St Maarten/St Martin 26 March 2017 Newsletter Other newsletters Contests | Restaurants | Bargains and Happenings ISLAND NEWS

Weather: Last Sunday was a pretty good day as we walked around Marigot's Marina Royale although the splats on our windshield during the drive over made us remember the chance of rain that was forecast. And so it went for the rest of the week: a little rain over a short duration. On Wednesday we met a downpour on the way to Galion Beach. However, we arrived to cloudy skies and no rain. The photo on the right was taken that afternoon from Oyster Pond as the Rue de Coralita drops down looking over Chateau Key to Tintamare in the distance. Note the clouds and haze. Add a splash of rain, and you have described the last week. Below left is a cruise ship coming in on Thursday morning, but the center photo from that afternoon shows blue-ish sky with a few clouds. That's cattle grazing on the hills between Grand Case and Orient. On the right is this morning's sunrise, plenty of clouds, but by 10AM it was just partly cloudy with lots of marine haze. The weather pano below was taken from our Caribbean balcony as the sun was rising on Tuesday morning. Today's forecast shows is a chance of rain for the next three days (0.4 inches total), followed by partly cloudy, two clear days, with rain next Saturday. Sounds mediocre except that the total rain is less than a half inch. The temperatures are pretty solid: today 82, all others 81 for the high and 75-76 for the low for the next seven days.
Here's the detailed forecast from Weather Underground and here's one from the Weather Channel. Sunset tonight will be at 6:24 PM providing 12 hours and 13 minutes of sunshine. In 2017 the full moons will be 11 Apr, 10 May, 9 Jun, 8 Jul, 7 Aug, 6 Sep, 5 Oct, 4 Nov, and 3 Dec.

SXM-Beaches: Here is Simpson Bay Beach. The photo on the right was taken looking east from Roberts Drive (the side road to Azure Hotel). The Dutch Bridge and canal are at the far left end of the photo and Pelican Key is on the right. The pano below was taken from the same spot, but looking west. Azure's green umbrellas are in the right foreground and the white seawall belongs to the Horny Toad Guesthouse. Heading down the beach takes you past Mary's Boon to Karakter Restaurant, the last building on this end of Simpson Bay Beach. After that the airport runway is too close to the beach to have structures built upon it. The far western end of Simpson Bay Beach (and Beacon Hill) can be reached by driving along Maho Beach and turning left at the Alegría Resort or you could walk along the beach from Karakter.

Beach Reading: Traitor's Story by Kevin Wignall - ($5 Kindle) - Amazon.com Review: When fifteen-year-old American Hailey Portman goes missing in Switzerland, her desperate parents seek the help of their neighbor, Finn Harrington, a seemingly quiet historian rumored to be a former spy. Sensing the story runs deeper than anyone yet knows, Finn reluctantly agrees to make some enquiries. He has little to go on other than his instincts, and his instincts have been wrong in the past, sometimes spectacularly wrong. But he gets involved anyway, never imagining that Hailey's disappearance might be linked to the tragic events that ended his career six years earlier, drawing him back into a deadly world that has neither forgiven nor forgotten. Kevin Wignall is a British writer, born in Brussels in 1967. He spent many years as an army child in different parts of Europe and went on to study politics and international relations at Lancaster University. He became a full-time writer after the publication of his first book, People Die (2001). His other novels are Among the Dead (2002); Who is Conrad Hirst? (2007), shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Barry Award; Dark Flag (2010); Hunter's Prayer (2015, originally titled For the Dogs in the USA), which was made into a film directed by Jonathan Mostow and starring Sam Worthington and Odeya Rush; and A Death in Sweden (2016). The Traitor's Story is his seventh novel. As usual, Martha borrowed the book Amazon Prime's Kindle library via the internet and is listening to the audio book.

Sapphire Beach Club: On the right is TR2, Tanya Michelle on vocals, Richard on trumpet, and Renato on keyboards. They play at the Monday night Manager's Pizza Party. Below left is a lovely cat that sailed past our Caribbean balcony. Below center is our crack sales team at Sapphire: Pascal, Oceane, Sarah, and Bobby (left to right). On the right is Random Wind coming back from her day sail.
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-Hotels: La Vista Beach on the water and La Vista across the road have the same meticulous owners. As La Vista is on higher ground, it still has views of the Caribbean. The motto here is "Timeshare done right" and I agree, they have done it very well. They also rent out units. A studio at La Vista is only $160 per night. A double on the water at La Vista Beach is only $330. Come with another couple and you can stay on the beach for a mere $165 per couple per night. La Vista has a lovely infinity pool blending in with the Caribbean and a nice restaurant, The Hideaway, surrounding the pool.

SXM-Activities: We attempted to go to Red Piano to see "Church on Monday" on Monday evening. We had had dinner at nearby Izi, so we arrived about 45 minutes after the first set started. Our first problem was a complete lack of parking. Waiting about ten minutes and tipping the lot attendant $10 got us the two parking spots we needed. The Red Piano is about 40 feet wide and a hundred feet deep. The entrance is at one end and the stage is at the other. The right side is the bar with stools, the left is banquettes (half of them facing away from the stage, obviously), and the center is taken up with high tables and stools. The stage is elevated no more than a couple feet so you might see some singing heads (photo right). The crowd is loud, the band is louder. After about two songs they took a break and one of our party finally finally brought some liquid refreshment to the area where we were standing. After about 15 minutes the band came back. After about 15 more minutes we gave up and went home.

Rental Cars: This week's gas report is brought to you by Next Level Car Rental. Dutch side prices have been higher for almost all of the 26 years I have been on the island. Multiply €/liter by 3.8 to get €/gallon. Multiply that by the exchange rate to get $/gallon. Thus, it's about $3.75 per gallon. Dutch side prices have been higher for almost all of the 26 years I have been on the island.

Brand Location Price 1 to 1 Cadisco Nettle Bay 0.91€/l no Cadisco Sandy Ground 0.91€/l yes Cadisco Orient 0.93€/l yes Delta Sandy Ground 0.89€/l yes Delta Savane 0.92€/l no Delta Qtr d'Orlean 0.93€/l ? Blue Galis Bay 1.01€/l ? Artsen Agrement 1.02€/l ?

With the Euro getting a bit stronger against the dollar, restaurants doing 1 to 1 become more interesting. It behooves those of us with dollars to check the exchange rate offered by restaurants. For several years French side restaurants have been offering better than market exchange rates, especially for cash. However, if a French side restaurant offers a bad exchange rate, ask for your credit card to be charged in Euros. Assuming you followed my advice below and got a card that has no charge for foreign transactions you will get the wholesale rate on the exchange.

There was an article in the NY Times about credit cards and travel benefits. Check it out here.

You should not be paying a currency transaction charge as there are many credit cards that don't have this onerous charge. My United Mileage Plus Explorer/Chase card no longer charges it and gets my first bag checked free for all United tickets purchased on the card.

We now use the Capital One Quicksilver Visa Signature Card that gives us 1.5% cash back - no fooling around with miles. They do not charge an exchange fee on foreign transactions and they do provide rental car insurance. This has been our primary card as airline miles are not as valuable or as easy to use as they used to be.

We always notify our card companies of our travel. Chase and Quicksilver actually accept this info on-line, making it much easier than working through the hell of telephone answering systems.

There are discussions on Credit card Forum and Daily Markets that may help you decide what card is best for you. The first one has a review of the new Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. It gives you 2 points for travel related purchases and then allows you to take 20% off when purchasing your rewards through their Ultimate Rewards portal. It's tempting.