It's The Journey

We didn't think we'd stay long in St Martin. We arrived on Jan. 21st and here we are five days later with no plans to leave. We anchored on the Dutch side of the lagoon on a nice large watery lot,increased fees, or rumors thereof, driving most boats over to the crowded French side. The weekly anchorage fee is $20 and Lee had lots of errands on this side and thought it was well worth it. We've probably made as many dingy trips over to Marigot on the French side as here, but it's all doable. Sunday we headed over to watch the practice carnival parade. We were ready by two with info on the route, but not the time. We climbed up to Fort Louis, a good vantage for a first sighting of the approaching parade. By 3:30 we were ready to go down and approach the parade. It was a little different from small town NY parades, mostly large flat bed trucks with mountains of sound equipment that manipulated your heartbeat in what felt to be a dangerous manner, followed by mostly teenage t-shirted dancers. The exception was very foreign, around 40 potbellied dancers in grotesque smiling masks of French politicians, doing choreographed dances of back slapping, handshaking, . The stuffed white shirts and neckties contrasted with the obviously teenaged hipswivelling lower bodies, hilarious. We tried to decide how this could be translated into Spencer's parade. Every Tuesday the village of Grand Case throws a street party along its ocean fronted main street. It's known for restaurants and we spent the first hour reading every menu we passed. The decision was made to go back to the missionary sized pot of paella simmering in front of one restaurant, but it's wonderful smell drew in so many people they were fully reserved. We headed across the street to La California, funny name for a French restaurant. The waitress must have taken lessons in being French, she was so lively and bubbly we were charmed, so lucky there was a table for us, on the deck right next to the water. Lee said it was the same view we have from the boat every day. We had lobster pizza!!! and crepes and that wonderful liquor they bring you at the end of the meal. She even made a souvenir picture of us. We had taken the dollar bus from Marigot, bumper to bumper traffic every Tuesday, but at least we didn't have to deal with parking. At the end of the evening we found a similar little 12 passenger bus and rushed aboard to take the last four seats. We impressed the other passengers with boat and island stories until the bus pulled into a parking lot and everyone else got off to jump in their cars. We went from savvy travelers to laughing stock in a matter of minutes, our little bus had turned into a parking lot shuttle without our realizing it. A little negotiation turned it into a two dollar bus and we made it back to Marigot only a little humbled by the experience. Wednesday was the cruisers' get together at a beach bar. We met up with Ron and Debbie, owners of one of our sister boats, and went on the our other must-eat experience, Lal's Indian restaurant. We ordered six entrees and passed them around, meaning, now we have to go back and reorder our favorites. Now that we have the eating out of the way, we'll get on with the rest of our explorations. We did find a beach and neighborhood for our morning walks, something we didn't know about two years ago. I hope every island we revisit yields similar new experiences. There was a perfectly good sign in the windshield of that bus that said "Marigot".