St Maarten/St Martin
24 June 2007 Newsletter

SXM-Beaches: DeLinda Goodman reports that they took the 10:00 ferry to Pinel Island and spent the day there, snorkeling and soaking up the sun. "We always hike over the hill to the very isolated, and very nice beach on the other side of the island for privacy, and more snorkeling. The next day we discovered Happy Bay, which was very isolated and private, and spent the whole day there. The following day was spent Dawn Beach but it was very crowded (comparatively) because a cruise ship was in, and the waves were pretty rough. We went back to Happy Bay for another relaxing day of privacy and a beautiful, calm beach. Unfortunately, another cruise ship was in and Happy Bay was a popular snorkeling excursion site." If you don't know where these beaches are, visit SXM-Beaches for maps and photos.

Beach Reading: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (Hardcover) by Barbara Kingsolver (Author), Camille Kingsolver (Author), Steven L. Hopp. Novelist Kingsolver moves from Tucson, an area in water deficit to Appalachia and attempts to live on locally available produce. She notes that the food on the average family's table has traveled further than that family will travel on their annual vacation. Thus, each calorie of energy in the food requires 87 calories of fuel (usually diesel) to reach the table. This, of course, is only possible because we are consuming energy stored in fossil fuels from previous eons. Similarly, we are depleting aquifers and draining rivers to raise these foods in deserts. It can't go on. The Colorado river no longer reaches the sea, petering out in salty mudflats. The carbon dioxide converted into plant matter millions of years ago and then converted into fossil fuels is now being released back into the atmosphere. If it continues, the world will, in some respects, return to conditions that were prevalent back then. No, I don't think we'll have dinosaurs roaming the earth, but the hot steamy conditions with considerably more water will return.

Construction: The shipyard near Uncle Harry's on Airport Road is to open in March 2008. I believe it started because a lot of boats washed up there after Luis. Ever since then, more and more boats have been added to more and more reclaimed lagoon land. It looked pretty operational to me, but the big news is that Island Global Yachting will install a 600-ton Travelift to deal with the mega-yachts.

Activities: Roy Deep Sea Fishing takes out parties of four or five and comes back with wahoo, marlin, tuna, and mahi. Send an email if you are interested. If you don't have a party of four, we'll use this space and Roy's website to help fill out the charter.

Traffic: After two recent deaths, St Maarten's Lt Gov has decided that quad operators should be at least 18 and licensed. In addition, seat belts will become mandatory for drivers, child seats will be required for children, and only hands-free mobile phone devices will be allowed. And, ... wait for it ... Yield for pedestrians in cross walks. Doesn't that cut down on vacation fun!

The new Dutch bridge opening times effective are 9:30am, 11:30am and 5:30pm for both directions. A trip report from the end of May/early June still noted horrid traffic in Simpson Bay between 5 and 6 PM. In an effort to slow things down even more, speed bumps are to be added ten meters away from the bridge on each side.

Grand Case will be changing the traffic pattern soon. At present, to get to the parking lot, one must take a right on the entrance road and proceed along the canal to the main street and take a left onto a new one way section. Had you gone straight into town, stopping at the corner where Bistrot Caraïbes and Fish Pot face each other, you would be looking up the wrong end of that one way street toward the central parking lot. The change will be to use the parking lot entrance that is used on Harmony Nights, when the lot is free. When this is in effect, you can head straight into town and take a right near the police station and Repaire du Pirate and enter the lot. It hasn't happened yet, but we'll let you know when it does.

Smoking: The Dutch side has decided to amend the 1996 no smoking law by expanding its scope beyond public places to forbid smoking in all restaurants, bars, casinos and nightclubs. This, of course, brings them into agreement with most of the civilized world.

Sapphire Beach Club: We have just added a bit on the unit numbering system to the website, so that people can figure out where they might be staying. Basically, two digit number or numbers starting with zero are villas, along the sea shore, cut into the sandstone cliffs. Three digit numbers are in the three towers rising behind the villas. The first number indicates the tower number with 1 being in the center, 2 is to the east (left as you face the building from the road, and 3 is the newest tower on the right. The central digit indicates the floor number and the last number is the unit on that floor. There are several floor plans on each floor and they differ slightly from building to building, but we have put eight of them on the website also.

For those of you who wish to sell or rent their week or unit, we have opened up the Sapphire Beach Club website for that purpose. We charge $25 per year. If you wish to rent or sell your unit, send us some text (and $25 to esk@sxm-info.com via Paypal). If you wish to rent or buy a unit without high middleman fees, check out the website. Given the large assessment that Sapphire just levied, there may be a lot of sales. At present, there are 20 sales and/or rentals available directly from owners. Given a 25 to 35% standard rental commission, there should be some bargains in eliminating the middleman and dealing direct.

