We had a wonderful week together. Laura has written a beautfiul blog for the website-so I give you; "Cruising with the Baars as seen through the eyes of Laura!"

My friend Katherine introduced me to the poet Elizabeth Bishop who asks the question, in one of her poems, Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? Sitting in my house in Maryland, I could never have imagined the wonders of St. Martin through the eyes of the Baars family so the answer to that question is a resounding no. We arrived at the airport on the Dutch side in our winter jeans and long-sleeved black shirts to be greeted by Val & Daniel, sun-kissed, sandaled and wrapped in colors as bright as Valerie's smile! We wanted to strip off the vestiges of civilization immediately, but had to wait until our taxi took us to Grand Case on the French side of the island to the first of our two homes by the sea, the Hotel Atlantide. The Atlantide is more of a residence apartment than a hotel with none of the amenities of a hotel, but the location could not be better as our balcony hung over the waves and our view of the sea and the stars and the mountains of St. Martin was marred only by the leaves of a palm tree. The nicest thing we could see from our balcony was beautiful Eira bobbing in the water. We changed quickly into shorts and t-shirts and walked along the beach to the dinghy dock where Menno waited to bring us over to Eira where John and Daisy waited. We ate a delicious dinner on the boat watching the sea turn the color of the night sky until the fattened glowing moon broke out from behind a cloud. I swear the moon was full for six nights last month.