Allure Day 5 - Maho Beach - Airplanes!!

We arrived at Maho Beach at 1:30, and had about an hour to spend.  This beach sits right at the end of the runway for St. Martin’s international airport.  You can get some amazing views and take some awesome photos and video as the planes approach and land directly over your head.

Also, when planes take off headed away from the beach, their jet blast topples anything on the beach and creates a sand storm.  You can see this if you search Maho Beach on YouTube.

People can get pretty stupid brave out there.  There is a video of a girl holding on to the chain link fence during a departure and getting blown across the road, hitting her head on concrete.  I hope she’s ok.

There is a restaurant called Sunset Bar & Grill right to the side of the beach.  Here is the surfboard with arrival times of the planes.

The only big one left to come in while we were there was the American Airlines at 1:55pm.

Here she comes!

Our camera wasn’t really cooperating, but here she still comes!

 

Here she is!

And the closest shot!

Oops.  Operator error. Or dude in the way.  We missed our “shot”.

Here, you can see a portion of the beach, with the road to the right, fence to the right of that, and runway directly behind the fence.

Here comes another plane.

 

Time for the camera operator to redeem himself.

Closer.

Anyone waiting on a delivery?

Of note, at Sunset Bar & Grill, “topless women drink free”.  And there were indeed topless women at the bar.  So if you’re taking children, or are easily offended, you’ll need to know this.

Finally, here is a photo of Chris and me with Sexy (and a guy who had had a little death rum punch).

Does Sexy live up to his name(tag)?

Allure Day 5 - Marigot - a little French town

It was 12:30 when we arrived in Marigot, the Capital of the French side of St. Martin.  We stopped for about 30 minutes here.

First, we headed to “the yellow building” that housed Serafina’s.

Serafina’s is a famous pastry and sandwich shop.  We walked through and took a look.  I wish I had saved room at lunch for dessert, but my tummy wouldn’t hold anymore.  So we saved a couple of dollars/Euro by not buying any of these yummy goodies.

Around Marigot

A castle on the hill

I am not sure if this is the same castle we had seen on our way to Marigot or not.  We had seen a castle on a hill and someone asked Sexy what it was.  He told us it is actually a house built by an individual about 10 years ago as a private residence.  He said it takes a very long time to build homes in St. Martin, due to getting supplies.

Chris, somewhere in Marigot (not a bad place to be lost)

Speaking of lost, just in case, here’s a globe.

I thought the colors in the market were beautiful.

Boats in the harbor

Chris and I finished looking around before time was up, so we just kept wandering, enjoying our time, and the fact that we had nowhere in particular to be.

Next stop – Maho Beach!

Allure Day 5 - Stingy Sexy and Orient Beach

Back on the bus, we were now headed to Orient Beach.  It would take about 20 minutes to get there, so we decided to try the rum punch.  Sexy had some little cups for the rum punch, the size of the ones they put pills in when you’re at the hospital.  Smaller than a Dixie Cup.  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why he would serve rum punch in Dixie Cups. I mean, I’ve had rum punch in the Bahamas and in Jamaica and maybe in Key West.  I remembered it being like a Hurricane.  Red and fruity.  Where’s my Red Solo Cup when I need it?

Chris and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and decided to try what little bit of rum punch Sexy was willing to share with us.  Stingy Sexy.

He poured it from an unlabeled, rectangular bottle he kept in the cooler.  We each got our Ounce and went to be seated.  As Sexy set off to drive us to our next stop, we toasted and sipped our first sips.  Whew!  Rum PUNCH??  I think it was just straight rum.  WOW!  Yep, 1 Ounce was plenty for me.  And like St. Thomas’s Bushwacker, I was glad I tried it.  Now I can say I did.  And I never have to again! Ha!

And after that, Chris switched to beer.  Imagine that.

On the way to Orient Beach, we saw goats along the sides of the road.  Lots of goats.  I mean LOTS of goats!  Someone asked Sexy (ok, at this point I’m just getting a kick out of typing his name) where all the goats come from, and he said “each and every goat on this island has an owner.”  This amazed me.  I mean, these goats are roaming free.  How do the owners know where they are?  Or that they are ok?  Or if they have babies?  And why do they own free-roaming goats?  For milk? Cheese?  And if it’s time for milk, how do you find your goat?  Or do you borrow someone else’s goat?  I’m as inquisitive as a 5-year old.  Or maybe it’s the rum punch.

Orient Beach is pretty long, and there are several resorts and cafes along the beach.  Sexy parked the bus near a bar and grill called La Playa and told us what time to meet him back.  We had about 90 minutes at Orient Beach.

 

Seriously?  It’s picture perfect. This has to be the most beautiful beach I have ever visited.  It really is one of my new favorite places on the planet (next to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and Brixen, Italy – but they don’t have beaches).

Just look at that white sand!  And the color of the water.  And the soft breaks of the waves.  Can I go back?  Now?

