St Maarten/St Martin 5 June 2016 Newsletter Other newsletters Contests | Restaurants | Bargains and Happenings ISLAND NEWS

Weather: It has not been very good weather over the last month, nothing like the coming ten days. The forecast is for five clear days and five partly cloudy days a high of 85 or 86F and a low of 79F for eight days and 80F for the other two days. There is only 0.06 inches of rain over these ten days, making this one of the best times for a visit. Not only that, but the flamboyants (right) should be blooming. Here's the detailed forecast from Weather Underground and here's one from the Weather Channel. Sunset tonight will be at 6:46 PM. That provides 13 hours and 10 minutes of sunshine, about 16 minutes more than the last newsletter a month ago. The full moons for 2016 will be 20 Jun, 19 Jul, 18 Aug, 16 Sep, 16 Oct, 14 Nov, and 13 Dec.

Newsletters: In the last newsletter I said I had lost a couple weeks worth of effort producing newsletter content for the summer. About two hours into the mailing of that newsletter, my Sony Vaio booted up and I recovered the files! I left the computer on overnight and received the blue screen of death for my troubles. It's resting peacefully on a couch in my office. My $2000 HP Spectre is working quite well and has an external two terabyte hard drive that is used for a scheduled backup every morning at 1 AM. SXM-Beaches: On the right is a photo of Mullett Bay taken from the northwestern end of the beach, near the ruins of the villas in the Mullett Bay Resort. It's a lovely beach with lots of chairs and lots of open areas. Below is a panoramic scene of the beach.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith - $12 (Kindle) - From Amazon: When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality. With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them. Career of Evil is the third in the highly acclaimed series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. A fiendishly clever mystery with unexpected twists around every corner, it is also a gripping story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives. Robert Galbraith is the alter ego of JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame. She (or he) has recently been shortlisted for Theakston's crime novel of the year 2016.

Sapphire Beach Club: The timeshare owners group on Facebook is abuzz about the election of board members. As I understand it, most timeshares are actually long leases and Verdier remains the owner and votes for you. Thus, he can never be outvoted, althoug I doubt very much that he pays the annual maintenance fee on these units. As a whole owner, I have a deed on file at the Kadaster (essentially, the registrar of deeds) in Pburg. Nonetheless, I have never received any ballot soon enough to return it by the due date. On the right are the mamelles in the French lowlands taken from our lagoon balcony. The pano below is also taken from that balcony, but zoomed in on the ruins of the old Hotel Belle Créole. 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: Below left is Random Wind is heading west on her daily sail featuring snorkeling, swimming, and a fine lunch. A container ship is in the distance, the Coast Guard boat is on the left, and in the center is a ferry. Below center is Heineken heading back to harbor after a mediocre sunset sail. Some days you get a great sunset, some days you don't. On the right is Miek-Miek with her sax. We've caught her in several places on the island. This photo was taken at the Sapphire Beach Club bar. The boat pano below was taken from our Caribbean balcony in early April. ReveMarine can hook you up with power and sail boats with and without a captain. However, I'm guessing this one is not part of their fleet.

Crime: On 16 May three armed and masked men stormed into Island Water World in Cole Bay, threatened the cashier, and ran off with a small amount of cash.

A security guard was involved in a shooting at the Westin last weekend. It turns out that his employer, Checkmate Security, hired him as a trainee patrol officer, despite his earlier sentence reportedly for an armed robbery that resulted in death.

Alcohol: I'm drinking a 2009 Vosne-Romanée from Domanique Mugneret. We got it from Sylvain at Select Wine Cellar. It was in the case of wine that we bring back to the US every year. We brought this back in 2013 and aged it in our cellar for a few more years. It's a selection from Becky Wasserman, a woman from Philadelphia who moved to a small town near Savigny-les-Beaune to be come a Burgundian negotiant in the late 60s. She has marketed this with her somewhat understated slogan "Selection pas mal". I visited her in the 80s, had a great tasting followed by a delightful lunch, but never actually bought any wine from her. Groceries: The Simply at Hope Estate outside Grand Case has closed and will reopen as a Super U. The Simply on the western edge of Marigot is still in operation.

Rental Cars: Michael at Unity Car Rental has an offer for my readers: Rent an economy car during the summer and he will upgrade you to compact car at no extra charge. Just reserve online and mention the SXM-Info upgrade from economy to compact in the comments section. Parking: In mid-May the Daily Herald reported reported that work had begun to put parking onto Kim Sha Beach. That's the part of Simpson Bay on the eastern side of the Dutch Bridge, ie toward Skipjack's. In fact, the parking is across the street from Skipjack's, where La Bomba was before it was hauled to the dump. Shortly thereafter the Nature Foundation complained about beach parking on the western end of Great Bay.

