TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Short notes on a visit

Thanks for sharing your adventures with us.Glad to hear your sandals survived the road trip! Placing things are car roof tops don't always turn out so well.

LaBamba very recently reopened. They had an ad in the paper a couple of days ago, but can't find it now. Hopefully they will be much more considerate of their neighbors this time.

It is strange they closed in the first place. I think there is much more to the story than meets the eye.It will be interesting to see just how long they stay open this time.

Latin party on Friday night at La Bamba...same night as the BBB family and fireball night. The beach should be hopping

Last night we went for the 5pm bridge opening and then to Lee's where we were treated to the offloading of a days catch of Wahoo caught on one of Lee's charters.

Pictured is a 86 lb beast next to Lee and another showing the remaining 20 Wahoo....that would be over a half ton of fish

Wahoo has become very popular on restaurant menus there, where we never saw it in the past. On the opposite side of that, red snapper isn't as easy to find on a menu as it once was. Was the snapper over-fished?

I prefer the snapper's milder flavor.

Strong surf was back at friar's and Happy Bay yesterday. At Friar's the sand that returned to cover the rocks had departed and black rocks were back.

Happy Bay was very rough but it didn't stop the Zodiacs from arriving (four groups 12, 12, 4 and 8).

There was a potentially ugly event when an elderly large woman from a Zodiac got into trouble trying to get back to the waiting boats. Her legs kept getting smashed out from under her and she did MANY triple 360 rolls in and under the water and sand being sucked back out and in by the surf.

The leader raft couldn't come in too close because it would have swamped. After many attempts she built the courage to try again and was towed out to the raft.

I hope that was a check mark on her bucket list and NOT to be repeated.

Scary stuff!! Remind me not to take one of those deals!!

Oop...forgot a pic of the neighborhood girls out for their morning walk...

How fun! Thanks for the pic!

Our rental car driver identified the 737s as being owned by Russian billionaire, one for him, one for wife and children. He claimed that security, not opulence was reason for two planes.

So we postponed our Simpson Bay Beach walk for aride to the Oyster Bay/Westin area. Note: if you haven't fulfilled your requirement for iguana viewing you can get it all done in one place. Go to the Westin and instead of turning left at the guard gate take a right into a dirt lot with an old house foundation.

Pond to the right, Mangrove-like tree FILLED with iguana of all sizes. If I said we saw 40-50 I probably wouldn't be exaggerating much. ALL sizes..small to HUGE. Jumping from the branches and swimming back....

Here are a couple:

wow, those are some ugly beasts!! Good pictures though!

Hmmm...Big Blue (KLM) was ready for takeoff at SS Beach and started and then aborted its takeoff...never really got up to any decent speed. Back at the gate now....

Must have had an engine light or something. Hopefully everything is ok.

Grab a couple of the big ones. Gut them and put them on a grill, pull the charred skin off and enjoy the flesh.
Tastes just like chicken as they say. I learned this in Mexico and a little hot sauce helps.

KLM getting ready to give it another try....

Edit: Update (over Mary's Boon):

Great picture!!

Where was that KLM picture taken from? It looks like an airborne platform of some kind out over the water.

Kinda...5th floor balcony at Simpson Bay Resort...(and a decent Canon 70-300 zoom helped a bit)

Well we had a great two weeks. This last week rain was totally absent and was replaced by sun, winds and high surf. Not a bad trade.

It looks like our JB flight to BOS will be fine as it already left BOS. No clue what is gong to happen with the NY, NJ, Phily and DC people as their flights home are cancelled again today. BOS got a bit more than predicted (8 in) but nothing like the above areas.

I will have some random pics to post tomorrow but now I am just going to enjoy our last hour on the balcony watching the yachts come in. Eclipse has kept us company for just about our entire two week stay. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for taking us along on your holiday. Safe travels home and looking forward to seeing a few more pictures.

Enjoy your last few hours on the balcony and safe travels home.

Thank you so much for taking us along on your trip and for sharing your thoughts and findings with all of us. If we can't all be there in real time, it's nice to at least be able to enjoy the shared second hand experience. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />