ScoobyD’s Blog

We are revelling in the time that we have left on the island, and not looking forward to the trip home. We’ve been relaxing for the most part now while we can, though there has been some shopping, and some drinking occurring as well. The kids (not including Josh), Bruce & Maria went to the zoo/park the other day and enjoyed their time looking at the exotic animals they had there, including a raccoon, guess it’s exotic to the locals! That morning Karl, Liana, Jeanette & Elmer also went shopping on Front Street/Back Street and picked up a few more things to take home with them.

The rest of the time we’ve been in the pool or at the beach swimming in the ocean. Though today Jeanette & I got completely pummelled by a wave we didn’t see coming. We were both watching Sean to make sure he got his dad safely in to the ocean…..have learned my lesson to keep an eye on the waves coming in. Though I did manage to get my nose plugged at the last second, so at least my sinuses didn’t get cleaned out!

As for tomorrow, Sean and I are going to do our shopping, the rest of the gang are going to take it easy. Then it will be our last dinner on the island and packing night, oh how time has flied since we got here!

I may be back tomorrow night to make one last posting, or if there’s internet at the airport we may use that.

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Yep, we’re back at the hotel borrowing their internet again, Sean did ask and she said that was just fine, so we may be back a couple more times before we leave

Things have been interesting around the house, but we are starting to settle in, and enjoy the lifestyle of being so close to the ocean.

When we moved in their Saturday, we didn’t exactly get a warm reception from Lennox, he would have preferred us staying in the hotel, which would have been fine as well, but we had paid for oceanfront, and damnit, we wanted oceanfront!

A bunch of us took a quick jaunt for more groceries then went back to the house to meet Lennox again to get teh keys. We talked with him for quite awhile getting the lowdown on the place. Basically, funds have not been paid to the gardeners, pool guy, maids, etc so things haven’t been getting done. But they did manage to get the maids in and get some cleanup done, and the pool guy did come in and do a quick clean I guess during the week we weren’t there. We also have no phone line, so there’s no way to contact us there. If you absolutely need to get ahold of us in case of emergency, I would say the best bet would be to call the Princess Heights hotel and identify who you are and who you are trying to contact at the house named La Perla (just up the rode), and tell her that you need to call Lennox, he’s the main guy for the house.

Anywho, so aside from some overgrown brush, and some not so spick and span places, the house is very nice to be in. The pool is fantastic to lay beside, or float in, and its nice to take a quick jaunt down to the beach for some body surfing. The house has amazing potential if they were to fully clean it up and declutter it…that’s Jeanette’s biggest thing right now, she just wants to organize the place. There must be like 40 cups, 30 plates, etc.

On Sunday, Josh, Karl, Ethan, Bruce, Emma, Maria, Sean and I went to Loterie Farms to do the zip trekking….oh my god that was fun!!!!!! Sean, Josh, Bruce & I did the extreme one, and the rest did the lower one. I haven’t had this much muscle soreness in years!!!! I could barely walk yesterday. It’s not just clipping on to zip lines and going down the mountain. No there are rope bridges, wood bridges to traverse, ladders to descend (actually, make that LOTS of ladders to descent) and a bit of walking. By the end my legs were quite wobbly and all I wanted was a drink!!! Josh took tons of photos and a bit of video so we’ll make sure to share that with everyone when we get back.

While we were gone the rest of the gang cleaned house, they mopped the floors, cleaned off the patio tables, wiped down the patio, cleaned the kitchen….and just in general tidied up the place.

Yesterday was a relaxation day…did absolutely nothing but sit by the pool and read and swim, and go down to the ocean…now *that’s* the life I can handle!

Today we’re planning on heading to Front Street for some shopping after I finish up here on the internet, so I best get going. Until next time everyone!

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Yep, we’re still alive, just without internet. We’re borrowing a signal from the hotel we stayed at, so this won’t be too long. The house is fabulous, just a little misrepresented on the website. But everything is going well. We’re hoping to sneek over here again another day to do another update.

Until then!

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Yep! Just got word that we’re checking out of the hotel today and moving in to the house we had originally booked. I’ve enjoyed our hotel stay, having a maid clean the rooms has been fantastic! Our maid even did the dishes, which we totally didn’t expect her to do. So it’s off to finish packing and get ready to head over!

