St Maarten/St Martin 1 February 2015 Newsletter Other newsletters Contests | Restaurants | Bargains and Happenings ISLAND NEWS Weather: Last Sunday was warm with marine haze obscuring the sunset. Monday was also warm and although the morning provided the photo on the right with Saba clearly visible, the haze built up during the day and obscured Saba (below left, Saba is on the right hand side of the photo, look hard). The evening sunset had some nice clouds and orange sky (below center), but no green flash. On Tuesday the wind picked up, coming from the south, producing bigger waves on Cupecoy, but no breaking rollers. Wednesday was very warm and it sprinkled a bit just before I got up at 6AM. By 7AM when I went down to swim, it was barely moist. That afternoon there was quite a bit of commotion as two boatloads of soldiers appeared off Cupecoy and fired their machine guns for a while (below right). Enlarge the photo and the bow-mounted machine gun is quite visible. On Thursday Saba and Statia were visible and medium-size roller were thundering on Cupecoy. Friday things tapered off a bit and Saturday was absolutely spectacular. We could see houses on Saba. Statia, St Kitts, and a bit of Nevis were visible. We drove to Orient and had a very pleasant lunch at Kakao. Sunday morning had some sprinkles as I went out to swim, at 7AM and a heavy shower as I finished at 7:30 AM. It's now 7:50 and cloudy, but not raining. The forecast for the next ten days shows 82 or 83 for the high, and 75 for the low. There is a chance of rain today (already happened) and cloudy tomorrow, followed by five glorious sunny days, and then three days with the usual chance of zero inches of rain, ie widely scattered, short-lived showers. The pano below showing the two cruise ships and Saba was taken on the morning of 28 Jan (Wednesday - note the chop). I believe Statia is between the two ships, but lost in the marine haze and clouds. 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 tonight will be at 6:06 PM providing eleven hours and 21 minutes of sunshine, five minutes more than last Sunday. For 2015, the full moons will be 3 Feb (this week - plan a dinner with a nice view), 5 Mar, 4 Apr, 3 May, 2 Jun, 1 Jul, 31 Jul (a blue moon), 29 Aug, 27 Sep, 27 Oct, 25 Nov, and 25 Dec. This sunset pano was taken from the Caribbean balcony of our condo on Wednesday night. SXM-Beaches: These are views of Simpson Bay looking east (left) and west (right) taken from the Horny Toad Guesthouse near the middle of the three kilometer (about two miles) beach. It gets a bit thin in spots and I am counting Kim Sha Beach which is on Simpson Bay, but on the eastern side of the Dutch draw bridge. It's a lovely beach with almost no commercial activity in the central portion. There are beach bars and restaurants at the western end Mary's Boon, Karakter, and a newcomer where Tahoma was) the eastern end on Kim Sha Beach, closest to all the action in Simpson Bay. Wendy K, our senior Cupecoy Beach reporter, reports: "As of Thursday (29 Jan), the owner of the land next to the Ocean Club and above the Cupecoy beaches, has moved the boulders in the lot next to the Ocean Club. There will be no free parking there, only an access to the parking above the three beaches. There is now a gate separating this area from the three beaches and the gentleman in the golf cart collects $5 per car for parking. Dany is leasing the land from the owner so that his customers will have a place to park for the beach. There is a $5 daily charge for parking. There is also still limited parking along the wall, further on toward Shore Pointe. This was not Dany's decision, but he is doing his best to make the beaches accessible for those who wish to use them. The small corner lot next to Shore Pointe is now fenced in and there is construction beginning to erect what we believe will be a real estate office based on a sign advertising Elite Properties." This then is the beginning of the end of free public access to Cupecoy. You can still park on the street and walk in, but the parking area and beach access available for the public for over 20 years is now gone. There is no public access from the beginning of Cupecoy Beach in the southeast under Cupecoy Beach Club, across The Cliff and Rainbow properties and a private villa. It's still possible to walk into Sapphire and get to the water, but there is little to no beach. Ocean Club is gated and allows no one to enter and that brings us to this parcel where we have lost access at the northwestern end and lost free parking next to Ocean Club.

Beach reading: Twelve Sharp Janet Evanovich - (about $22 paperback, $9 Kindle) - From Booklist: *Starred Review* In a manner almost elegant in its offhandedness, Stephanie Plum gets us up to speed on her life as a bounty hunter in Trenton, NJ; her ever-eccentric family; and her fellows in her cousin's bail-bond office. It doesn't take more than a few pages. Then someone who is mistaken for Ranger--one of the two men in and out of Stephanie's life (the other is Morelli the cop)--is accused of kidnapping his daughter. Evanovich uses all of her considerable arsenal here: wisecracking humor and set pieces about cars, neighborhoods, family matters, and the funeral parlor (now with new directors straight out of Queer Eye for the Burg Guy). Then, at one point, both Morelli and Ranger are living out of Stephanie's apartment (she flees to her childhood bedroom). Evanovich also deftly uses celebrity stalking and identity theft to sketch a quite scary bad guy, and she creates in Ranger's daughter, Julie, a spirited 10-year-old version of her mesmerizing father. The ending is downright terrifying, but the coda is soothing and features a cake with icing roses. Kids? Cupcakes? What could possibly be next? Most of the time we listen to these audio books in the car or Martha listens as she cooks. I think they are hilarious. I'm actually reading a paperback from our library in the condo. It's my car book, the thing I read when I'm trapped in traffic, caught at the bridge, etc. However, I bring it back in the condo to read because I'm hooked.

