georgedp
Reged: 06/22/04
Posts: 2772
Loc: Beautiful hunterdon county new...
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wow - almost 11,000 hits on this thread - well past the magic number of 10,000 - what do you say we try for 20,000 hits with a time limit of midnight sunday est?? anyone up for it?
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Island Visitor
Reged: 12/19/02
Posts: 10396
Loc: Retraité
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Strong work, Miker! Now that this thread has put its clothes back on, you throw out some flamebait! I can see another five thousand hits easy now.
I know that we are never supposed to say "this is different because it is different". Even so, St Barts IS a bit different from a lot of other places. The size, inability to berth a lot of megaliner ships, demographics, culture, etc.
For thousands of years, men from north, south, and east have invaded France. And today, if anything, they are more French than ever before. As such, dont expect these transplanted Bretons and Normans to roll over too easily.
The history of St Martin is not that dissimilar to the history of most caribbean islands. Formerly successful sugar colonies, with the outlawing of slavery, the rich masters packed up and moved, leaving the slaves to fend/starve for themselves on many/most caribbean islands.
Around the time of WWII, America began to pump some monies into select islands as a protective sea-ring against our enemies. Such islands began to develop early prosperity, partly through trade and partly through oil.
As peace once again reigned, the islands were pretty much left to their own devices. Some had by this time put in infrastructures that then allowed them to start early tourism industries. With the difficulty in travel and the relative lack of wealth around the world, this industry was relatively slow in building. But eventually these islands were discovered by new classes of people who had the time, the money and the means to visit. And The Boom began.
Some would say The Boom has been poorly managed as though City Planners with calculators and maps and blueprints and such should have drawn all this out beforehand. But how does one anticipate cruise ships, air travel, hurricanes, venture capital and the capricious whims of a jet set that is looking for The Next Big Thing.
Is St Martin perfect? Nah. But for a tiny little island with no cash crop receiving partial subsidies from two different countries thousands of miles away and being staffed and built and run by the great grandchildren of abandoned slaves, St Martin seems to have done some things well.
St Martin may not be perfect. But there are a lot more people flying from CLT or PHL to SXM than vice versa to vacation.
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rb22
Reged: 10/21/04
Posts: 57
Loc: Redondo Beach, CA
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I don't remember the name, but on the french side there is a nudist colony hotel. Good food, good service, little bungalows. There is tennis and a beautiful beach. A lot of New Yorkers, but hey, this is ALison, have not been there for 10 years, so maybe it is not there anymore? I liked it and threw off the clothes whilst we stayed there.
It is pretty private too. The BEST photo i ever took was of the bar, 5 naked men lined up, with just their backs and cr...ks to the camera, very drole indeed!
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rb22
Reged: 10/21/04
Posts: 57
Loc: Redondo Beach, CA
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OK, I'll really get you going. So, when we stayed at Club Orient(unless there is another nudist hotel), I was 4 months pregnant yet still svelt, albeit queezy feeling. I sent my british hubby to "the" market. He was nude, but it was unnerving when the outsiders would come in. He told me he would hide behind the sunglass rack until the outsiders would leave. Then one night at dinner, the waiter only wearing a little G-String, black bow tie just ...there, he almost dangled in our soup! Then on the dance floor, i was wearing only an hermes belt (collier de chien) NOTTIN else. I warned my hubby to, well, how to put it delicately, to remain (you get the picture) or i would die of embarrasement. We were slow dancing. There were many such funny incidents. Our family photo albums show us, with little cut outs of fruit glued to the photos in the X rated spots (trying not to upset visitors glancing at our albums).
Watching folks play tennis in the nude was always a favorite past-time. What I couldn't understand was why the cleaning ladies got to wear their little uniforms, while we were as we were born. Fun times.
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 andynap
Reged: 10/24/02
Posts: 12074
Loc: Philadelphia
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Do you think this thread is spent???? I will have a good time regardless. See you in SBH in June.
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Andy -
St. Barts- where no day is ever the same and one day is not enough
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tim
Moderator
Reged: 06/18/03
Posts: 5966
Loc: Vélo, Virginia, Vitet
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So far we've only made it from tex mex to the delightful story of the dance floor at Orient Bay, I'd say we've still got some space to cover. If we're through travelling, I must say I've enjoyed the ride.
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The best moderation is the least moderation.
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andy
Reged: 10/06/02
Posts: 215
Loc: Englishman in St Barth
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I am overwhelmed to have all these hits for my bit of news, what's the betting that I can make over 10,000 again with a new post?
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BillK
Reged: 10/02/02
Posts: 1376
Loc: Aurora (Toronto) Canada
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Just put one of your recipes in here and you'll top 10,000 no sweat.
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BillK
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