St Maarten/St Martin 16 January 2011 Newsletter Other newsletters Contests | Restaurants | Bargains and Happenings ISLAND NEWS

Weather: Early January started out blustery and cool - long sleeve shirt weather but has more recently been lovely with temperatures in the low 80s. The Ocean Emerald came in to dock at Porto Cupecoy and apparently got stuck on the bottom. After nearly an hour, it managed to get out. It then returned and docked perfectly a while later! The box shows the current local conditions and here's the detailed forecast from Weather Underground and here's one from the Weather Channel. Sunset today is at 5:57 and the moon is almost full - a great time for dining on the water. In 2011 the full moons will be 20 Jan (soon!), 18 Feb, 19 Mar, 18 Apr, 17 May, 16 Jun, 15 Jul, 13 Aug, 12 Sep, 12 Oct, 11 Nov, and 10 Dec.

SXM-Beaches: With 37 beaches to choose from, how can you decide? If you like to loaf with some creature comforts but don't want all the activity of Orient beach, check out Friar's Bay Beach. It's a few hundred yards of good sand facing WNW between Marigot and Grand Case. There are two (possibly three) beach bars here. Kali's Beach Bar and Friar's Bay Beach Café. We had a great lunch at the second last March. It was still high season, but, though full, it wasn't crowded. We had a nice lunch of salade Landaise, a bit of tasty duck on a bed of greens with apples and a poached egg for Martha and salade des ABBA for me (that's a pun on the Swedish rock group and abbats, innards) featuring chicken innards, or rognons (kidneys) with some veg and frisée, followed by a loaf on the chaise longues.

Beach reading: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson - about $11 for a paperback - From Amazon (Melissa Rossi): In the world of contemporary travel writing, Bill Bryson often emerges as a major contender for King of Crankiness. Granted, he complains well and humorously, but between every line of his travel books you can almost hear the tinny echo: "I wanna go home, I miss my wife." Happily, I'm a Stranger Here Myself unleashes a new Bryson, more contemplative and less likely to toss daggers. After two decades in England, he's relocated to Hanover, New Hampshire. In this collection (drawn from dispatches for London's Night & Day magazine), he's writing from home, in close proximity to wife and family. We find a happy marriage between humor and reflection as he assesses life both in New England and in the contemporary United States. With the telescopic perspective of one who's stepped out of the American mainstream and come back after 20 years, Bryson aptly holds the mirror up to U.S. culture, capturing its absurdities--such as hotlines for dental floss, the cult of the lawsuit, and strange American injuries such as those sustained from pillows and beds. "In the time it takes you to read this," he writes, "four of my fellow citizens will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding. The book also reflects the sweet side of small-town USA, with columns about post-office parties, dining at diners, and Thanksgiving--when the only goal is to "get your stomach into the approximate shape of a beach ball" and be grateful.

And grateful we are that the previously peripatetic Bryson has returned to the U.S., turning his eye to this land--while living at home and near his wife. Under her benevolent influence, he entertains through thoughtful insights, not sarcastic stabs.

Construction: If you check out the larger version of the Blue Mall sign on the left, you'll see it now says opening in the Fall of 2011. We have heard that US Imports will open here, but they didn't make the sign. It's a great supermarket. A villa on Jordan Road, next to Arbor Estates, was torn down in December, and now there's a sign saying that a grocery, restaurant, and a few retail shops will go in there. Ray Minelli of St Maarten Rental Weeks reports that Caravanserai claims to have solved their (lack of) hot water poroblem and opened up their salt water pool. On the right you can see that several boats have made it into Porto Cupecoy on a beautiful day in early January.

Sapphire Beach Club: We are not in our condo at this time. It is available for rent for $1400 per week in high season. After April, the rates drop to $700 to $1000 per week until 15 Dec, when high season kicks in again. You'll get a 10% discount from Unity Car Rental, one of the longest running and most trusted on the island, and many more coupons as well, including the use of our 2010 SXM Privilege Card that gets you discounts on many restaurants. Check the calendar on our website for available dates. A recent visitor said, "Erich, We had a wonderful time at your condo for the third year in a row. We appreciated the coupons. Hope to be able to do it again next year." 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. 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.

