Carnival in St Maarten
09 May 2006 | Simpson Bay, St. Maarten
We arrived in St. Maarten on Queens Day and the final days of Carnival were also being celebrated. There was a parade scheduled the day we arrived, so off we go downtown to see the festivites! The parade was very colorful with great costumes and lots of loud music and dancing! It was sponsored by Heiniken, naturally, so a Heiniken truck would drive by and give free beer to those of us watching the parade! Wow! Now that is a great way to watch a parade, it beats getting palstic beads thrown at you!
We spent two weeks in St Maarten and really enjoyed the diversity of the island and its international flavour. The island has most everything you may need, and at reasonable prices. It has become a favortie stop for the Mega-yachts in the Caribbean basin. Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands keeps her yacht there and it has a helicopter on it! We were not invited aboard! Bill Gates came down here 3 years ago on his yacht and the bridge opening to get into the lagoon was not wide enough for his yacht so the island of St Maarten paid to have the opening widened at the countries expense!
There was great grocery shopping on the Dutch side, yummy cheese and some of our favorite Dutch treats were available. A case of Heiniken was 13 us dollars and the French side had the great prices on wine! Yes, it truely is a wonderful island! We would dinghy over to Marigot, on the French side and enjoy breadkfast at a Patisserie, a nice cup of coffee and chocolate croissants. There are many lovely restaurants in Marigot and we went over for dinner a couple of evenings!
The boys made friends with some Dutch and Brasilian children. The beach in Phillipsburg had giant trampolines in the water which the kids had loads of fun on!