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We’ve been here for four full days now and I think we’re all adjusting well to island life. Yesterday, Sean and I decided to do a drive in to town to pick up some groceries and so we could buy some hats, something we both forgot to pack! The Grand Marche is definitely like a regular grocery store we have back home, even with the exact same brands. Afterwards we drove down Front Street through Phillipsburg which is the ‘main’ shopping street, especially for the tourists coming off the cruise ships. You can definitely tell that it is aimed towards the tourists too because the street is very clean and well kept, unlike other areas.

Once back at the hotel, we packed up our stuff and headed out to the beach in front of the Westin where everyone else had been that morning. The waves were totally different though, quite a bit bigger. In fact Karl lost his sunglasses when he was attempting to ride one of the waves!

Dinner last night consisted of ribs that had been purchased on Sunday, and oh my goodness were they good! We were all fighting over who got the kids bones because they hadn’t eaten all the meat off of them!

Today was an even more relaxing day. Karl, Liana, Bruce, Maria & Jeanette had headed off to Marigot on the French side to do the tourist thing. That left Sean, Elmer and I with the kids, and we had decided that it would be a pool morning, just to take a break from the salt water About 1/2 hour in to swimming we had a large black cloud come over us and just dump rain on us. But that lasted maybe 10 minutes then it totally cleared up again! But it was a nice break from the sun it allowed us to swim in the pool without our hats on! Once the crew made it back from the French side with all their food purchases (mmmmmm, more fresh baguettes!) Karl, Bruce & the kids went to the beach for some serious swimming, while everyone else just stayed back in the villas to relax, and for me, to nap. When they got back from the beach, they said the waves were even more intense than yesterday. In fact, Karl held on to Ethan the whole time because of how big they were!

Dinner tonight was chicken, another tasty meal that Sean did up on the bbq. Liana earlier had prepped the pasta salad, which was enjoyed thoroughly by everyone. Afterwards Sean and I went for a walk on the beach in front of the Westin and just as we were about to take some photos, all the lights went out! I thought maybe the lights outside were on a timer, but nope, the power had gone out again, seems to be a normal occurrence! At that point we decided to just head back up to the hotel room. Of course we had walked down to the beach because the walk down is fairly easy, but damn..that walk back is hard! The hill is alright, sort of like the hill on 208th just off of 48th (the runners will know which one), but this one is a lot steeper, then there’s the 6 flights of stairs that completely do you in!

So now here I sit, typing away on the laptop that I have out on the balcony right now, and trying not to itch all the bites I have. I think I got a good shot of my legs earlier, I seriously look like I have the chicken pox, it’s absolutely horrific the number of bites that I’m getting here. Several were from the first day on the beach, we noticed sand flies, and the rest are mosquito bites, ugh! Just have to suck it up and hope I don’t get too many more!

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I’ve uploaded some photos in to my Picasa account at: http://picasaweb.google.com/scoobyd/StMaartens. I have also interspersed some photos within the posts if you would like to just scroll through to see them.

Enjoy!!

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The day started off early for Sean, Ethan & Karl. I awoke Sean at 5:45 so he could get up to get ready for his trip to the french side. Karl, Ethan & Sean were heading there to look for fresh lobster. I fell back to sleep, but awoke to knocking at the door at 7:45, Liana had managed to lock herself outside the room, something that is very easy to do when the patio doors are open as well. We waited until almost 9 before the guys got back with their catch, 3 fantastic looking spiny lobsters…mmmmmmm.

The lobsters

Liana and I then had Karl & Sean telling us about how hard of a time they had talking with the people on the french side, very few people understood or even spoke english! Ethan took the lobster over to the other hotel room to be put in the fridge since ours was malfunctioning, and full. We then proceeded to pack up our stuff to head to Orient Bay, another beach on the french side that we were told was one of the best. Getting there was an interesting ride for all but Sean who had already been around the island several times.

When we got there, we found that Orient Bay was much more commercialized, with several sections of the beach area set aside for restaurant/bars that sold use of the lounge chairs and umbrellas, for a mear 5 euros for the umbrella, and 8 euros for a chair (converting that to US dollors, $7.5 for the umbrella, and $12 for a chair). Luckily, Sean and I had packed our beach blankets and we instead used those, though we didn’t exactly sit on the beach for very long. The beach was a beautiful white sandy beach, with perfect waves for body surfing. We stayed there for about 3 hours before we decided to pack up to head back to the motel to have lunch consisting of hot dogs and alcoholic beverages Afterwards we went down to the pool to enjoy some quiet time and relaxation in the shade. The pool at the hotel is quite large, and salt water, like the pool we had setup this summer, so much more pleasant when you get it in your mouth compared to the ocean water. Around 5 we decided to head up to prep dinner…the 3 lobsters and 2 lbs of very large shrimp, what we would consider tiger prawns.