Activities: While I'm sitting here in below zero weather (or worse, plowing the driveway), you can be bounding on the main. On the left is Capt Morgan, a beautiful 65 foot schooner with Captain Serge and First Mate, Tikki. Diane and Captain Trevor on Random Wind start with breakfast, a bit of sailing, some snorkeling, lunch, more sailing, and more snorkeling on a smaller boat with only 20 other people (max). Captain Neil on Celine (right) does day sails but is famous for the lagoon pub crawl that cruises the lagoon for drinks and aps in the evening. Reve Marine does half or full day boat charters out of Marina Royale in Marigot. Seaside Charters does the same from the Palapa Center in Simpson Bay. While Zuzu and Alain are not newcomers to the island, they are newcomers to the charter business. If their service and food are anything like that at the many restaurants that they and their children run, you'll have a great time on SXM Cat Charters. There is also the simple joy of kayaking either from Tri Sport in Simpson Bay or Tropical Wave at Galion Beach.     Alcohol: Steven Leavitt and Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics fame provide this podcast about wine taste vs. price. It includes a vignette about a fake restaurant with a fake website featuring a fake wine list. The list included including a 1982 Brunello rated 67 (terrible) by Wine Spectator and another wine they described as "unacceptable and cloying". The phone number provided for the restaurant had a message saying that the restaurant was closed for vacation. The restaurant applied for an Award of Excellence for its wine list to Wine Spectator magazine. Fill out a form, enclose your wine list, add about $250, mail it in and by return post, you get your award of excellence. Shortly after that a message was left on their fake answering machine noting that they had won the award and should publicize this prestigious occasion. The podcast went on excoriating experts, so I brought three bottles up from the cellar: a 2005 Beaune Les Reversees Premier Cru from Jean Marc Bouley ($30 in 2007), a 2005 Hautes Cotes de Beaune also from Jean Marc Bouley ($16 in 2007), and a 2007 Stringtown Oregon Pinot Noir ($6.42 a couple months ago). 2005 was the best year of my wine drinking life for Burgundy and is nicely aged at this point.   --> 2007 was rated 90 for Oregon and several retailers tried to sell this wine for $15 to $25, but Zachy's seemed to have too much of it, at least too much that would sell at $23. Hence, my price of $6.42. Martha and I tasted these wines blind to see if we could do better than the other experts. We are both recovering from colds and the podcast said that people couldn't tell the difference between $50 wines and $10 wines. We don't have very many $50 wines and the few we do have are not ready to drink, so our range of wines is considerably tighter, especially if the Stringtown was ever worth $23. Nonetheless, our palates detected that the Stringtown was different from the other two. However, those two, originating within a few miles of one another in the same year and made by the same negotiant were very difficult to tell apart (at least for us). The Stringtown, though younger, tended to fade faster in the glass. This seems related to the fact that California vinifies wines to be drinkable sooner. The flip side of this is that they age faster in the bottle, and apparently, in the glass. Please note that this wine tasting and wines from Jean-Marc Bouley is in no way related to JMB Communications, Jeff M. Berger, or his website Everything St Maarten, even though he does have one of those cork boards made from JMB corks. A couple nights later we opened a pair of 2008 US Pinot Noirs for another blind tasting, one from Adelsheim in Oregon's Willamette Valley, well known for Pinots ($17) and a Murphy-Goode from California, a rather large area in comparison. With the colds subsiding, and wines made by two different vintners from two areas a thousand miles apart, we had no trouble differentiating the wines and agreeing that one was better than the other. The better one was indeed the more expensive one from what is recognized as a better Pinot-producing region.

Travel: We were scheduled to head out to SXM last Sunday/Saturday. Usually we have friends take us to Albany where we have a nice dinner. Afterwards, they head back to Salem (about an hour and a half drive) and we stay in an airport hotel with a shuttle that gets us to our 6-7 AM flight that connects to the Continental non-stop from Newark to SXM. On Monday Continental called and said that a scheduling change on our first flight would make the connection in Newark too tight so we would have to fly to Newark on Saturday and spend the night there. It's not a big deal but a bit more difficult and all the original plans would have to be unwound and new ones made. We did that, but on Thursday, Martha was diagnosed with Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). We have postponed our trip to see how she responds to the standard treatment of one Gleevec pill per day. Blood analysis after two weeks will show how she is doing and she, of course, will have some idea what the side effects are. We are hoping that she will feel comfortable heading off to our condo at that time. We'll keep you posted.

Nature: That's a barred owl looking for a snack from high in a tree on a copse at the center of the field outside our dining room. Our office is well over 100% solar-powered and our servers are about 130% wind-powered. Small Island story: Usually we put stories here that make fun of the small-mindedness of some people on the island or the difficulties of living on a small island. This one is different. Captain Jack Miller passed away earlier this week. He spent a good bit of time anchored behind Marci's Mega Gym 2000 where we have spent a good bit of time over the years. Obviously, our mutual interest in photography brought us together with his wife Linda a few times over the years. He had many friends and one sent this letter in to the Daily Herald. He tried to photograph every pretty girl on the island, a daunting task, but saved a bit of time for scenes around the island. Check it out here.

The good news: I got a new laptop for Christmas. The bad news: I lost the contest entries from 26 December until and including 9 January when I switched over to my new laptop. Sorry, so please enter again if you entered early.