Do these ads work? Ask Lucille: "Thanks for putting in the ad. All is well, I sold the Villa week 16, thank you and tell everyone it does work if they price it to sell. I rented it and was lucky to find a very nice person visiting SBC and who bought the villa while they were there. Everything went great."

Crime: Pburg is putting in surveillance cameras. I generally don't go on about this much. Like all bad things, it is overplayed in the media and I don't wish to add to the excess coverage. Moreover, in a dozen years of staying on the island for four to five months per year, we have never had a car burglarized, our unit burglarized, our beach goods burglarized, nor have we been robbed. We recognize that these things happen and never leave anything visible in the car, never even park the car, move valuables to the trunk, and walk away. There may be people watching. We live in a sixth floor unit with security, admittedly lax, but even a sleeping policeman may deter some robbers. We do not walk anyplace at 3:00 AM.

The Insider Secrets addition to the recent copy of Conde Nast Traveler outlined several common street scams. Some of them may be useful in SXM. One was the broken ATM scam, wherein someone helps you after your card gets stuck in the machine. The scam artist somehow manages to make the machine keep your card and as you enter the PIN he watches, or possibly he offers to help you, but requires your PIN. In any event, he gets your PIN and when you finally leave, he retrieves your card and has a good time. The best advice was to use a false PIN so that even if he got the card, he couldn't withdraw cash. Most of the others were a distraction (fake fight, a fake baby toss, request for help with a map, a real (though induced) flat tire, etc) followed by your instinctive offer to help or accept help, only to be robbed by an accomplice. The phony parking lot attendant exists in Marigot. I don't think he robs cars there, but I don't think he watches them very carefully either. The metal detector scam uses two people ahead of you in line with little luggage, so that yours heads on down the belt quickly as man number one passes through. Man number two, ahead of you has lots of metal and holds things up repeatedly as man number one walks off with your carry-on. Obviously, don't push your bag through until you can enter the metal detector, and better yet, if you are traveling with another person, wait for that person to reach the other side before putting anything through.

One other comment, somewhat in relation to selling your timeshare via the Sapphire Beach Club website or any other. If anybody offers to send you more than you have requested and asks you to send him the overage, don't even bother to cash the check. It will eventually bounce, but not until you have sent him the overage. This is the current Nigerian scam. They started with you winning the lottery, but they needed your bank info, etc in order to send you the money. Give them your identity and they don't even have to steal it. Moreover, they might even get you to send over a processing fee for the lottery. Round two was all the stories about larcenous relatives who had skimmed millions from oil, diamond, etc companies, died, and left it to some poor soul who just got your email address from a list of honorable and honest people. They need your help to get the money out, you can keep 20%. If they don't steal your identity, they do send you a $10,000 check. You deposit the check and send their 80% to a Swiss bank getting their money out of the hellhole that has trapped it. The timeshare overpayment is just a variation on this and all the great job offers, cashing checks for goods sold here in the US, keeping you 10 to 20% cut, and forwarding the rest, are all the same.

And if you wonder why crime is so bad, a Dutch consultant recently studied the island and said that education needed to be improved. Also, the Daily Herald has reported that police commissioner has been suspended as a human smuggler has said the commissioner was in cahoots with him.

Enough, I know people whose houses have been burgled, cars stolen, mugged, etc. It does happen. Be careful.

Travel: All travel to the USA now requires a passport. Note that says to the USA. You still can get here on a driver's license. You just can't get back home, although I've heard that they just make your life miserable for a while. Life is pretty easy if you allow enough time to renew by mail. All the details can be found at this State Department page. Nonetheless, things are backed up and there is talk of easing the regulations. Don't count on it, start now and get a Passport!

Acropole Orient Villa and Villa Coconut: Zuzu reports that both of her villas now have wireless internet access. She is offering Acropole, Coconut, and California Apartments at 10% off from 4 August until 31 October.

Groceries: We went to The Wine and Cheese Cask in Somerville, MA for their 20% off quarterly wine sale and picked up some Epoisses (inter alia). Jenkins calls it his favorite cheese in his Cheese Primer. On the island we frequently see it at US Imports and at Chez Bernadette and René in Bellvue.

Small island story: The Wine Cask was featuring Chateau La Moutete, a very dry, very tasty rosé that Sylvain at Select Wine Cellar served us last season. We love rosé with Proscuitto on Guadeloupe melons. The specialty foods section of The Wine Cask had the Proscuitto, but I'm afraid that Guadeloupe melons require a trip to the islands. We do live close to the Hand Melon Farm, the famous melons sold at the Saratoga Race Track, but the season is a bit shorter and hasn't started yet.