Sean was elected to be the lobster cleaner/killer. But first, he had to get rubber gloves to protect his hands from the spiny-ness of the lobsters. Down to the front office he went, where he talked with Framke, the Dutch exchange student who is here for 7 months to do her practicum training in tourism. So you can imagine how good her english was! Apparently the word “glove” is not an english word that they teach them because Sean had a very hard time trying to get her to understand what he wanted. Luckily another worker native to St. Maarten knew what he was talking about and got him a pair. So back to the room he went to declare, “Off with their heads!” (speaking of the lobster of course!) While being videotaped by myself and Liana, Sean proceeded to rip off the heads of the lobster with great fanfare, declaring victory over the lobster! The next step was to de-gut the tail of the lobster which we won’t go in to details about, it’s rather disturbing what is done!

With the lobster prepped, and shrimp spread out on a pan, we went down to the bbq area to cook the suckers. Of course no one had brought a camera, and Liana couldn’t figure out how to get her video camera to take a picture in the dark, so back I went up 5 flights of stairs, 2 at a time to get our camera ( and yes…thank god for bootcamp at that moment, I wouldn’t have made it otherwise! hi Sue! ) We took several pictures of the fantastic looking lobster and shrimp as they cooked on the bbq, until the time we had to go upstairs. And I have to admit, as I carried the plate of lobster up the stairs, it was very hard not to just sit and eat them all!

Taking the lobster up to the room

We had dinner at Bruce & Maria’s villa out on the patio, listening the crickets, and the waves hitting the shore. What a glorious dinner it was! The feast was enjoyed by all, and rather quickly too! I don’t think we’ve been that quiet the entire time! With cleanup out of the way we headed back to our room for an evening of Mamma Mia! Yes, I have now seen it 5 times, and I’m getting really good at singing every single song, word for word, and Sean’s getting there too For dessert, I splurged and shared my Purdy’s Peanut Butter Fingers (yes Michelle….*those* peanut butter fingers!!).

And now here Sean and I sit, back down at the pool with the wireless connection, enjoying a warm breeze on clear starlit night. What more could we ask for! (more suntan lotion!!!!!!)

Okay, so I forgot to mention that part….remember the title “or is that looking like lobsters”, well, we’re all just a tad red now after 2 full days in the sun, and we still have 12 more days to go. Not sure what color you go after red, is it maroon? purple? or is it black, as in burnt, like toast?!

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Sean woke up at 7, I did too, but figured it was too early to get up. I ended up getting up just after 8, and Sean had just come back from touring the island. He had gone to check out the markets and see what time they would open, unfortunately none opened until 9. After breakfast of scrambled eggs, granola bars and crackers (thank god for the Milton crackers that I packed at the last minute!) we packed up our stuff and headed out to the beach. We were still waiting for the other household of people to rise and shine and get ready, but we said to heck with it, we were going to enjoy the day!

It’s a short, downhill walk for us to get the beach, and actually a pleasant one, the walk home is a drag though, all uphill, then 6 flights of stairs to get back to our place. At the beach though, we dropped everything and in to the water we went! This is the life! We were there for about an hour before the other crew finally made it down to the beach, and when they did, Maria, Jeanette, Liana and Sean headed off to the grocery store to get food for the next couple of days. The Cost 4 Less store ended up being a Costco, and the Grande Marche was like our local Save-On Foods. They spent almost 2 hours between the 2 places, and Sean managed to find out the best place to get fresh lobster..mmmmm.

Back at the beach, we spent the entire time in the water, it was fantastic! After awhile I came out and pulled our blanket back in to the shade of a palm tree and ended up having a bit of a siesta. Now that was the life!

The boys attempting to build a sandcastle

The 4 that went shopping finally made it back around 12:30 and took a bunch of us back to our rooms to have lunch and to pack some food to take back to the beach. Another 4 hours of frolicking in the ocean and reading, the sun was starting to go down so we decided to head back to the hotel and jump in the pool to wash off some of the sand.

