St Maarten – 2017

After leaving the airport Dean and Judy drove us to our accommodations at The Turquoise Shell Inn. We have stayed here on other visits and it’s an old time 2 level motel; certainly not the fanciest, but it’s clean and in a convenient location. The Turquoise Shell Inn is under new ownership and they are modernizing the rooms, so even though it is looking a little “travel weary” we are hopeful on our next visit to get one of the newly renovated rooms.

Once we signed in and dropped off our luggage we headed to a local bar for a drink and some appetizers. We arrived at the bar that is right next to where the main road bridge lifts to allow the sailboats and luxury private yachts enter Simpson Bay Lagoon. The bridge is only open at set times in the day and with all the boats coming and going it’s St Maarten’s version of the 5 o’clock rush traffic jam. Also while we were at the bar a small flotilla of a sailing school went by being pulled by a Zodiac.

Dean and Judy headed back to their hotel and we made plans to meet in a couple days for a trip to Phillipsburg.

The next morning we woke up to wonderful warm sunshine and went for a long beach walk.

Our first day we just chilled out, acclimatized and didn’t do a lot of anything except enjoy the beach and the warmth… Oh and the occasional cool beverage. 

The day before we headed to St Bart’s Dean and Judy picked us up in the morning and we headed to Phillipsburg for lunch and some shopping.

Phillipsburg was very busy as there were 5 cruise ships in port. So, lots going on with all the duty free shops, beach activities, tours, etc. After walking the boardwalk for a while and stopping in at a Holland Cheese Shop we found a great restaurant on the water to have lunch.

Then we headed back to Simpson Bay via the causeway bridge and over to the Summit Hotel to see Dean and Judy’s accommodations. They had a great view from their room of Simpson Bay Lagoon with the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean in the distance.

Tomorrow we are all off to St. Bart’s.