Trip Notes<br>St. Martin 23-30 March 2003<br><br>This is a set of notes on our 3rd trip to the self-proclaimed Friendly Island. It is not—nor is it meant to be—a travel essay. Nor is it meant to be a balanced and nuanced critique. It’s just a set of notes.<br><br>Air Travel: We came down from St. Louis (STL) via SJU. The STL-SJU leg was booked to capacity. At the check-in desk, I asked about upgrades but was told none were available. At the gate, we were called to the desk, and magically (okay, I have Platinum status on AA) received upgrades on the (4.5 hour) leg. A good omen. The SJU-SXM leg was another story. They loaded us on the ‘bus to the plane’ at SJU, whereupon we made a five minute circle back to the lounge: “Maintenance” was given as the explanation. 45 minutes later, they reloaded us on the bus, drove us to three (!) different aircraft and finally had us on our way. The only real mishap—my wife’s soft-sided luggage (which was NOT over packed by any stretch of the imagination) arrived crushed/torn with several items missing, including a hand-needlepointed belt. If you find such a shell-embroidered belt endlessly circling the luggage conveyor at SXM, let us know…<br><br>Departure from SXM to MIA was straightforward and uneventful. The 757 was only about 2/3 full. We arrived midday and made it through customs quickly. The only “waits” involved getting through the security line to the domestic (MIA-STL) connection. The flight up from MIA to STL was completely sold out. Now if AA can just avoid bankruptcy…<br><br><br>Auto Rental: We went the Hertz route on the advice of Jim and Mary Ruos. We got a somewhat new (40000 km on the odometer) B-class Hyundai which ran fine. It is a low slung vehicle, a point which was brought home to us as we crossed the speed bumps as we arrived in the vicinity of L’Hoste. Yes, we bought the liability insurance. We did not have any mishaps in SXM, but we felt a great deal better having purchased the insurance for a few bucks a day. Note to the wise—when you accept the vehicle, spend a few moments going over the vehicle for evidence of scratches etc. These need to be documented on the way out so you are not ‘accused-charged’ with the damage on the way back. I carried a small flashlight with me in my carryon (a mini-MagLite—I don’t leave home without it) that is tremendously useful in ‘seeing’ the vehicle in the darkness of the rental car pickup area. Returning the car at the far end took only a few minutes. SXM trivia: The lady who owns/runs the Hertz franchise told me that she has 800 cars on the island, down from about 1000. <br><br>From the airport to OB. Instructions from L’Hoste, Carl Stone and Bobcat are all similar. We took the route through Marigot/Grand Case and were glad we did. By the time we got in, traffic had died down and there were no available wrong turns to make—at least until we got into the hotel complex. Once you make the turn off the “beltway” into Parc de la Baie Orientale, there are a couple of roundabouts and the final sign to L’Hoste was hidden in the lush tropical vegetation. Next time, we’ll know where to turn!<br><br>L’Hoste Hotel: This is a simple, clean 3 star hotel. The living space in one of the ‘junior suites’ was adequate for 3 people –me, wife and teenage daughter. Safe, refrigerator. microwave, hot plates (x2) , kitchen sink were present and functional. We had 2 queen size beds. TV brings in some English language feeds, such as ESPN and HBO. However, this is simply background noise for dressing—who wants to sit in a hotel room watching TV while on OB? There was a balcony without much of a view, but adequate to dry clothes and have a beer, read a book. Features of L’Hoste include its immediate proximity to the beach (less than 2 minutes to the water); a simple gym with bicycle, elliptical, single-stack multistation weight machine, weight bench, dumbbells from 10-40 pounds. (This is better than Club O, by far, with respect to athletic equipment! There is also a new fitness center in the little village adjacent to the hotel. ); and a ‘complimentary’ continental breakfast of juices, fruits, breads and coffee. Overall, comfortable but not opulent. Would we return? Yes, absolutely. <br><br>The weather, the beach and the water: We had a total of six days (not counting travel days) on the island. Half of day four was cloudy. Otherwise, there was plenty of sun. (Comments about tanning/burning follow…) . The beach was wide in front of Playa, where L’Hoste is. There was no beach in front of Kon Tiki. There was more towards Club Orient than there was when we were on the island in early December. The water was crystal clear and warm. I made a habit of swimming each day from Playa down to the Club Orient beach, basically from one water-trampoline facility to the next, past the rocks at Pedro’s, past the sign and to the Club O area. The current was mild and it was an easy swim. I decided to wear a swimsuit for these forays, and I’m glad I did. Two reasons. First, the water gets a little shallow as you round the rocks at Pedro’s, even if you are as far out as I was. I didn’t scrape anything, but my hands brushed the tops of some rocks. Perhaps I was swimming at low tide. Second, maybe more important, I was clearly not the only fish in the water. I observed several fish up to 18 inches long. I am sure that I spotted less than 5% of what was swimming by. I do not think they were much interested in me, but I was equally glad not be dragging any exposed appendages. Again, I was only as far out as a line connecting the water trampolines.<br><br>Nudity: It’s not clear why this topic holds such fascination, but everyone seems to want to know the status. Here are my observations. First, we saw no nudity on the premises of the hotel. Not by the pool, not at reception, not at the restaurant. You could have been in Miami. I think this represents common courtesy, because several folks who we saw clad at breakfast were distinctly unclad beachside.<br><br>Before I continue on the topic, let me make it clear that no one seems to care, and I only once saw the gendarmerie on the beach. In contrast to the black sox’ers who turn right at Pedro’s and head for the Plage Naturiste, those who turned left and headed up towards the ‘five hotels’ area were generally quiet and did their own thing. Thus the beach at Club O at cruise ship time included black sox’ers, groups of young women playing “I dare you, I double dare you” accompanied by giggles, and the Club O crowd trying to ignore the performances. In front of the five hotels area, about 40% the women were topless, and about 10% of the men and 5% of the women were nude. Mixed in with this group were cruisers who clearly wished to remain ‘covered’; families with kids of all ages—topless moms mixed in here; older couples that seemed slightly uncomfortable; and so on. Every hour or so, one or more naturist couples would walk the beach (presumably) from end to end. No one seemed to care. My take on this—feel free to sunbathe nude on the beach in front of the five hotels. You will be in the minority, but you will not be alone. More importantly, you will not be accosted or criticized—at least I wasn’t and I didn’t see anyone else being hassled. Just use common courtesy. (In fact, the only odd note on this topic was reported by my wife. She was in the surf and happened to overhear a cruise-ship woman and her young sone on “booby patrol”. Apparently they were on a family quest to identify the ‘perfect pair’. Go figure.)<br><br>The Sun: It remains a mystery to me why people ignore the warnings and assume that the Caribbean sun is not ‘hot’. People should not resemble boiled lobsters, and a few precautions can prevent this unpleasant transformation. First, make a personal choice about “pre-tanning” in a salon at home. If you do, give yourself a few weeks to build up a base tan. If you have a base tan, still use substantial sunscreen on day 1—I started with SPF 15 on top of a reasonable base. I picked up color so rapidly that I stayed with SPF 15 for the entire trip, heavy on the moisturizer each night. If you haven’t done any pretanning, and you are the typical Caucasian, you MUST (repeat MUST) recognize that the sun can injure you quickly. I recommend SPF at least 45—and would not hesitate to suggest 60 or higher—for people who have had no sun time. I also recommend not more than a couple of hours in the sun on day 1. Finally – my daughter got caught a little bit on this one—you MUST reapply the product after swimming! The fact that it says ‘waterproof/sweatproof’ applies to some sweat and maybe some freshwater splash. It does NOT apply to swimming in the Atlantic Ocean! Expect to go through a bottle or tube of sun tan product every 2-3 days, more rapidly if you are spending several hours on the beach. Yes, the stuff can cost $8-10 a bottle. However, you will rue not spending the $$ if you are even slightly burned. <br><br>Food: We ate out. Yes, it’s expensive. No, we did not want to cook in our room. Cooking and dishes does not a vacation make, at least in our calculus. <br><br>Lunches: We’re minimalists on this. Bottled water, some fruit or a sandwich is ordinarily plenty for us. On the two days that we did “do lunch”, we visited Andy and Cheryl at Baywatch and had great salads one day, great ribs another. It’s worth mentioning that bottled water is plentiful and reasonably cheap everywhere. We went through about 1 L per person per day on the beach before counting water at dinner. Dehydration is rapid in the sun, and failure to stay hydrated translates into fatigue, headaches and ‘not feeling right’ for most people. By the time you even think you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated.<br><br>Dinner: <br><br>Night 1: Le Gallion at Marigot Marina. We had a pleasant dinner of salads, fresh fish, and some ice cream for dessert. A bottle of Muscadet to accompany. It was a good but not great meal. Bear in mind, we are tough critics. The sauces were a little to thick and heavy, the fish not all at the same temperature (although all moist and properly prepared) and the vegetables were slightly overdone.<br><br>Night 2: Il Nettuno at Grand Case. This was a spectacular meal. We ordered from the specials menu, which may have had something to do with the freshness. But the salads and the accompaniments ( tiny raviolis, braised sea vegetable, a few peapods, two or three others--- all in two-forkful sized serving) with the fish were done to perfections. Desserts were followed by a complementary Sambuca. The strolling guitarist was delightful. The wine was a Pinot Grigio, but not the thin Santa Margherita that has permeated the US.