St. Maarten: Island Shrimp

After a resort breakfast, Monday started off with our tour of the island. We had done this last year and thought it was good to get our bearings. We saw different sections than last year but the drive was still beneficial. 

A drive by of the resort. You can also see the Dutch fort.

 We took this picture almost a year ago. The Dutch power plant is behind us as is Simpson Bay.

 The French/Dutch crossover. It's nice to be International.

 Hurricane Gonzalez hit the week prior to us comping and we saw trees and other impacts like this boat. 

 We spent a brief time in Marigot at the market. 

Orient Beach looked a bit different this time...the hurricane left its mark. There wasn't the crowds that we had seen last year.

The view was still beautiful.

I still enjoyed the Guaveberry Colada. It was not a Remynse favorite so I had to pull the rest of the weight for the Presidente loyalists.

This is the oldest building on the island, a Roman Catholic Church, which has also doubled as a hurricane shelter. These pieces of history always amaze me. They've stood the test of time and elements for years and continue to hold value in communities.

The goats of the island.

French water. I wanted to walk the water hear, which would barely come up to my hips. It looked beautiful. 

We took a little downtime at Divi and ran across one of the feral cats that had spent the night with us previously on the balcony. While he wasn't friendly and cuddly, he was curious enough to stay close to watch us.

Michele, Randy, and I went down to the water before heading into Phillipsburg for some light shopping. We almost waited too long as the streets were rolling up. We ended at the Greenhouse, which became Randy's favorite meal of the week. The Greenhouse, known for it's two-for-ones, started off with drinks. We also had appetizers, escargot, calamari, and of course, bang-bang shrimp, which is still my favorite at the restaurant. Michele had crab stuffed swordfish, Randy had golden fried shrimp, Matt had jerk style mahi mahi and I had cajun cognac shrimp. We finished the meal with the key lime pie and a very happy Randy who wanted to take home bread in his pocket.

Michele: The cruise ship took off early today.
ALR: Really?
Randy: Yeah, I went to show Kevin and it was gone.
MJR: (Points over at cruise ship) hmmm, you think another one came in then?
Michele: What!!! It was gone!

Day 4