Current Contest:

26 December 2010 to 27 February 2011
Caribbean View Condo - half price summer rental (May-October)
Lagoon Pub Crawl - two for one ticket
Skipjack's - $50 off a dinner for two
Select Wine Cellar - Wine tasting and a bottle of wine
Random Wind - $40 gift certificate
MMG 2000 - Two for One week at the gym with a shake
Peg Leg Pub - $50 off a dinner for two
PassportMD - Six months free service
Radiant Gems - $50 off a purchase of $200 or more
Lighthouse at Oyster Bay - $1000 off a summer week (June-October)
Piazza Pascal - $50 off dinner for two
SXM-Privilege Discount Card - One free monthly card

Read our rules, visit the websites of these sponsors, find their contest codes, and enter them on our entry form.

One of the rules is that you should enter each contest only once. You can enter five of the drawings on one entry. Thus, you could win a rather nice vacation at a considerable savings by combining accommodations with dinners and activities.

Future Contests:
27 February to 24 April 2011
24 April to 24 July 2011 | 24 July to 30 October 2011 | 30 October to 25 December 2011
same cast of characters as current contest

Wendy K reports: We drank a Montredon Cotes du Rhone (19.50€) and an expensive (4.50€) bottle of fizzy water. Tony had a special of chicken and chevre in a brioche-type pastry with a wonderful sauce with trompette mushrooms (left). I had tartare de boeuf (already prepared - I prefer to do my own with no mayo, but this was good - center). We shared a bowl of Tropicana's "famous frites". (right, not as good as Le Bellevue, but next in line, in IMHO). They offered complimentary vanilla rum for dessert and the total bill was around 54€, 60€ with an a tip.

L'Excellence, French Restaurant School Wendy K went for a very nice lunch at the school. The wines are a huge bargain: a Sancerre white "Les Baronnes" was 12€; a Pommard for 28€. We drank a 2007 Hautes Gravieres for 11€. The menus are set and posted in advance in St Martin Week. The website doesn't seem to work and we had a bit of trouble getting through on the phone, but in the end had no problem making a reservation as English spoken. This blogspot carries the menus and is working as I write this. It has an English translation and a very helpful map, but as one might guess, the school is behind the stadium in Marigot along with the rest of the educational facilities. Sevrin, the front end manager, remembered us from years ago. Today's lunch began with a complimentary fruit punch or a rum and fresh lime juice drink served in a martini glass - don't have to tell you what we had. We ordered fizzy water and got a bottle of Perrier. The aforementioned wine, for 11€, Hautes Gravieres '07, was just fine. Today's menu was a Niçoise salad (left), which could have been lunch. Not the best, nor the worst I've had - plenty of anchovies. The main course was a generous slice of roast pork loin (center), served with sauce forestiere made with a lot of girolles, a roasted tomato, and a bundle of haricots vertes wrapped in smoked ham. Dessert was peche melba (right) - a fresh peach, I think. The total bill was 35€. They accept tips and we left 40€. Unbelievable. The students work part of the semester in the front of the house, and part in the kitchen. They are about to switch, so I expect service will suffer for several weeks. The "senior" class will be going to Ireland this year, and Monaco later on, so this has become a very ambitious program for them.

Mario's Bistro Wendy K reports: It was a lovely night with a nice breeze. We drank our usual San Pelligrino and 2006 Mercurey (39€). There were a few new choices on the menu since our November visit. One appetizer, which I had, was Flat Head Lobster Tempura in a soft taco with fennel orange slaw and lemon cilantro vinagrette (below right, 15€). What a blast of flavors and beautifully presented. Tony had Braised Duck Roll with Hoisen Sauce, Foie Gras and aged balsamic Creme Brulee with dried apricot chutney (below left, 16€). This was the ap I had last time and it was wonderful. Tony had another of my favorites, the Rice Flake Crusted Sauteed Chilean Seabass, Seafood cake, and Crab Mashed potatoes with Lobster sauce (30€). I was "forced" to have a special of Sauteed Salmon with sundried mashed, grilled and tempura asparagus, pesto aioli, and a fabulous black bean and corn salsa with just the right amount of kick to it. (29€) Our total bill was 133€/$173 (an exchange rate of 1.30) including the new 2% TVA on the French side. Business was good with several large parties. Mario's is near the French bridge, on the canal leading from the lagoon to the Anguilla channel. We've never seen so many fish (mostly tarpon) feeding off the shrimp and splashing about. There must have been 100.

Philly Cheese Steak, Fries, Fish Sandwich We stopped in at Steve's Place in Glens Falls again recently where Martha got a salmon sandwich and I had a Philly cheese steak, both with fries, and good fries at that. For fries, Wendy mentioned Bellvue but we got her to try L'Oizeau Rare Restaurant and she agreed they were pretty good. For Philly cheese steak we go to Pineapple Pete or Greenhouse Restaurant. Greenhouse has just opened the Simpson Bay location for breakfast and lunch. They opened for happy hour and dinner late last season. For a fish sandwich, I don't think you can't beat Skipjack's.