Marigot and Ile Pinel

April 1-3, 2011

We took our dinghy to " The Dinghy Guy" for him to fix our "floor" which kept leaking air. We are to pick it up Monday afternoon. We explored the Marigot Bay area some more by

foot. There are many upscale shops: Rolex, Cartier, DNKY, even a Guess outlet. There was also a lovely gallery with watercolors of the beaches. One stop was the bakery Sarafina's for some morning cinnamon rolls. We had lunch at the market area: Charlie had a hamburger and I

had creole shrimp with peas and rice and a

salad. It was very good. There are many small restaurants sited next to each other in this area for the locals and the busloads of cruise ship passengers. We ate dinner on board; pork tenderloin from our freezer. (Picture above is of the Marigot anchorage with about 100 boats)

Saturday, April 2, 2011:

I walked to the "large" US Market which was a joke as most of the products were French. I bought very little as I could not find the things I was shopping for. They had a fairly big produce area but did not have romaine lettuce which I find lasts a long time on the boa

t. I was glad that I had bought tomatoes at the market on the way to this store because the ones at the market were much better. It took me more than an hour to walk there and back. I have several carriers on the boat which have wheels, so I am not carrying everything on my shoulders! On the way back, I stopped at the Tropicana Restaurant to make reservations for the evening. We had been told this was the best local restaurant. It is French and we had a lovely view of the Simpson Lagoon Harbor. Charlie had escargot and I had baked brie for appetizers. Chas had a local lobster, very good, while I had a chicken supposedly stuffed with lobster. I could never find the lobster. They had flattened the chicken and rolled it up and sliced it. We had profiteroles with hot fudge sauce. YUM! Marigot Bay is very well lit at night so we felt very safe walking back to the marina.

April 2, 2011

We took a cab to the Ferry landing for Ile Pinel at 9 a.m. The ferry left about 10a.m. While waiting we met a recently retired internal medicine doctor who had received his training in

NYC . He eventually returned to St. Martin where he had a practice until he retired. He looked like he was in his late 50's but will soon be 74.

Theferry boat was a large wooden boat with benches for about 60-75 passen

gers. It took 5-7 min to get to Ile Pinel. there was a beautiful long beach where we landed. (See picture above left) Charlie and I spent a little time hiking over the ridge of the Ile where there

is another smaller beach (see picture at right). Since it did not have umbrellas, I went back down to rent 2 chairs with an umbrella. The deal also comes with 2 "free" drinks. I was trying to stay out of the sun since we have many more days of exposure. Locals as well as tourists were enjoying the beautiful beach of Ile Pinel.

Some even were topless. Families and groups of friends seem to come together, some bringing

their own food. There are three large open restaurants on the island and they have a full menu including local lobster. We had a delicious lunch at one of them: Karibundi. I got a picture of iguanas eating the leftovers behind the restaurant.

Two of the restaurants had many sugar Quint birds flying around drinking the sugar water provided. We had seen these pretty

little birds in the Exumas where they ate the sugar from your hand. We also saw some at The Bitter End in Virgin Gorda.

We are waiting to retrieve our dinghy and to have our hull cleaned on Monday before we depart to proceed to St. Barths. In the meantime we are doing odd jobs on the boat.