Tuesday: We slept late but then shopped all day long and ended up at the pool later in the afternoon. We ate lunch at Subway where I got a free 6″ sub with my sub club card and. But most of the places you want to go are pretty well hidden. We ate supper at a great place called Tutta Pasta but the only way we found it was that we were wandering around a plaza and saw a faded sign on the top of a building and walked around back to find the entrance. While we were strolling around that same plaza we met up with a man who wanted to guess where we were from based on our accents. He guessed Indiana which I guess is close enough. It turned out he was a DJ for Island92 radio and moved to St. Maarten about 7 years ago to remove himself from the rat race. So we started listening to Island92 and the station was pretty sweet. The music mix is more about the DJ’s taste and his perception of his listeners’ tastes. Like what they tell us radio stations used to be like. So one could tune in and hear anything from the Beatles to Billy Joel to the Beastie Boys and all the songs were good.
Interesting: It seems that the local fad is to have a decorative windshield tint visor with fancy trim lines and possibly a pithy phrase like “I love u darling.”
Interesting: The resort we at which we’re staying has the only golf course on the island and scattered throughout the golf course are probably 50 abandoned villas that were destroyed in a hurricane in 1995. Apparently the man who insured them skinned out the day before the hurricane.
Interesting: That all of the jewelers are Indian (since they’re Indian and living in the West Indies, does that make them West Indian?) . Apparently an Indian came about 30 years ago and got the whole thing and now they come and make some money for a few years and then go home.
Wednesday: The boys called again in the morning and then we were off to snorkel again. We took the ferry to Pinel Island and explored the bit of coral and enjoyed the beach before heading back for lunch at Cheri’s again. We made our own pasta supper and ate it on the balcony.
Interesting: It appears that the local custom is to tap on the horn as a friendly wave if your know someone or if you’re given the right of way while driving. Today we let a couple of cars take a left in front of us (about the only way you can make left turns sometimes is if the oncoming driver will let you through) and we got 2 friendly beeps.