Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Wednesday, April 13, 2011:

Looks like another cloudy day.  The forecast says rain and cloudy all week.  Of course, there’s a chance of rain every day of the week in the Caribbean, just usually sunny too.  But there is no sun today.

I see in the paper that the “St. Martin Open” starts this weekend! The paper says it will be held at the “prestigious” Mullet Bay Golf Course. Prestigious? Maybe years ago…but not now.  It’s ridiculously expensive to play there, and it’s nothing more than concrete hard ground with dead grass lying on top.  I’ve never seen “green” grass ever! There is only crab grass, and even that is brown. In fact…it’s difficult to tell between the greens and the fairways!  On the one hole where the road passes by it, the Mullet Bay Beach runs next to the fairway, just on the other side of the trees & bushes. I’d hate to be laying there enjoying the sun and get bonked by a hooked ball! Yikes! Well, they better be doing a lot of grooming on that place before this weekend!

I guess since beach is out again today, we’ll run over to the St. Maarten Yacht Club this evening, have a drink and watch the boats come in and out by the bridge.  We’ve come to the island for years, and have never once gone there to watch the bridge go up and boats go through.  Only have seen the masts of the boats while we were sitting in traffic trying to get to the other side of the bridge! (we didn’t pay attention to lift times back then!)

We took our showers and I was getting ready to dry my hair, but before I could flip the switch on the hair dryer…boom…the electric went out!  ARGH!!  THANKS GEBE! So, being resourceful (as I am), I stood out on the deck and flipped my hair in the wind trying to get it dry a little.  There’s always a good wind blowing out there! Didn’t exactly get the same results as a hair dryer, but it worked pretty good. My hair is pretty much dry. Not a bad improvise! Then off we went to the St. Maarten Yacht Club, with my hair rolled and clipped up on top of my head!  Hey…I said my hair got dry…not that it looked good!

This is our weather today!

** Clouds hanging over Middle Region and the mountains!

**This is the Great Salt Pond.  Well…half of it anyway!

In the old days, they made salt here on St. Martin.  They tried agriculture, but nothing would grow here on this arid island. (all the green palms etc are imported) They tried cotton, but that was not successful.  Although you still see remnants of the cotton plants sometimes in the weeds that grow wild. Salt was the best (and pretty much only) thing that they could produce here. But, obviously they don’t do that anymore and they are filling in the salt pond slowly. A lot of the locals and foreign tree huggers (us) don’t like that they are ruining the natural habitat, but government does what government wants. Big business has too much money to allow a thing like preservation of habitat.  Besides, the government, in its infinite wisdom, chose the back of the salt pond to strategically place the island garbage dump or as they call it “Sanitary Landfill”.  See.

**

Look straight in front of the vehicle in this picture… the mound just above the white sand and green line...that’s where the island dump is.  Just behind Phillipsburg, where all the cruise ships come in and tourists flock! One saving grace is I have never smelt it. I’m not sure why…I’d sure think it would smell, like driving through Riverport! Pee-eew!  I don’t think I would want to be living in Middle Region…that’s down wind! Yuck!   

Back to our mission! Traffic isn’t too bad today, and we finally get to the St. Maarten Yacht Club.  St. Maarten Yacht Club is a little bar/restaurant that is right next to the draw bridge in Simpson Bay.  Lots of people go there to say hi or bye to friends that leave or come in on boats…or to just watch the spectacle of the big boats maneuvering in and out of that narrow opening.  It’s a big spot during the Heineken Regatta!

**
Here's some misc pictures from the dock:

Gerald spotted the guys fishing across the water!

 Air France flight leaving - bet Sunset Beach Bar was having fun!

 A couple of the boats in the lagoon.

 Young sailors learning to sail - whipping around the lagoon! (yes...i'm jealous!)

Here is a guy with his dog that was watching the boats leave with us.

 Gerald admiring the little boats in the lagoon.

 The lagoon entrance...

 Here's a few of the boats in the lagoon.

Coast Guard ship...

The bridge opens at 4:30 for boats exiting the lagoon.  We got there about 4:15…just in time. We even found a decent parking spot! We got in, sat on the outside deck and ordered a drink.  The bell sounded, traffic stopped and the road lifted, silently! The first to leave was a big tug and barge. Not so pretty but interesting to watch.  Then came a sail boat, a big yacht and some other smaller sail boats. The big yacht almost hit the wall!  Then someone kept stopping in the lane (I think the yacht) and the boats were starting to clog up! The one small boat that had his sail up got yelled at by the bridge master who told him to take it down! Don’t know how he thought he was going to stop with the traffic ahead! I don’t think he had a motor that worked on it!  

*** Tried to upload the video of the boats and bridge with no success...will try later!

Look at this big ship coming through! =)  (just kidding!) Lots of them running around in the lagoon! 

This is the tug and barge that came through first!

This ship didn't go through very smooth and caused a traffic jam!

 Sail down Gilligan!

Well that was interesting! Since it was a nice evening, we thought we would wait till 5:30 to see what was coming in too! So, since the drink was hitting us a little hard on an empty stomach, we ordered potato skins to get something in the belly.  And by skins, I mean we got 2, and it was basically a baked potato cut in half with cheese and bacon on top.  Hardly a skin (right Paul?) … but it still didn’t stop me from eating it! And in a little bit we watched the road come up and the other boats come in.

**

 This doggie went boating with his mom and dad! =)

Party Barge coming back in!

 And last but not least...Gerald's grand mast sail boat...I'm a lucky gal!

When the road came back down, we settled our bill and took off to get gas and dinner.  We have been hungry and craving Mexican food, so we headed down the road to Tequila’s Tex-Mex.  They are upstairs from El Rancho, the Brazilian steak house.  Tex-Mex appeared to be closed, a chain was across the stairs going up, but a waitress came over and said they were serving downstairs.  Must be the same owners!  Guess since the season is about over, they are combining dining rooms.  We ordered our dinner, Gerald tacos and me a chicken chimichanga.  Then we swabbed down with skeeter spray!  Gawd…they were flying all over the place! But we sat in the back right over the water, next to the dock where the big boats were moored. These were probably 60’-80’+ boats! Just little guys!

After a while, we got our food…well, Gerald got his tacos, but she brought me chicken fahitas instead of a chimichanga! So she took it back and brought me a chimichanga…but it was beef!  Oh well.  I didn’t say anything…it was good anyway.  And as big as a football, so I got the leftovers wrapped to go! Dinner tomorrow…or the next day! =)

We stopped by LaBamba Beach Bar (after Gerald nearly took out the bottom of the car pulling of the road going in the wrong entrance) hoping they had something going…but they didn’t.  Last night and tomorrow…but not tonight! So we just came back to the apartment.

I tried to post on the blog again…no luck. It’s so frustrating.  The rain started, and it made me sleepy listening to it hit the tin roof, so it made me go to sleep faster!