<br><br>Night 3. At our daughter’s request, we went to VietNam, an oriental restaurant at the Marigot marina. She is an Asian food devotee. I regret that we were disappointed. Service was slow, the food was neither terribly fresh nor well-balanced in preparation. I think there was one waiter and one cook. There were five active tables. It was cheap, however. <br><br>Night 4: We had been on the road part of the day (the cloudy morning took us to Marigot to shop and to visit Fort Louis). We decided to stay near the hotel and wandered up to La Plantation. As it happened, they were having a buffet BBQ with beef and lobster. The pre-dinner salad buffet was amazing in variety, complexity and quality. There were at least 10 salads. One, for example, was a tomato-and-buffalo-mozzarella—surrounding a huge filet of (poached) salmon! If we had wanted to, we could easily have made a meal of the salads. However, we each had half a lobster and some slices of steak. The desserts were equally lovely and included a sweet potato pie with raisins that was quite extraordinary. The wine was a (white) Sancerre that stood up well to the variety of flavors and textures. Live music (well, sort of—Jeffrey and his keyboard were backed up by Karaoke CDs…) was a great addition to the meal.<br><br>Night 5: We had perhaps the best meal of the trip at our favorite restaurant, Sebastiano in Grand Case. Francois, the headwaiter, was in fine form and recommended outstanding specials. He also (at our prodding) sang a few Sinatra tunes (he had been suffering with laryngitis in December…). We had some very light snapper dishes that were complimented well with a Verdichhio. The desserts included the pineapple carpaccio; the tiramisu (which my wife thinks is the best she has ever had), and I had the profiteroles. We were offered a small glass of Muscat with dessert, which was not at all heavy—it felt like tasting very pleasant flowers.<br><br>Night 6: We decided to stay in the Orient Beach area and headed for L’Astrolabe, the restaurant on the Esmeralda property. They had a 35 Euro ‘make your own special menu’ deal, picking any starter/salad, entrée and desert they had on the list. This was a real deal, since what we would have otherwise ordered would have come to about 48 Euro each. Rachel had a filet mignon, I had a lobster/pasta special and my wife had the salmon lasagne. We had a White Bordeau from the Martillac region, with enough body to hold up to the filet. <br><br>Interesting notes:<br>1. In the central market at Marigot, among the dozens of stalls with ‘island stuff’, was an interesting area called “Les Tissus du Soleil”. The stall sells tablecloths, napkins, placemats, breadbaskets, small bags…all handmade with fabrics from Provence. The owner travels to Provence twice a year, gets new fabrics every couple of months, and has them handcrafted. Since the island is duty free, you end up with very beautiful, relatively inexpensive textiles that are both lovely and chic. Example—six napkins, $25. We had seen similar offering in the US “Kitchen Catalogs” for 3-4 times the price. <br>2. We experienced absolutely no anti-American sentiment whatsoever, this despite the fact that the war in Iraq was between the 1st and 2nd week. <br>3. Internet access is popping up widely. Both at KonTiki as well as at the little village area adjacent to L’Hoste there are kiosks that you can buy about an hour of connect time for about $10.<br>4. Data that showed up in the newspaper verifies that tourism and occupancy continue to be way down versus the busy mid-nineties. Timeshares/hotels appeared to be at about 50% occupancy. On the one hand, it was very nice to have a quiet island. On the other hand, the businesses are clearly hurting. We did not see a single ‘full’ restaurant on the days that we were in SXM. Whatever one may think of the cruise boats and their passengers, their money is extremely important to the economies of both sides of the island. On the days without cruise ships, Orient Beach and Marigot were rather quiet.<br><br><br>Closing Thoughts. We had a great time revisiting our favorite island. We hope that tourism regenerates and that the island becomes more busy. The locals are so dependent on the tourist spending that weakness in the US economy, airline and cruise schedules have profound effects on employment and well being. The locals are hurting. We encourage those who like and care about the island to keep returning, and to tell their friends about this vacation destination. At a time when many are uncomfortable about foreign travel, we do a great service to St. Martin/Sint Maarten and her people by encouraging colleagues, friends and family to share what we have discovered here. We hope that each of you who are thinking about a first visit will make the decision to go. And we wish all who go the same wonderful experiences that we had this trip! <br><br><br><br><br>
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