Sunday, October 15 (Ron)
Slept well last night for being our first night in a new bed. Got up about 7am. The air conditioning has finally gotten the room cooled down, in fact it’s a little chilly. Started the coffee and went out on the deck to watch a couple of locals fishing off the nearby rocks. Orientation for the newbies was at 10am down at the pool bar. We met 3 or 4 other couples staying here and the owners of the bar, Bert and Jill. Bert is from Philadelphia and kinda looks and talks like Sylvester Stallone. They seem nice and told us about some of the things to do here. They’ve lived in Sint Maarten for 18 years. After orientation, we decided to find a good, nearby beach. Cupecoy beach is where the resort is located, but the beach is pretty small, so we headed over to Mullet Bay. It’s very close, between Cupecoy and Maho. Maho is right next to the airport, and you can watch the jets come in. As they are approaching the airport they fly right over the beach, almost close enough to touch the landing gear. We left the resort and go southeast on the only road, looking for the turn-off. The word ‘turn-off’ may be too fancy of a word to describe it. Most of the ‘turn-offs’ are little more than a dusty trail with two parallel ruts made by the cars’ tires. The entire island, both countries, totals less than 40 square miles. There is one main road that goes around the island, hugging the coastline. The road is narrow, poorly maintained, and has no stripes painted on it. No center line, no pass/don’t pass lines, no fog lines, nothing. So we head over to Mullet Bay at noon, watching for the turn-off. When we get to Maho we know we’ve gone too far. We turn around and head back. We take the road thru the golf course. I can’t believe people are actually out there playing! It’s hot!!! Ninety has got to be the temperature as well as the relative humidity. This is the end of rainy season but the grass looks like it hasn’t seen water for months. So anyway, we take the road thru the golf course. It just circles around to the road we were on. We see another turn-off (trail) that goes in the direction of the ocean so we try it. Dead end. We drive back to Maho and ask a security guard outside one of the casinos. He was very clear – go back the way we came, take the first left after the speed bump. We head back and take the first left after the first speed bump. This is the road we were on, the dead end. How could we have missed seeing Mullet Bay? We pulled over several times to get out of the car and walk around to try and find the beach. No beach. We turn around and I stopped to look around. Walking over to the edge of the cliff, I spotted a couple of young guys nearby and asked them where Mullet Bay is. They were very helpful. One of them walked back to the car with me and pointed to a barely-visible car trail that cut thru to another road. Turn left on that road. Can’t miss it. We did as he instructed and within a minute or two we were at Mullet Beach. There was a bar-b-q stand on the beach selling ribs, chicken, pop, and cold beer. Pat and I each got a beer and we rented two lounge chairs and an umbrella. The beach was nice, quite a few people there, but it wasn’t crowded. The water was beautiful – crystal clear, very calm, no waves, and just the right temperature. We laid out for about three hours, going in the water when we got too hot. By around 4pm we had worked up quite an appetite. I went over to the food shack and ordered barbequed chicken and fries for Pat, barbequed ribs and fries for myself. That and two Coronas were $15. Pretty good meal for $7.50 each. Around 5pm the guys at the food shack started closing up and had to put the chairs and umbrellas away so we left and went back to the resort to relax by the pool. The pool area here is nice, a fairly large pool and well landscaped around it. We hung out by the pool for a while, sipping our happy hour, 2-for-1 Guavaberry Coladas. The pool area here is a good place to lay-out and relax in the late afternoon. One reason is the happy hour 2-for-1 drinks, also because the buildings and trees provide a lot of shade after about 4pm, so it’s a lot cooler. After sundown we came up to the room and showered. Read a while, then had supper. Left-overs tonight. Pat worked on the laptop while I did the journal.