TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Day 8 report

Pretty day nice breeze. Tried breakfast at Reveille Matin on Welfare road in SBYC complex where Zee Best is. My wife got a nice omelette with ham, Swiss, asparagus home fries and this wonderfully thick toasted bread that was cloud soft on the inside. Mine was a disappointment I ordered 2 crepes, two eggs scrambled, and bacon. I much prefer Zee Best Scrambled eggs over these. Also the crepes were too thick for my taste. I think I ordered the wrong thing -next time an omelette. Went to orient by way of oyster pond after my wife got her hair done at the Biguine salon on Welfare road next Captains ribs.
Beach not crowded at all for a Saturday. A good wind made a cool day. Just vegging on beach. A lot of sarragasum on beach because of wind direction and kite surfers.
G&T on balcony in evening then off to Moulin Fou for dinner. We shared an escargot app. Delicious! I had rack of lamb, very good. My wife had a lobster special- sautéed lobster in a sauce in a pastry cover. Both were great. Restaurant about 30% full but it is big with tables outside or in. We ate outside.

Moulin Fou sounds great! We haven't been there for a couple years.

We drove by Revielle this morning and they looked busy.

If you want a nice crepe we had them this morning at Crêperie Cape Cafe in Maho across from the pharmacy. There is also a crepe place across from Sonesta. I had a smoothie 2 years back at the one across from Maho so can’t speak of their crepes.

The one we ate at makes buckwheat galettes & crepes.

Curious as to how the kite surfers are causing sargassum on the beach?

Yes. How could that cause Sargassum on the beach or in water?

A lot of kicking up the weed.

That's a real reach and head scratcher.

Another of those rare occasions where I agree with you, Scuba

👍😉👌

Me, too, GaKaye.

A few years ago, just ahead of the huge Sargasso issues throughout the Caribbean, we were flying in to Sint Maarten and you could actually see for miles and miles of ocean the huge layers of seaweed covering the waters and turning them an ugly shade of greenish brown. it was the first time we’d ever witnessed the Sargasso phenomenon and we were clueless as to what we were seeing. I doubt seriously that any amount of kicking or paddling would have any bearing on the presence of this seaweed.

Funny story about kite surfing and sea weed. Yesterday while lounging out at Orient, wind was whipping, and Orient Beach was invaded by the sea weed. One of the surfers, got himself into some trouble, and came back in without his board, (which he lost somewhere in the Bay, and swam back to shore with his kite kind of loose also. I didn't see him actually come in...so no clue how he got to shore, but when his kite hit the shore, a couple of guys ran to hold it down. Guessing the slack he had from himself to the say must have been at least 80 to hundred feet. his kite dragged a ton of weed with it, and when he finally was trying to ''fold'' his kite up, it took him well over a half hour to just clear the lines from seaweed. he must've had wht looked like hundreds of pounds of seaweed all over his lines. The entire time he was trying to get the seaweed off the lines, his eyes were also glued to the water, hoping to see his lost board floating. Thank God, he wasn't hurt during this mishap, but seeing the ''moving sargassum on the shore, attached to the kite, and the look of ''what do i do now'' on his face was kind of comical.

First day yesterday, we didn't even venture into the water...but just stayed vegging on the lounge chair, and watching our favorite view in the world. Even with all the sea weed, still my ''happy place''.

Hoping by the time we get back tomorrow, the weed will be gone. One can hope.

Pat, two weeks ago while flying into SXM, it was pretty evident that there was going to be an issue. For at least the last thirty or so minutes of the flight, the water was miles of brown. Kind of looked like a picture you see on tv of an oil spill. Sure enough, a few days after we got here, the weed made it's appearance.

Interesting to me, Ed, that you likened the seaweed floating on the water to an oil spill. That’s exactly what we mistakenly thought we were looking at the first time we saw it several years ago but it was so vast we hoped that wasn’t the case.

And it’s equally strange to me that over the first 30-35 years of visiting the island, the seaweed was never noticeable at all. It’s really only the last ten or so years we’ve really seen it. Perhaps because we spent most of our beach days at Mullet which isn’t generally bothered by it, or some of the more protected beaches and bays? Just a guess....😊😊

Even years ago, i remember some sea weed at Orient....but NEVER the amount that they get now.

The massive outbreaks of sargassum started about a decade ago as a result of environmental changes; before that it was not a problem. It varies from year to year, but don't expect it to go away.