This is La Playa, looking out toward the beach from the back of the bar. 

They had a bar, some tables in the shade, some out in the sun with umbrellas, a band stand, and a kiosk bar on the beach.

 

The bar kiosk

Menu (hard to read).  

The exchange rate that day was $1 = 1 EU.  I’m sure that’s not the international exchange rate, but it keeps it simple.  Chris and I talked about how they had to be losing money at that rate, unless everything was just incredibly overpriced in Euro, which it probably was.  We knew from being in Germany last summer that the exchange rate was running about $1.25 to 1 Euro.

 

Along the beach in front of La Playa, you could rent some cushy chairs.  Two chairs and an umbrella were $10 US.  We needed  a place to leave our “stuff” while we walked along the beach, so we rented the chairs.  If we had had more time at Orient Beach, I’m sure we would have used the chairs more, but we ended up not really getting much use from them.  90 minutes goes by quickly.

Out we went for a romantic stroll on the beach.

Are you KIDDING me??

We recognized a couple from the ship and asked them to take our picture.

One more photo of this unbelievable beach.  I can’t get enough!

Incidentally, Club Orient at Orient Beach is a clothing-optional resort (“nothing is better”).  It is a little down to the right from La Playa as you face the water.  We walked up and down the beach, but didn’t wander that far toward Club Orient.  The beach itself is also clothing optional (or at least top-optional for the ladies), but we didn’t notice anyone taking the option.  We didn’t really look for that, but there was nothing obvious.  Just in case you plan to visit and want to avoid that, or have kids with you, know that it may be there, but we didn’t notice.

It was 11:00 and we were hungry, so we decided La Playa was as good a place as any to grab lunch.  We took seats at the bar.

We decided to order from the Cuisino Creol (Creole local food) portion of the menu.  I ordered Accrus de Morue (cod fritters) and Chris ordered Colombo de Poulet (chicken Columbo).  And Chris ordered a Carib beer (local).

The food was good, and filling. It was served with baguette slices, which I used to sop up some of the sauce from Chris’s chicken.  It had some curry flavor.  I think we spent $40 with tip, so it was a relatively expensive lunch.

While we ate, the DJ played a mix of island and pop music.  He kept announcing that it was the Orient Bay Resort Owners’ Welcome Back party.  We did see an influx of people who didn’t appear to be from our ship.  I assume this was for owners of resort property who come to spend the winters on the island.  Hmm…should I look into that?

By the time we finished, it was time to board the bus again.  Sexy asked us to change to dry clothes, as the seats were cloth.  Some people opted for another Ounce of death rum punch.  Not us.  Off to Marigot we headed.

Allure Day 5 - Rum Punch and The Sea Urchin Man

I forgot to include our planned schedule for Day 5 from my pre-cruise calendar.

9am-2:30pm – Bernard’s Tour

3pm – 6pm – Flowrider

9:30pm – Ice Games (show)

11:45pm – Quest

After the iguana farm, we boarded the bus and continued our tour with Sexy.  I didn’t mention earlier that Sexy had loaded two coolers onto our bus at the start of the tour.  One had water and soft drinks.  The other had beer and rum punch. Our bartender from the Trellis Bar in Central Park had told us to make sure to try the “Guavaberry Punch” in St. Martin.  He said it is the local rum drink.  So we were pretty sure the rum punch Sexy had was the Guava Punch our bartender had mentioned, so we were looking forward to trying it.

Every time we stopped the bus, drinks were offered.  The iguana farm was still pretty early, so we had not tried any rum punch yet.

Also, to be consistent with the theme of “The Most Disorganized Review. Ever.”, I forgot to mention that when we had loaded the bus at the pier in St. Martin, we watched as a small group walked by, coming from the direction of the ship (and our ship was the only one in port that day), rolling all of their luggage.  We had to wonder why they were leaving the Allure.  They didn’t look unhappy, so I doubt they were being kicked off for being naughty.  And nobody looked hurt (or sad), so I don’t think they or a family member were injured.  I wonder if maybe it was just a planned departure?  Maybe they were guests of a crew member who was ending his/her contract in St. Martin?  I hope it was nothing bad.  I sure wouldn’t want to be leaving Allure when we still had two Sea Days left…

Back to the review:

Off we go, across the border, to the French side of the island.

We made a short stop at a nice overlook of Oyster Pond, where there were two main resorts on the other side of a bay where several sailboats were anchored.  The Westin Dawn Beach Resort and the Oyster Bay Beach Resort.  Sexy told us that the Westin was on the French side, and the water in the bay and Oyster Bay Beach Resort were on the Dutch side.

That’s the Oyster Bay Beach Resort with the glass on top.

One day, I will vacation here for more than a day.

Looking back down the road we had just come down 

More of the bay

Out to the ocean

Back on the bus, our next stop was Rotary Lookout Point, where there was a tower constructed to climb and get a nice view of the ocean and surrounding islands.  Near the bottom of the tower, we found “The Sea Urchin Man”.  He had a name, but I don’t remember it, and he asked us to call him “The Sea Urchin Man”, so we did.

