks for dinner. Great service and food!

Monday we met up with some work friends and went to Phillipsburg for shopping and drinks. We ate lunch at The Greenhouse. The food was wonderful and we enjoyed the BBC's. For dinner we went to The Stone (owned by Capt. Neil's son). I had Caribbean Lobster and Jeff had the yellow fin tuna. The place was very quaint, service and food were great.

Tuesday morning we got up, swam, had breakfast and prepared for our trip to Anguilla. We took the ferry out of Marigot and upon arrival in Anguilla had the taxi driver take us to Shoal Bay. We set up in front of Uncle Ernie’s. The beach was incredible. Absolutely breath taking. We snorkeled and drank rum punch and banana coladas. We also had the ribs from Uncle Ernie’s. Yum! While there we ran into Greg and Karen (gbl79). Small world! On our next trip we will plan to visit Anguilla for the whole day. When we got back to Marigot our friends realized that they had lost the keys for their rental car. We gave them a ride back to town and was dismayed that the company could not easily find the spare set of keys. (We were there @40min while the guy ran around looking for them.) At the TTOL party Cincinnati Kid told us a story about his keys. I guess the moral of the story is: does your rental company have an extra set of keys to your car?! And are they easy to find?! Once our friends were squared away we went to Lady C's to get drinks- the grill was closed so we went to Peg Legs for more of their coconut shrimp and beef tenderloin.

The next day we were up early again. Sadly it would be our last full day in paradise. We cooked a big breakfast and then put our table and chairs down by the water and had a romantic meal complete with drinks! Who cares if it was only 8am! I think the other guests were jealous- they kept peeping at us! It was then that we realized that we didn't have to look for a romantic location for meals-we already had one, right in front of us. So for lunch we grilled our leftovers and what was left of our french bread and did it again! I felt so spoiled! We went to SSBB and did more plane watching then to Maho to do some shopping. We ended up at J.N. Jewelers where Jeff bought me a palm tree necklace. I wasn't really expecting anything because just being able to go to St. Maarten made me feel lucky enough. The owner even gave us beers after we made our purchase, wow!

Now for the best part. We met our friends at SkipJacks hoping to get on the Celine for one more Pub Crawl. Captain Neil approached us a short time later and asked if we would like to help him out for the night. My dream was coming true! I got to mix and serve the rum punch to the passengers. Jeff helped with the ropes and getting people on and off the boat. We got food and drinks at all the stops. (No rum punch for me-remember Thurs. night?!) It was a really fun experience. One we will never forget. Thanks Neil! (We ran into Greg and Karen again at Peg Legs. It felt very comforting to run into people we knew around town-almost like being home. We wouldn't have had that experience if we hadn't gone to the TTOL party. Thanks again for including us newbies!)

On Thurs. we packed up to leave. Had a last breakfast on the beach and said goodbye to Beachside Villas. That morning we had met some other TTOL guests and it was funny to know that they had read some of my posts. I look forward to hearing from the ladies from RI when they get back. We checked our luggage into the airport and got our boarding passes. Then we went to return our cell phone. We had a great lunch at Cheri's Cafe and packed the leftover coconut shrimp for our trip home. One last look at the planes and then it was off to the airport. (We could see Beachside Villas from our window seat and I wanted to jump out and stay just a little longer!)

We found lots of things to do while visiting St. Maarten and I've started a “to do” list for our next trip. Jeff and I especially enjoyed spending time with each other just lounging around our villa. Thanks again to everyone on TTOL.