Sapphire Beach Club: The big news is that RCI dumped Sapphire. I suspect that RCI was taking a lot of Sapphire weeks as trades from owners who were less than gruntled and finding that they couldn't flog too many of them given the vitriol on TTOL, TripAdvisor, etc. I just got an offer of $270,000 for my unit and turned it down. As I have been saying, we are in our condo (Unit 255) at this time. The pool is clean and full, although a section of the bottom is failing, allowing some water loss. The alternative is to drain it in high season and fix it at all deliberate Caribbean speed. Building 2 has only one working elevator. Other than that, we have A/C, hot and cold water, beach towels, and maid service. The pool bar/restaurant is open. The condo will be available in early April at $1000 per week or less until 15 December 2015 when the rate rises to $1500 per week. You'll get a 10% discount from Unity Car Rental, one of the longest running and most trusted agencies on the island, and several more coupons as well. Check the calendar on our website for available dates. Below is a shot of the sunset taken from our balcony on Saturday evening. On the left is a cruise ship heading into a pretty big rain cloud just. On the right, the sun is setting into the Caribbean and you can see roofs and palm trees at Ocean Club.

A visitor in early April said:

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 several 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.

	SXM-Activities: Last Sunday we headed over to La Bamba on Kim Sha Beach in Cole Bay to hear Categoty Five doing their weekly gig. They cover hits from 30 to 50 years ago. They've got Nacio on bass (left), one of the best on the island. King Bob croons out the vocals while Eric keeps time (right). In the center below is a long shot with a guest on the left and Badass Branko wailing away on lead guitar on the right. It's a pretty good time with a great mix of people. Some of them remember the songs of my youth (although some say that if you remember the 60s, you really didn't participate.)

Groceries: We had an excellent bit of mahi with a pineapple salsa. The frozen mahi and the fresh pineapple came from Super U, which has a sign showing comparison prices with Grand Marché and Simply. They claim to be cheaper and I believe them. They are also newer, cleaner, and brighter. They do not have a deli counter and I think their selection is a bit smaller, eg I could not replace my Morbiere on Monday. The pineapple salsa was reverse engineered from Skipjack's very tasty version by my chef. We also picked up a barbecue selection of pork belly and three different sausages complete with a package of spices for under $10 at Super U. This made another wonderful dinner and two nights later we added a couple sausages to some rice, onions, peppers, and peas to make a fine Créole dinner. The next night Martha sliced some eggplant, added the usual peppers and onions with sausage and cheese for a great Italian dinner. With the euro almost at par we shop with abandon on the French side. The dinner wine was Pierre Usseglio's 2012 Cotes du Rhone. It's a cut above the average Cotes du Rhone. I'd say better than MonRedon, Guigal, and Jaboulet.

Alcohol: Sylvain at Select Wine Cellar imports the Pierre Usseglio Cotes du Rhone and sells it for $23 (far right). It's worth it. We just went through six bottles this week. It was perfect with our barbecue (spicy) but still refined enough for the Italian dinner with eggplant. We stopped in on Friday for a lunch at Champagne Bistro and picked up a magnum of Domaine Gardiès rosé (left) to start the annual Superbowl party at the Horny Toad Guesthouse. We also tasted two white wines before having Usseglio's Cotes du Rhone with moules en vin blanc. The first white was crisp and after guessing chardonnay, but not big and round, more like a crisp Chablis, we found it to be a Marsannay ($46.50) at the northern end of the Cote D'Or, the main Burgundy region. Chablis is about 90 km further north west. The St Romain ($40) is from the southern end of the Cote D'Or and has more of the luscious, round chardonnay taste. Use the coupon on Sylvain's website to get 10% off on his list prices.

	Nature: On the are the two chicks, about three weeks old, waiting for mom and dad to return and feed them. Our office is well over 100% solar-powered and our hosting company servers are about 130% wind-powered.
Small Island story: Wendy K sends us this week's story: "In early October (2014), I emailed Pawan, the manager of the Gourmet Marché at Porto Cupecoy, asking him to order a case of Bran Buds for us, as no one stocks them any more. Friday (23 Jan 2015) I received an email from him saying 2 cases have finally arrived; a mere 3 1/2 months later!" We are at the far end of a very long and very slow supply chain.

Current Contest: now to 8 February
Caribbean View Condo - half price summer rental (May-October)
Lagoon Pub Crawl - two for one ticket
Skipjack's - $50 off a dinner for two
Marci's Mega Gym - Two for One week with a shake
Random Wind - $40 gift certificate
Select Wine Cellar - Wine tasting and a bottle of wine
Piazza Pascal - $50 off dinner for two
Pizza Galley - $25 off on a dinner for two

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. I really check and while ago Sulay entered 33 times for one contest, instead of increasing her chance of winning, she decreased it to zero as I deleted all of them. She did account for about a third of the entries for that contest.

Here's some comments from a past winner:

Future Contests:
8 February to 5 April | 5 April to 31 May
31 May to 30 August | 30 August to 6 December
same cast of characters as current contest

Little Jerusalem On Monday night we drove to Simpson Bay for schawarma at Little Jerusalem, across the street from Rancho. There was parking out front and they seem to have a bit of parking in the back. It's quite a place, basically a shipping container, but well painted, brand new, and well-lit. There was a shed roof covering the entrance to the dining room which was a bit above grade and covered with another shed roof. We ordered from a young lady who turned out to be the daughter of the chef and the dishwasher/prep cook - a family operation, always the best. We asked the chef what we should have and he said the variety plate. We added two glasses of Merlot which Amy (the daughter) delivered promptly. It's all cooked to order so we had to wait a bit, but eventually we got the lovely plate shown below. It was quite tasty in a way that we rarely get in American or French cuisine. The plate was $15 and each Merlot was $5 for a total of $35. We added a tip as service was good.