The Sea Urchin Man had a table set up close to the shoreline.  On the table, he had a variety of shells.  He went into the ocean and pulled out some live creatures and showed them to us.  Then he showed us what the dead version looked like.

Here I am holding a sand dollar.

It was squirmy.  It would move its tentacles (or soft spikes, or… whatever), trying to move around my hand.  It moved slowly, not abruptly, so it didn’t startle me, but it felt funny.

And here is a live conch, coming out of his shell.

(You can see the “dead” sand dollar on the table below the conch, and you can tell the difference – at least in color – from the live one.)

A better photo of the conch

He also had sea urchins and some other stuff I don’t remember, but holding the sand dollar was enough fun for me for the day.

From the tower

 

There’s The Sea Urchin Man in grey, pointing out some of the local wildlife to others.  Just a note:  if you take this tour, or otherwise visit TSUM (for short), he works for tips.  We put a couple of dollars in his jar.  He takes U.S. Dollars or Euro (or I imagine you could get creative, but we stuck with dollars).

You can see in the photo above, that there was a guide on the railings of the tower.  It explained some of the islands and local wildlife (birds, I think) that you could see from the tower.

Somewhere out there is St Barths.

TSUM, again

Next, we were on our way (finally) to Orient Beach.  I know you can't wait for photos.

Allure Day 5 - St. Martin - Sexy and Iguanas (and Chickens)

Thursday morning, we woke up to St. Martin.  Actually, we were seeing Sint Maarten, the Dutch side.  I'm a little geeky, but I was excited to be here under Sint Maarten's new status as a "constituent country" of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. When we were here in 2010, it was still part of the Netherlands Antilles, which were dissolved in October of 2010.

From our balcony, a beautiful rainbow welcomed us.  You're gonna have to trust me on this one.  I didn't realize my camera lens fogged when going from the A/C to the humid heat.

 Can you see it?  Is this one a little better?

We stopped by Park Cafe to grab some breakfast. (This is another example of when being on Deck 8 is SO convenient.)  I grabbed a banana and a fruit and yogurt parfait.  I can't remember what Chris got, but it was something quick.  Now, here's a TIP.  There are no plastic spoons at Park Cafe.  I asked about it, and I was told there are no plastic spoons and you aren't allowed to take food off the ship.  I knew you couldn't bring it on, but I had no idea you couldn't take it off.  So we ate as quickly as possible and headed out.

We had a date.

He was Sexy.

No, really.

He was Sexy.

But we didn't know it yet.

We exited the ship and had our photo made by the ship's photographer with the stern of the ship behind us and a captain's wheel in front of us.  But I checked Focus several times and never could find that picture.  Who knows?

Then we went to the "yellow information center" to meet our guide for our tour.  I had booked Bernard's Tours, which gets great reviews.  When we checked in, I noticed that it was actually Bernard dong the checking-in.  I introduced myself and said we'd heard good things.  He was super nice.  But he wasn't our tour guide.  (He wasn't Sexy enough.)

We had paid $5 each deposit ahead of time and paid the additional $35 each that morning.  While we waited for our guide, we met several people from our roll call group.  It was a pleasure to meet everyone.  They were all so friendly.  And it turned out that about half of our bus was from our roll call, which made for a fun tour!

Shortly, we were escorted to our bus.  I was pleasantly surprised that this was a new, fully-enclosed, air-conditioned bus.  When we got to the bus, our tour guide and driver, Sexy (yes, that's his name) introduced himself.  I had read a review of this tour where they also had Sexy.  So I decided Bernard's must be kinda like Hooters.  They have a bowl of name tags, and you just take one when you start your shift each day.  And there was always a Sexy every day.  Or maybe ALL the nametags said "Sexy".  Either way, Sexy was great.  He was a great tour guide, always explained where we were and where we were going, and always on time.

Our first stop was an iguana farm (?).  Yeah, I know.  All the way to St. Martin, with its mountains and beautiful rainbows and beaches (you'll see), to see iguanas.  But that's ok.  I'm not really sure what the iguana stop was about, other than to extend the tour so we felt like it was worth our money.  I don't love iguanas.

Here's a picture of the iguana hole farm.

Lots of iguanas.  Or iguana.  What's the plural?

Did I mention chickens?  I think they should change the name to the Iguana and Chicken Farm.

I got to touch this iguana as Sexy held it.  I felt very safe as long as Sexy held the iguana.  It felt line a fine designer handbag.  Or a pair of cowboy boots.  (Sorry, Mr. Iguana)

What's that you say?  You want a close-up of Mr. Iguana?

Chris stole the camera from me. He was fascinated by these Iguanas "hugging".

When we were finished playing with the iguana and chickens, we continued on our tour.  We would have a couple of scenic stops, and touch a few more indigenous creatures, before getting to one of my new favorite places on the planet.