We found out that this means Plum Bay, at least when you talk to the real estate people, Plum Bay is at the end of the Terre Basse section, down an obscure road. The good news is that it is a great beach, a half mile of sand with 3 or 4 families on it. That perfect blue water you get in the Caribbean, a school of small fish for visual interest - and very small breakers.

There is a place to park just a few yards from the beach, and that is about it. No restaurant, no beach bar, nobody hanging out selling stuff.

The smart people, ther regulars brought beach umbrellas or little shelters. Not something we had in our place, but there must be a way to come up with the basics. This was a nice beach day.

Baie de Prunes

Snorkeling

The best snorkeling is at a  man-made attraction on the Dutch side near Phillipsburg.  The trick is what is underwater. It started with the debris from a big hurricaine that hit St Martin in the 90’s. The top of an historic fort ended up in the water, cannons and all. Fish followed and a destination was created.

 Some of the smart people figured that if nature could do this once every century or two, snorkel promoters could speed the process up by towing wrecks and similar underwater attractions to 30 feet or so of water. A little kayak trip and your there.

George set the pace, free diving to touch the wreck 25 or so feet down.

Underwater King

The best thing about renting a house with a good pool is that the family can hang out, swim, play cards, take pictures and play games. We had the right setup. And Anna, who is in the family tradition of gadget gurus, took the lead as the photographer. We were able to download from the digital cameras into the “family” laptop to see what we had – and free up more space for the next round of shots. Quick and easy.

Places Please. I'm taking a picture.

Mike and Michele hanging in the pool

Two Days Work Poolside

 It seems like every French speaking chef with itchy feet and a yen for warm weather has found his way to St Martin. This includes some Quebecois, a few Italians and refugees from Paris and Lyon.

Mario’s Bistro

 Our highlight was Mario’s Bistro, open for dinner only at the Sandy Ground Bridge on the outskirts of Marigot. Situated along an inlet about 200 yards from the beach, Mario’s had its own aquatic show, with a school of good sized tarpon swimming over the underwater lights and feeding on the brine shrimp that were in the water. Their menu and service was a match for the top French restaurants in Philly and (maybe) New York.  So were the prices, but it was all worth it.

We liked Marios Bistro, but there were a half dozen very good, expensive restaurants in Marigot and Grand Casse, which is about a 30 minute drive around the island from our place. Michele and I stopped in Grand Casse to check out the restaurants for lunch on Wednesday. Nice spot, with a  great looking beach, tiny hotels, not much parking and a handful of high end restaurants, some open for dinner only.

Grand Casse Beach from La Shore

Croissants and Coffee, with WiFi on the side.

I’m always impressed by the portability of good French cuisine. Whether it’s Montreal, Bora Bora or Marigot in French  St Martin you can count on a good croissant and quality coffee.

Michele and I got off to a relaxed, late start on Monday morning and drove into Marigot to confirm the French breakfast quality. There were a bunch of choices. Convenient parking and a view of the sailboats in Marigot’s harbor decided for us.

Breakfast in Marigot

The coffee and croissants met expectations for French style. The big change was that everyone seemed to have a laptop. Free Wifi, convenient electrical outlets and island sunshine made a”virtual office” for what I took to be a mix of local residents and working vacationers. This has a lot of advantages over commuting to the office at home.

The Dutch Side

 According to the guidebooks the population of St Martin is reasonably evenly split between the French and the Dutch sides of the island. But each side has specialties.  Most of the best restaurants and beaches are on the French side. Most of the practical necessities are on the Dutch side. Practical necessities start with the airport and include real food markets.

20 years ago buying food for a week’s stay here was an adventure, even with plenty of restaurant meals factored in. Now the selection in the markets on the Dutch side is a lot closer to what we are used to at home. Heiniken and gouda cheese is in good supply. Inexpensive (and some expensive) wine from France, South Africa, Argentina and Chile is readily available.   And I learned that there are more varieties of yogurt stocked here than I knew existed. Bottom line, you can feed six people the snacks, breakfasts and a couple of dinners here without going totally native.

Baie Rouge

25 years ago Baie Rouge was almost our own private beach, with one or two other families spread out along about a quarter mile of sand. It has changed a little – more people on the sand for sure. More people meant there is now a beach bar and “restaurant”, with a friendly local staff and an outstanding musician. We got non-stop American standards from Sinatra to Sixties classics – and a muted trumpet in between. The music has to be a weekend only event and comes with the blender drinks that always seem like a good idea for the first 24 hours of vacation.

