Palmer St Barts Trip - Nov 18th to 25th, 2014

jgcpalmer

SBH Insider
So, we're here! After booking about 9 months ago, today we finally landed on the shores of St Barts.

We stayed last night at a hotel in Toronto near the airport, and this morning got on the plane. The flight was fairly uneventful and we landed right on time around 4pm in St Maarten. Getting through immigration was a breeze (they only asked one question). Our taxi we had booked ahead was a no-show, but we quickly got another taxi and headed off towards Oyster Pond for the Voyager ferry. We only drove a few minutes and got caught in stop and go traffic. We were worried we might not make it to the ferry, but in the end we had lots of time. The taxi drive was almost an hour, but that still left us with over an hour before the ferry would leave.

We had a quick snack at a little bar at the docks, called the Dinghy Dock Bar, and then we walked down the dock just as the ferry was pulling in. The ferry ride was about as bad as people had stated. At first the bouncing around was kind of fun, but it didn't take long for us to feel really nauseated. About 2/3rds of the way there, my wife couldn't take it anymore and ended up losing the snack we had just had, plus the orange juice they served us on the boat. The staff on the ferry were very nice and helpful, and helped us go outside to the back of the ferry, where it did feel a bit better, for the last few minutes of the ride.

We docked at Gustavia, and, again immigration was a breeze - they didn't even talk to us; they just stamped our passport and waved us through. Jean-Philippe and the car rental agent met us right when we got off. I was originally going to drive, but I was still feeling quite sick from the ferry ride, and my wife, now with a more emptied, settled stomach, felt ok to drive. Driving ended up being quite the adventure right away, with the narrow streets and steep hills, especially at night - we still haven't even seen the island in the daytime yet.

We arrived at Salines Garden, and wow, what a lovely place! There is only currently one other couple staying here right now, so Jean-Philippe upgraded us to a room with a kitchenette for free! He asked us if we wanted any recommendations for supper, but we told him we already planned on going to Andy's Hideaway for the first supper.

So after getting a bit settled in, we headed out to Andy's Hideaway. It actually is hidden away a bit, and at night was a bit tricky to find, but this island is pretty small and it didn't take too much effort. We had a campagnarde pizza and the green salad to share, and they were both delicious, and we had plenty to take home for leftovers. He gave us shots of vanilla rum to cap things off (our first taste of it - yummy!)

After our meal, we decided to take a little walk to St Jean beach, and by then, it's already getting late, and we had a very long tiring day, so we made our way back to our little cottage, where we are right now.

A long, adventurous day, and we're looking forward to the next week on this wonderful little island!
 
Yea! Congrats on your first arrival....and nothing like a little rum to make you feel better! Enjoy your trip and keep us posted. We LOVE embedded reports :)
 
Day one was certainly filled with lots of things getting done.Now, start 'chillaxing' and enjoy the many things that the island will offer.
 
Every day from here on out will be better and the seasickness is in your rear view mirror! Food for thought- a one way plane trip back to St. Maarten would eliminate the possibility of another bout of sickness in the big waves and the hour in traffic.
 
Keep in mind that it is likely that the trip back will be more pleasant. Heading from SXM to SBH you are generally heading into the prevailing seas, while the return trip is generally much smoother.
 
Keep in mind that it is likely that the trip back will be more pleasant. Heading from SXM to SBH you are generally heading into the prevailing seas, while the return trip is generally much smoother.

If you have ever been seasick you don't want to see another boat for a long time. :culpability:
 
Glad hear everything is going well.As I recall,you are from Kitchener- Waterloo( we spoke when you were planning- unless I'm confusing you with somebody else!).If I remember that correctly,you are missing a week of bad weather( though not nearly as bad as our American neighbors to the south!) I don't blame you for being a little leery of the 1 hr Westjet connection for your first time,but as you saw,you'd have had no problem making it.We're back and forth many times a year,and always take our chances on the connection,and it pretty much always works.Enjoy your stay.We spend months here,and if we can help you with anything,don't be afraid to send a message
 
Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone.

So Day Two seemed to be about just as adventurous, although a lot more fun. We got up early and went to Saline, where we had the whole beach to ourselves. Facing the water, there was quite a bit of seaweed to the right, but to the left, there really wasn't much at all. There were huge waves and we had a lot of fun getting pushed around by them.

We then came back to the cottages for some breakfast. Last time I posted, I had misunderstood and thought there was only one other couple staying - there seem to actually be 3 other couples staying (so I'm not sure how our room got upgraded, but I'm not complaining!) We met 2 of the couples - one from France and one from the States. We had bread and croissants with jam for breakfast. We're used to getting a little more protein and fibre with our breakfasts, but it was still tasty enough.

After breakfast, we set out to explore the island. We did a counter-clockwise tour around the island by car, stopping at various places to get out and just take a look around at the beautiful scenery. We stopped at Petit Cul de Sac, and walked the beach there. The left side as completely covered in seaweed, but there wasn't much to the right. The sand was much rougher there to walk on, but we again had the beach to ourselves and enjoyed our walk.

We continued from there on to Lorient, where we had lunch at Jojo Burgers. We shared a Jojo Burger and a Thai salad, and both were quite good. We picked up a few supplies from the minimart, and checked out Lorient Beach too.

