Posts from — January 2010

Once we arrived at St. Jean Airport, Dean and Judy were there to greet us. We picked up our rental car, had a coffee (espresso) and Marie-Flore from L’Etoile du Marin arrived and we followed her to our accommodation for the next three nights. L’Etoile du Marin is a beautiful accommodation overlooking the village of Corossol. Marie-Flore and her husband Arnaud have done an amazing job with this accommodation. It is very clean, well laid out, it has absolutely everything you need and we will definitely be back for another visit;  pictures are attached. From L’Etoile du Marin there is a view of the Port of Gustavia where the super rich sit on their luxury yachts staring down at the common folk who walk by admiring their luxury yachts. Actually Gustavia is also a great location for shopping and exploring the island of St. Bart’s with it’s trendy little coffee shops, designer shops and narrow streets it makes for a great adventure. On Friday Dean and Judy had us over to their villa in Vitet for a wonderful dinner and a great visit. We are so fortunate to be able to have this time with them in this magical location of St. Bart’s. Not too bad for four kids from poor little Westsyde to be able to fly to the Caribbean and sit on the deck of an amazing Villa sipping fine French wine and eating a dinner that rivals any culinary school or restaurant around. In a couple days we move to Villa 21 in Lorient with Dean and Judy. We know that the next week will be exciting, fun, full of food, visiting and the occasional cocktail of French Wine, St. Bart’s Vanilla Rum or Carib Beer. More to come.

If you have never been to the island of St. Barthelemy (a.k.a. St. Barth’s or St. Barts) the adventure starts once you get to the airport in St. Maarten; since that is the transfer point to St. Bart’s. We arrived at Princess Julianna Airport about 1 1/2 hours early for our flight to St. Barts. After check-in at the terminal we headed through customs, security, etc and when we got to the gate we were asked if we wanted to catch an earlier flight? Of course we agreed, however our baggage was checked on to a later flight…… no problem the gate agent said (can you just imagine that in any airport in North America?); he said what do your bags look like and where are the claim tags and within 10 minutes they have located our bags, loaded us on a shuttle bus and we are headed to St. Barts. A couple pictures are attached of our flight over. Once you near St. Bart’s the pilots get fairly busy As they from the west there are quite a few turbulence coming off the ocean, so the plane is rising and falling pretty good. Then once they can kind of see the runway/airstrip over a steep hill the pilot puts the plane into a nose dive so he can land on the very short airstrip. Lots of YouTube videos check them out.

“A Sea Shanty for Bergybit”

(Sung to any tune that uses a Squeeze Box and a Tin Whistle)

(Optional Equipment: Eye Mask, Bottle of Rum and Jolly Roger)

Oh! Li De Di De Di De Di De Di De Di De Di 

Alas there is poor “Bergybit” a sitting on the ground

She’s on the hard on the stands with doggies all around

She looks so small and forlorn, she’s as tiny as can be

Just imagine Admiral and Gilligan sailing on the Caribbean Sea

Oh! Li De Di De Di De Di De Di De Di De Di 

Without permission we climbed aboard to take a look at last

It must have been a windy season for the tarps they didn’t last

There she sits with a list so long of jobs that need to go

So once she’s  in the water she can tack and gibe just so

Oh! Li De Di De Di De Di De Di De Di De Di 

But alas she sits in the Bobby’s Boat Yard awaiting on her crew

To hoist the mast, rig the sails and check the hanks and clew

Too much to do for us land based folks, our time here’s kind of thin

So we’ll just head back for a Carib Beer, at the Turquoise Shell Inn 

Happy 87th Birthday Dad!

Wow, we all hope to be as active and lively and full of life when we reach that age. There is definitely no dust under your shoes……… or if there is it is because you haven’t been keeping up with your daily vacuum duty! HA! HA! Let’s see…… a daily walk, volunteering with the Red Cross, playing trumpet in the Rube Band, golfing, regular coffee with friends, weekly church outings (including breakfast), trying to keep up with Gramma; must be the daily bowl of porridge is your secret to a long active life. We wish you many, many more! Love Brenda and Larry. p.s. Enjoy your day

We can’t promise a daily update but here is a summation of Day #1. Today we worked at getting our bodies turned around to the 4 hour time difference, which is not too hard when you are in a warm climate and the sun rises early. We started the morning with a nice walk on Simpson Bay Beach and nice swim dip in the ocean, no pictures as they get repetitive after a while, so we just soaked in the warmth and beauty of the moment. After that we had a quick breakfast and then we were off to explore the Simpson Bay area and a quick visit to the Gourmet Marche for a few essentials most importantly a French Baguette. Then back to the Turquoise Shell Inn where we met a very nice couple from Ontario who are here for 2 months and gave us lots of tips about the area. Right after lunch we headed back to the beach to walk down the end of the SXM runway and visit the Sunset Beach Bar. Now, if you have never been to St. Maarten or heard of Maho Bay this is a “must do” at least once. The attraction is to get a chance to watch the afternoon flights arriving from USA, Canada, France, England and other locations. There are lots of videos on “You Tube” under St. Maarten or Maho Bay and I have attached a few pictures that we took. After doing the touristy thing we headed back to Simpson Bay and Turquoise Shell Inn for a swim in the ocean, a dip in the pool and that pretty well ended the fun for today. Check in later…….. we can’t guarantee anything as Internet connection is spotty.