Sunburn

Fair skinned grandkids, what seemed like a lot of sunblock (?), and plenty of energy in and out of the water turns out to be the formula for a little sunburn and some worn out little Hoeys. 

Around the House

Terre Basse is a rocky piece of land, not all that

Gecko???

hilly by St Martin standards. The area around each of the houses here is nicely landscaped, based on what we could see from the road. Our place was certainly well maintained, with a resident cat and a resident caretaker in a house just down the road. Cat aside, the biggest wildlife we saw were lizards, Gecko wannabes.

St Martin Landscaping

Carry Ons Only

We had a washer and dryer in the house, so our plan was to pack light. Bathing suits, tee shirts and sandals for the day time. And no need for jackets in even the best restaurants. We settled on one shared laptop – the house had a good  wifi connection - and the kid’s ever present DS’s for in flight sanity.  It helps that the temperature was, as predicted, between 75 and 83 for the entire week – and no rain. We were all set.

St Martin Airport

A four hour flight, don’t stop at the luggage carousel because its all carry on, and by mid afternoon we were meeting the St Martin rental rep for a 15 minute drive to the house. Everybody is friendly, speaks American English and takes dollars (or Euros or ?).

House and Cars Are  Ready

Part of the rental agency service is an initial supply of the essentials in the refrigerator – beer, soda, coffee, chips and bread. We pre-ordered just enough to take us through one breakfast. The other big time saver was the rental car. We had two Toyotas waiting for us at the house when we got there. (Two was a lot more practival than one car big enough for six and gave us the flexability to split up during the week).

The Grandkids Approved

We had a good idea what to expect from our on-line research, but the grandkids were in wide eyed explorer mode. It was an instant hit, starting with the pool.

February 2010 in Philly

Need Spring Break

Winter 2010 in Philly was the incentive. More snow than we had seen since we lived in upstate NY. We needed a family getaway over spring break.

House Rentals Work Well in the Islands

Michele and I had had good experiences with “extended family” house rentals over the years. Baie Rouge area in St Martin in the 80’s. Near Sandy Lane on Barbados a few years later. We found some good choices and good restaurants off season in Turks and Caicos about 10 years ago and thought about going there again.

Direct Flight to St Martin from Philly

Once we got into the details we found out that direct flights were available from Philly to St Martin, but not to Turks. And our house rental service suggested that we look at the options in the Terre Basse section on the French side of St Martin, not too far from the (very exclusive) La Samanna Hotel.

There are dozens of new, upscale houses with pools to choose from in Terre Basse. We wanted 4 bedrooms so that each of the grandkids had their own room. And a decent sized pool with space to hang out was essential. We rented a house named “Clare de Lune” ( sounds more upscale than a street number, and is not much harder to find).

Our Coach at the Ocean - Heading Home

Just another hour or two in the bus. We stopped in Salem and made sure that the witches were all still dead. And finished up in Boston where we went to the airport and back to Philly to rest up from our vacation.

 Another Day in Washington D.C.  

The tour was officially over after breakfast, but we opted for an additional night.  From our hotel we could see the Washington Monument to our left, the Capital to our right and a part of the White House straight ahead.  We enjoyed seeing them lit the 2 nights on the tour, but now we got to see the fireworks from our balcony.  We moved the chairs to the balcony and left the TV on to the music and experienced a magical evening.  Many of our tour had the same idea, and we had a wonderful extra day to see the sights. 

Festival on the Mall

The Smithsonian was holding a festival on the mall.  This coincided with our dates so we also had the opportunity to learn, hear music and taste food from Wales, the Latin America and African American cultures as we walked on the mall in Washington DC.  We packed so many experiences into just 7 days. What we took away was priceless!

 Washington, D.C. 

We woke to our last day on the trip and our last day in Washington DC. Our driver took us to many of the monuments.  We saw The Lincoln Memorial, where we were privileged to hear to a group from a high school singing in front of the monument in honor of the 4th of July celebration.  Many groups were performing throughout the city in celebration of the 4th of July! 

We ended our day at the Museum of America History.  We saw Archie Bunkers chair, Dorothy’s Ruby Red slippers and Abraham Lincoln’s hat. 

We had the afternoon free and many museums to visit.  We decided on the Air and Space Museum, after which we went back to our hotel for our farewell dinner.

It was hard to say good- bye to so many wonderful people and our bus driver and Tauck Tour Guide.  The people made the tour.  We all came away with many memories and so much knowledge about our history and culture.