St Martin

+We have been enjoying St Martin for the past few days! This is a really nice place to visit and it’s the off season so there are very few people. There is an efficient and cheap bus system which makes getting around very easy. We have been anchored on the French side of Simpson Bay Lagoon for several days and have had a great time sightseeing, meeting up with friends and making new friends. It is relatively inexpensive here and there is no tax so we have been eating out quite a bit. If we don’t get out of here soon, we’ll die of brie, pate, baguettes, wine, champagne and other similar ailments.

We entered the lagoon via the Dutch side. Waiting for the bridge to open:

Dutch Coast Guard just inside the lagoon:

Once inside the lagoon, you have to wait for the airport causeway bridge to open, to get to the French side:

After checking in with French Customs, we took the dinghy around the lagoon. There are several high-end marinas that cater to mega-yachts. This marina on the Dutch side is nice enough to let commoners like us tie our dinghy up so we can go into town.

We also went over to Marigot on the French side. Dinghy tie up:

We walked up the street only to find the self service Happy Shop!

Take a right at the Happy Shop and you find a wonderful wine shop with great prices:

Then to the Patissier shop to stuff ourselves:

We caught the bus ($2) to Philipsburg:

We ate lunch in here, it was very good!

narrow streets:

Parliment:

Even with a cruise ship in port the beach was empty:

Old Street:

Then back over to the French side because:

Marigot waterfront, Ft Louis at the top of the hill just above:

Random lizard:

Then another bus over to Maho Bay Beach which is at the end of the airport runway. People stand in the path of the runway and get blasted from the jet exhaust. Fun to watch but did not participate.

We are going to pull up anchor in a few minutes and catch the last bridge openings out of the lagoon. We are heading for St Kitts and then…somewhere else to hide from the weather.