Well, it was interesting …… that’s the best way to describe the last couple of days. If this had been a worked related trip in my former life (working days) I’m sure we exceeded a least a couple regulatory requirements along the way.  However, that’s all behind us now and we are comfortably located in St. Maarten at the Turquoise Shell Inn. So what happened? Well we left Kamloops close to the departure time and arrived into Vancouver pretty well on schedule. Customs and Immigration was smooth and the new system for baggage handling is pretty slick. If you are transferring on to a USA bound flight you no longer have to pick up your luggage; what happens is they take a picture and you identify it with the security people and the customs officer on their computer screen. The United Airlines flight out of Vancouver was a little late  but we were late getting into Chicago due to weather and air traffic. When we taxied and arrived at the gate the pilot shut off all the power systems prior to the ground crew hooking up power so there we were in the dark until the emergency lighting came on…… never had that happen before. The gate to our next flight was only steps away and everything was lining up for a quick connection. That was until the airplane developed a mechanical issue just after we boarded and were getting ready to get pushed back for taxi and take-off. So after a few minutes the pilot decided to abandon this flight and he had us all go to another gate where a flight that had been delayed earlier was waiting for us. In the end we were about 1 1/2 hrs behind schedule and finally got to the hotel and to bed a about 2:00 a.m. local time. The 6:30 a.m. wake up call came early and we were off to the airport, the flight left on time and arrived a few minutes early…… things are looking good! OOPS that was a little premature. As we exited the airplane and head to customs the lights in the airport go out…….. I mean pitch black except for the very rare battery powered building light and of course cellphones, cameras, the odd flashlight and my I-Pod screen. So, that means that absolutely no one could enter St. Maarten or depart on a flight from St. Maarten. The good news is that we were the first aircraft in at that time and of course in the front of the Customs line. Pity the poor people that were the 4th aircraft in that afternoon. So there we were (and of course 600 other people) waiting for the lights to come on. Well things on the Caribbean Islands move at a little slower pace than where we live. But after a little over 1 hour the lights came on, people cheered and everyone was hustled through the line-ups. In another post I’ll rant about people’s etiquette, politeness, beautiful people syndrome (those that think they look so good and should get to go to the front of the line, etc). Anyway, we finally made to St. Maarten and I hope to attach pictures from Simpson Bay Beach if I can get a solid internet connectiion. More to come…… check regularly.

I just love the title of this post. I’m not sure if it is because of the alliteration of Snowshoeing and St. Maarten, or is it the fact that it is so illogically non-sensical that it is just funny! Anyway on Thursday we went up to Sun Peaks for a day of snowshoeing. It was great day, weather was around 2C, a little bit of sun came out, we did some of our favorite trails, met some new people and finished with a coffee, home made muffins and cookies as a lunch. So how did St. Maarten get into the title you ask? Well, as I write this we are sitting in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge sipping on wine and waiting for our flight to Chicago and on to Charlotte. Then tomorrow morning we head off to St. Maarten. We will be there for 4 days and then off to St. Bart’s and we’ll attempt to keep everyone updated every couple days or so. Must run……… wine glass is getting empty.

We have just returned from a Family Ski Vacation at Sun Peaks. This year we rented a larger condo from Allura Direct. It was located in Trails Edge area which was closer the the Main Village. This condo had 3 levels, three bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a large  rec room with a pull-out queen bed, an eight person hot tub, etc. etc.  Kevin, Jeff and Lindsay went skiing both days and Brenda, Tamara, Sage, Conrad and I took a walk each day to the Village; which included a stop at the candy store. On the second day we all went tubing in the late afternoon. The tube ride had a carpet lift that took you to the top and from there they had two runs; one fast and one faster….. just guess which one our little speed demon Sage wanted to go on all the time? The last night Kevin, Tamara, Jeff and Lindsay took Sage and Conrad swimming at the Village Rec Center Pool; which is a heated saltwater indoor/outdoor pool. Each evening ended with a family soak in the hot tub it was a fun time for everyone. Like last year we ate too much, had food leftover and had a great time with the kids and grand-kids. Pictures are attached.