Somehow we ended up spending almost an hour in the pool before we went back to our rooms to cleanup and prep dinner. Dinner is comprised of burgers and fries tonight, and later on we’re going to cook up the 2 lbs of prawns that they bought, another mmmm. So now I sit here, typing this all up, trying to find wireless internet so I can post all this. I hope to figure out the wireless so I can post on a daily basis until we get to the house where internet is readily available.

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We were running a little behind due to some last minute running around, but Michelle & Lora were also a little late, so it worked out well. We headed down to the border with our luggage just barely fitting in to the trunk. Our first stop after crossing was of course, the Edaleen Dairy for a soft serve ice cream cone…mmmmmm. On to the I5 we headed and off to Seattle. The next stop was the REI flagship store which is just off the I5 but close to the downtown core, and to our surprise traffic was really good until we got there. We spent a good 45 minutes in the store, then headed off to SouthCentre mall for some real shopping, and of course dinner. Dinner was eaten at the Cheesecake Factory and it was gooooooood. After having a margeurita on a fairly empty stomach I was feeling rather loopy, and I’m sure Michelle & Lora enjoyed watching me make a fool of myself but it was time to head off to the airport! Hard to believe that the time was here to fly off to paradise for 2 weeks!! And just our luck, we got selected for an extra security check, which was actually pretty quick, they just checked our carry on luggage more thoroughly, and the security guy tried to tell us he’d have to confiscate the candies. We were quickly through there, and had just an hour to wait for our flight.

Waiting at the airport

The flight itself could not have been more uncomfortable. Our butts were incredibly sore by the time we reached Atlanta, and sleep did not come easily on the flight, even after taking gravol. Luckily it was only a 4 hour flight and we were incredibly glad to get off the plane. The walk to the other terminal was a kilometer, or we could take the train…we decided to walk it, just because of how good it felt to move! As we came up the escalator we met up with Karl, Ethan and Maria. Maria was in Starbucks getting a latte because of how cold she said the waiting area was, have to say we didn’t believe her until we got there, but it was absolutely freezing! Thank goodness for the blanket I had in the carry on!

The kids were all sprawled on the floor sleeping, along with Bruce, and I ended up falling asleep too. When we did finally board the plane we were all extremely tired, and Sean & I ended up falling asleep before take-off and I slept almost until landing in St. Maarten.

When the plane finally stopped, we waited, and kept waiting until the captain finally came on and announced that the electrical was not working properly and they were running the engine to keep the electrical on and we were waiting for some external power to be hooked up. Once that finally was hooked up we were able to deplane, and boy was it warm!! It was down the stairs, then in to the terminal that you could tell was new, nothing like the shack we went in to in the Cook Islands!

Waiting at the airport in St. Maartens

Then it was figuring out the cars. And by this time, everyone was running on 3 or 4 hours sleep and little to no food, so you can imagine what that was like! : ) But we did manage to get our cars and headed off to the house. At the house we were met by the maintenance man and his wife where we were told there was good news and bad news. The good news was that we arrived after Hurricane Omar and didn’t have to be evacuated like the previous occupants, but the bad news was that the house could not be stayed in. The exterior area had 8 inches of water in it when the Hurricane had come through and it had partially flooded the interior. But we were being put up in a 5 star hotel just up the hill. Of course we were a little disappointed not to be staying in the house and we ended up waiting close to an hour for them to get us booked in to this hotel. We were definitely not disappointed by any means once we got in to our rooms.

We were put in 2, 2 bedroom suites that are *very* nice, with a view to die for! Both rooms have king size beds, and the main bedroom has a Jacuzzi tub. The room that Jeanette & Elmer, and Bruce & Maria are in is brand new, in fact when they got to the room the cleaners were still in there cleaning up the mortar dust from the walls!

A view of our hotel from the Westin Hotel beside ours

At this point we needed to get food so we went to Mr. Busby’s just down the way to get food, it was close, and they provided food. Of course there was no electricity on the island, so a lot of the menu items was not available, but we didn’t care, we just wanted something to eat. And luckily just across from Mr. Busby’s was a small market that was running by candle light and a small generator to power a couple fridges so we were able to get eggs for breakfast in the morning.

Back to our rooms we went and proceeded to very quickly fall asleep!

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