Happy Holidays from a little island

Living in St. Marten has made me realize just how different each of the caribbean islands are. St. Marten is a larger island that is divided by two countries, France and the Netherlands. Because of these two cultures in addition to the high tourist volume and the local caribbean flavor, there is always a lot going on here. Here are some examples of why I live in the caribbean;

*The gate to our hotel and Marina is always closed as you go out, the gate in is always open. 

*The Grande Marche had christmas music play over the loud speaker, but only when their live reggae cover band wasnt playing. 

*You can also taste test booze in the grocery store. 

*At the checkout they have single beers in the cooler instead of Cokes

*The path I run on is in habited by goats and cows... lots of them. I often end up hearding them as they run away and dont think to run the other direction. 

*You can get almost everywhere you need to go (bar, marine

 store, internet cafe, pharmacy) but dinghy, which is a very good thing as the traffic is terrible. 

*You can eat proper french gourmet or out of a chicken truck (which is literally a truck)

The question arose of what we do for fun. Not that there is ever a lack of it just living with the people I live with, but let me think of some examples. 

-Happy hour is always on the menu. There is a bar here that has 2 for 1 drinks but you have to get 2 so drink up. The same bar has a pool that you can swim in and sit at the bar in. 

-The airport is very close to the water (everything is, its a

 small island) so when planes come in and out you can get quite close to the runway. As any good buisnesman would do, someone built a bar there. Its called the Sunset and faces west but the main attraction is facing east or windward. People stand at the gate to the runway, hold on and get lifted by the after burners on the big jets. Sand gets blasted and people fall

down, its down right hillarious. 

-Then there are always watersports to take part in. I rented a windsurfer the other day and Jenna and Brooks took their first kite lesson so we'll all be partaking in that soon. (its way easier to pack onto a boat). 

-When all else fails get into your car and drive around the island. I havent made it all the way around in one go yet but I've done it in a weekend. You should also drive to the top of the highest hill you can find. We found a pretty good one that overlooks Phillipsburg and Marigot and looks south. 

That's all for now. We do have to work sometime! 

Happy New Year!

A new island

We made it to St. Maarten from Newport in a week, to the minute. The delivery was great! Good weather, happy crew. Basically we rocked it, saw some breeze (up to 40Knts) and topped out with a boat speed of 12.2!
We've now been here for over a week and managed to get ourselves in to plenty of good spots. Day 1 was wash down and put the boat back together. It was still the work week so we worked thursday and friday, fighting hangovers the whole time.
It's traditional for a crew to arrive after a delivery, wash down and then head to a huge dinner. This equation sounded a bit like doomsday for all of us who were running on very little sleep and I saw visions of falling asleep in our moules frites. As a boat we opted for washdown and the bar. The Soggy Dollar Bar is at the dinghy dock so you have very little choice about where you start the night. As it was a wednesday town wasnt really rolling we grabbed some Lebanese dinner while we waited for the ground to stop moving. By the time we'd drank enough beers to stop swaying (but before we drank enough to start swaying again) the Knickerbocker crew had rolled up and the dance party was well underway. The Soggy Dollar Bar here in St. Maarten is soggy for a different reason than the SDB in Jost. In Jost you have to swim to the bar so your dollars get wet. In St. Maarten, apparently, there is an overhead shower inside the bar... so your dollars get wet! There's also a machine that makes soap fall like snow. So we had that going for us... which was nice.
We worked the next day and looked forward to our sit down dinner in Marigot. The french side of the island has some pretty sweet spots for food. They are tres bien, you might say. We found our spot along the road and began the feast with our favorite appetizer, mussels and french fries. The french have an amazing tradition of a post meal appertif of fruit infused rum. Though you get a shot and sip it, we managed to finish the bottle before the cows went home.
On saturday we finally made it to the beach. The beach here is a little different than the beaches Im used to in the bvis. There are people on these beaches. and bars. The water is warm and salty and we lounged for the afternoon sipping ti-punch cold.
On sunday we went ziplining!! There is a zip line course here that you take a truck up and zip down! Hannah has the pictures (my camera was lost in Gavin's pants) but theyre pretty wicked. Next time you get a chance to zip through a rain forest, do it.
Back to monday and the work week... tune in for the blog about what I'm fixing this week.