Sint Maarten: Day 13

Again I woke up much earlier than I would have expected considering that I did not set an alarm or have any particularly important plans. Soon after I awoke, and just after I had managed to log a little time online my father returned from work. We were then able to have breakfast together before he went back to work to quickly refresh his thoughts on his upcoming lecture.

As my father was preparing to leave, and for some time thereafter, I continued with the various computer based tasks I had been working on before his arrival. Not surprisingly, yesterday’s post was one of these activities.

Soon after I finished eating lunch (and logging a few more solitaire games) my father called to try and figure out what we were going to do in the afternoon. It seemed that the two best options would be to either rent vespas and drive around the island or to take advantage of the big waves at Mullet Beach and go body surfing (or dinking around in the surf).

Though I was willing to go either way, my moderate preference was the wave action. Eventually we settled in trying to rent the scooters first and then possibly hit the beach (as we would have 24 hours on the scooters). As it turned out, the rental location didn’t have what we wanted and didn’t seem all that interested in reserving machines for us for the next day.

My father, for reasons unbeknownst to me, then decided to head to Philipsburg. Why he wanted to do this is beyond me. Not only do we know that there is next to no parking there, we had previously decided to go there by bus to avoid this problem. Not surprisingly, once we arrived we were unable to find a suitable parking spot so we turned around and made our way back to our apartment. In some ways it is unfortunate that we weren’t successful because it now means that we will have to head back by bus.

After a little bit of time in the apartment we finally gather our things and headed to be the beach. By the time we got to Mullet Beach it was clear that there had been some very substantial wave action earlier in the day. The entirety of the sand in some areas had clearly been covered in water. This is 20 or 30 feet further than the waves normally reach.

Though we clearly weren’t there for the peak wave activity, there were still some substantial waves. In some cases the waves were about as tall as I am, though most were a little shorter. In some cases, though not all, some of these were pretty powerful.

On seeing the size of the waves my father thought that he was a little tired to go in so he decided to just stay on the beach. In some ways this was good for me as he could scout locations and direct me towards bigger waves.

After were had been there a short while an older couple approached the same section of the beach. Once they had conducted a thorough examination they settled on a location for their items and settled in. Much to my surprise I saw the old guy just a few feet down from me soon after they had arranged their things. At first I thought that he might swim past the waves and just go for a swim. It turned out that he was going to do the same thing that I was.

After the first wave or two I think he realized that it was a bit more trying that he expected. After a short break he came back to continue to be pounded by waves. According to my father, who had a better view, the guy was having a great time.

Once the salt started to burn my eyes I decided to get out of the water. My father and I then headed down the beach towards the two beach bars. As we were heading down we saw that at the very end of the beach there were a few surfers catching waves. As this was a slight change of scenery, we decided to take a seat at an empty picnic table and watch some of the action. The only problem with this was that unlike on TV and in the movies, these guys were not able to catch each wave. Instead, they were only able to catch the largest of the waves (which were very infrequent).

Shortly after we returned home we decided to go out for dinner rather than cook the pork chops that we had previously purchased. Not surprisingly the only place we even discussed going was Cheri’s Café.

Before heading to the restaurant we decided to film me driving on a roundabout. We had previously scouted a relatively sparsely visited roundabout near our apartment that would be good for our purposes. Of course as I prepared to enter the roundabout all kinds of traffic appeared from all conceivable directions. The situation was further worsened by the presence of a dog that seemed to be right in my way but not hampering the progress of other drivers.

Eventually things cleared out and we were able to get a good shot of my entering the intersection and then getting ‘stuck’ and doing a few circles of the center before finally managing to exit the intersection (of course in the same direction from which I entered the intersection). As I was in the driver’s seat I ended up driving all the way to Maho and then over to the parking area by the Sunset Beach Bar.

Upon approaching the restaurant it became clear that the bartender was working quite aggressively to get people to eat and drink at the bar. For some reason that we were unable to understand, the bartender was also really pushing the shrimp and steak and lobster and steak options. Instead of sitting at the bar, where conversation would be more difficult, we opted for a two person table near the bar.

Once we were seated we quickly noticed that only a fraction of the number of waiters were working as had been working the last two times we dined there. Amazingly, it seemed that this reduced staffing level fit the number of customers. We still aren’t quite sure how they were able to determine, in advance, that it was to be a slow night.

As consistently as basmati rice is white so is my father’s order ‘Stir-fry shrimp’ with rice at Cheri’s Cafe. I on the other hand mixed things up a little by going with a rack of baby back ribs with no sauce and fries. Again both of us were pleased with the quality and size of our meals.

We paid and prepared to leave just as the house band was preparing for its evening show. Just as we were walking down the steps of the restaurant the first notes of the show could be heard. Clearly our timing was much better than normal.

As my father didn’t have to go back to work we were able to just hang out in the apartment for the evening. At one point we finished a game of rummy that we started a few days earlier. We also booked an airport hotel for the night that we have to spend in the vicinity of JFK. Our understanding is that our hotel is actually on the premises of the airport, which should be quite convenient (assuming it is in the same terminal from which we will be departing).

Eventually, after a few beers, we were able to head to bed. Though this wasn’t quite as early a turn in time as some of the previous nights, it was still well before midnight.