Tim Holtz Caribbean Cruise - Day 5 - September 29, 2011 - St. Maarten, Dutch & French West Indies

Day 5 we docked at St. Maarten at 8 AM. Early enough I Forgot to take pictures of shore from the ship. :-( I did however, take several pictures of the ship From shore:

Bev was feeling enough less sore & was able to go ashore, at least for a short while. Bev with the sign, then me with the sign.

Phillipsburg was quite pretty (below), however without having signed up for any excursions, I decided to head straight to Marigot to see the French capitol first.

I did get a chance to shop around in this Marigot flea market. Bought a couple of cover ups. Soon, it began to rain. Then it RAINED!!!! And Amazing Downpour for about 20 minutes! The flea market vendors covered up their wares. I went to the West Indies Mall across the street & found some fun items for our class project the next day. Although, we have no idea what the project yet is going to be......

The skies cleared & back to being a beautiful day. I ate at a small little local food stand which was located next to Wendy's. LOL I had a Johnnycake filled with fresh fish and hot sauce. I had hoped to have some local food and had read about Johhnycakes. Not sure if I liked it or not, but it was fun to Finally find a local food stand & be able to try some local food. I Wanted to go to Grand Case and a "Lo-Lo" as I had read about. Not sure that was really accurate in the travel books. It was supposed to mean Locally owned, Locally operated. However, one cab driver told me there was One restauraunt there Called LoLo's. But cab service to that area was limited, so I did not get the barbeque ribs on the beach from a local Lo Lo that I had hoped for. This weekend back at home however, Dave is going to smoke some ribs. So I'll just get them at home. :-)

I took a cab from Marigot to Orient Beach which was my Goal on this island........to.......you Guessed it! Rent a Jetski!!! LOL When I got there, There they Were........pretty jetskis all ready to go. I am Hurting from the fall yesterday, so I decided to get in the water first & see how my ribs felt. OUCH!!! SO, I just bobbed around in the pretty water, & looked longingly at the jetskis and people out on them. I need to come back here! ;-)

I spent about 2 hours at Orient Beach, walking on the beach and just enjoying the water. Then I took a cab back to Phillipsburg to look around a bit. I hadn't realized there was a Beautiful beach right there off the ship! With Jetskis!! In my research on the availability of jetskis on these islands, I never found that! Next time. :-) The shops along the walkway there were fun too. I didn't have much time left, so no shopping. Probably a Good thing.

And I'm just Sure I can use This sign in some art project! ;-)

I would Love to come back to St. Maarten someday. There is a Lot to explore there. One day was not enough. But I made the Most out of that day. :-)