From there we continued our journey and stopped in St Jean. We wandered around St Jean, looked in a few shops, and walked on the beach. This was certainly the busiest beach, although still not "busy" at all compared to what we have at home. We saw a few planes take off, and then we needed to get going, as we had a reservation for a catamaran sunset cruise.

So next we headed to Gustavia. We had some time and wandered around. It was actually quite quiet - there weren't too many people around at all. Our sunset cruise was with Jicky Marine. We really lucked out because we happened to be the only ones to buy tickets for this evening's cruise (in high season they usually get up to around 20 passengers), so we had our own little private cruise, just the two of us and the captain of the boat. We sailed out to Columbier where we watched the sunset. We also passed by this huge superyacht, named "Serene". We looked it up and apparently some Russiain vodka tycoon owns it, and Bill Gates and his family had leased the boat for the whole summer this year (for $5 million a week!) We're not sure who was using the yacht this weekend, but it even had a helicoptor on it, which was pretty cool. Oh, and we didn't have any seasickness problems on this boat - the whole trip went smoothly and was possibly the highlight of the day (that and Saline in the morning.)

After our cruise, we wandered around the shops a bit more - Gustavia seems to perk up in the evenings, as there were quite a few more people milling around. Then we came back to our cottage, where we had leftovers from Andy's Hideaway for supper.

So that's it - now we're just relaxing at our cottage. Between seasickness, excitement for the trip, and being in a new bed, I got *very* little sleep last night, so we're going to tuck in a bit early tonight.

Potential plans for tomorrow: Shell beach, this little hiking path that go up from Gustavia up above shell beach, M&P for supper, and who knows what else!
 
So we've had another wonderful day at St Barts!

Last night things got pretty stormy - we were woken up twice by the sounds of pouring rain and the wind. We thought we heard something fall and break outside, although when we got up, we couldn't find any damage.

We started off our day with another early swim at Salines (I think this is going to be an every day ritual this week!). It was quite a bit windier this time (it was windy everywhere we were all day today, actually), but the surf wasn't really any bigger and we had a really fun swim.

After our swim, we had breakfast again back at the cottages. Another couple staying there had gone to M&P the previous evening and gave us a good review. That became about the 4th recommendation in 2 days we'd gotten for M&P, so we decided we'd better, go, and asked Jean-Philippe to make a reservation for us.

We then headed out to Gustavia to do a bit of exploring. We walked up the steps to Fort Carl ("Fort" is a bit ambitious for what it is). The view up there of both Gustavia and Shell Beach was wonderful. From there we could see across to Fort Oscar, so we decided to check it out. We walked over to the fort, but unfortunately one can't go in, as it's used as a police station. Still, it was good to see it up close. In Gustavia, we also decided to buy some fruit and vegetables. Eating healthy seems to be a somewhat difficult thing on the island, and we wanted to have some healthy snacks. You really realize the price difference of things when you want to buy fresh fruit and vegetables - 3 euros for an apple!

We were getting hungry, so decided to get some lunch. I had read about the Wishing Well and really wanted to try that place, so we drove to Flamonds. We really liked it there - we sat next to where they had little bowls hanging from a tree, and there were dozens of birds just a few feet from us feasting on the sugar in the bowls. We has some kind of salad, that we honestly aren't even sure what was in it, but it was very tasty, and as a main course, had chicken with cocoa and ginger sauce, which was really, really good.

Since we were at Flamands, we decided to check out the beach, as we were looking for a place to go swimming again and cool off. Flamands is a really beautiful beach. We tried to go swimming, but the water was just too rough, and we had sand blowing in our faces. While we were drying off on the beach we saw a few other people try to go swimming, and it was just as short-lived for them as it was for us.

So we decided to go to St Jean, and the water there was great for swimming. We swam and watched the Cata Cup. We spent quite awhile in the water, and then just relaxing on the beach. Then we went into town, and had a drink at Le Piment. We had a passionfruit milk shake, which was good, but the server there was not very friendly to us, and seemed annoyed that she needed to serve us instead of just chatting with her friends.

Before heading back to the cottage, we stopped at the sporting goods store just down the street, and I bought myself a pair of tinted goggles. I had eye surgery earlier this year, and have had light sensitivity issues since, and it's made it kind of hard to swim in the bright sunlight, especially with big waves that I'm afraid will knock off my prescription sunglasses.

We went back to the cottage to shower up and get changed, and then went out to Meat & Potatos. We had the Duck Gourmand salad, the Wagyu Beef with grilled potatoes and 3-pepper sauce, and an apple tart flambee for dessert. It was all incredible food. We both agreed it was the best steak we'd ever had, and we both love duck and the Duck Gourmand salad was just crazy good. Even though we were sharing this, it was way too much food for us. We only ate half our steak and potatoes, and asked for the rest to be packed up for us to-go. Unfortunately, our waiters were very new to the job, and understood little English, and did not understand what we asked, and they threw out our leftovers. When we explained what we had asked for, they were extremely apologetic, and were clearly very, very sorry for what had happened. We were disappointed, for sure - we are trying to do our trip on a budget, and leftovers is one way we're trying to make it work, but it was as much our fault as theirs, for speaking quickly and assuming the people here should understand my English perfectly well. Still, it was an incredible meal, and I highly, highly recommend M&P to anyone who come here.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow I think we're hoping to do shell beach - my wife has never snorkelled before, and I think that will be a good place for her to get her feet wet (literally) with it.
 
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