The blue zone parking on the French side (essentially Marigot) is now being enforced. You will need a blue zone parking disk if you park in the spaces marked in blue. Basically you can only park in the blue zone for a limited time, usually two hours. You set the time that you parked on the disk and leave the disk on the dashboard. If a traffic cop sees that your disk is too much before the current time or two hours after the current time, you get a ticket.

	Nature: On the right is a pair of white cheeked pintail ducks enjoying a swim in a Pburg pond. Our office is well over 100% solar-powered. In fact, in six years of operation our solar panels have produced over half the electrical needs for the house, my work shop, and a large animal barn. Our hosting company servers are about 130% wind-powered.
Small Island story: Generally, this section of the newsletter has some snarky comments about small-minded happenings on a small island. Not this time. I just want to make you aware of a retired school teacher who writes a daily blog. His name is Larry Woods and the blog can be found here. He and his wife have just returned from a three week vacation (20 April to 11 May) on the island, so the daily blog is loaded with interesting visits and fabulous photos. You may have to dig into the blog archives to see all the stories.

Winners of the contest that closed on 5 Jun
Lagoon Pub Crawl - two for one ticket - Barbara Bonelli
Skipjack's - $50 off a dinner for two - Barbara Bonelli
DK Gems - $150 off a $500 purchase - no entries
Random Wind - $40 gift certificate - Tony Last
Select Wine Cellar - Wine tasting and a bottle of wine - Tony Last
Piazza Pascal - $50 off dinner for two - Barbara Bonelli
Pizza Galley - $25 off on a dinner for two - Barbara Bonelli
Ti Coin Créole - $30 off on a dinner for two - Mark Malloy

Current Contest: now until 2 October
Lagoon Pub Crawl - two for one ticket
Skipjack's - $50 off a dinner for two
DK Gems - $150 off a $500 purchase
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
Ti Coin Créole - $30 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 dinners and activities. I really check and a 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:
22 May to 21 August | 21 August to 20 November

same cast of characters as current contest

L'Escargot Restaurant One Wednesday we headed to Pburg on the free bus from Sapphire to Pburg. The bus is provided by Ama Jewelers. You do have to come to their main store to see where it is, as you will be led from their to the pickup spot for the return to Sapphire. They do get in a plug for their jewelry and mention free Heineken on tap and a clean restroom. Martha looked at sapphires and more, but eventually we walked to L'Escargot Restaurant for lunch. We were early (just a touch before noon) and had our choice of tables. We chose a deuce with a window looking out at all the tourists taking pictures of the lovely Créole structure that houses L'Escargot. The center photo shows Joél and Sonya at our window. We ordered a half bottle of Bordeaux, a conch salad (below left), and the calamari steak in a caper and lemon sauce (below right). Service is good and the we think that Chef Christophe is better than ever. Our total bill was about $83 when a 15% tip were added. Joel and Sonya are still going strong after almost 40 years on Front Street. There's a photo (black and white) of them on opening night on their website. ?

Chanteclair Bistro has announced a new schedule for the low season. They will be closed on Sunday and Monday and Saturday lunch will be reserved for a cooking class. There is a special seafood menu on Thursday evenings and a 28€ menu on the other nights.

News and Changes: We frequently post some dining photos to Facebook. Less frequently we post activities and other things related to SXM or food. If you're interested, I trust you know what to do. Luc, husband of Florence at La Villa, has reopened Orange Fever without his former partner Olivier. Shanghai Brasserie in Porto Cupecoy has closed, barely making it through high season. The place was smart and the food was good, but the prices reflected this, making it much more expensive than the average Chinese food emporium on the island. Not many people come here to eat Oriental. Fusion has closed. We had been to their Pburg restaurant shortly after they opened and liked it quite a bit. They moved from there to Maho and then to Cole Bay. I heard that the food was still good and they finally had some parking, but it seems it didn't work. If you are looking to purchase gift certificates for island restaurants, check out Antoine Restaurant, Chanteclair Bistro, L'Escargot Restaurant, Piazza Pascal, and La Villa. Treat your friends at your favorite restaurant! The parties in Grand Case and Marina Royale in Marigot have ended with the advance of low season. There are still Wednesday and Friday night parties in Orient Village for a while longer.

Here is the current list of the ARCHA members contributing to the security and clean-up of Grand Case. They would appreciate your continued support of their efforts. A blue oval sticker is displayed at businesses that participate in this much-needed endeavor.