 A Few Comments About St Maarten
Very interesting and valid report. Thanks for posting.
On Sun, 15 May 2005 04:52:19 GMT, "Robert J Carpenter"
<rcarpen1@> wrote:
>
>I returned from St Maarten yesterday evening. Here are a few
>comments:
>
>The main structural steel for the new airport passenger terminal
>building appears to be completely erected. They are filling another
>few hundreds of feet of lagoon at the departure end of the runway.
>
>The departure tax has been increased from $20 to $30 to help pay for
>the new terminal. The good news is that nearly all major airlines
>hide/include this tax inside their quoted ticket price. US Airways
>leaves this payment up to the passenger, so add $30 to their ticket
>price for comparison..
>
>The final removal of ruins of the old Dawn Beach Hotel is in progress
>in preparation for the new development. I wonder how they are going
>to handle the fairly strong currents at much of the beach. The
>sea-entry was best in front of the Scavenger's beach restaurant/bar
>and the current didn't seem to be a problem there.
>
>Nothing has changed at the old Mullet Bay Resort. The buildings
>(timeshare?) are still in ruins. The golf course seemed active. The
>beach seemed fine, but there are absolutely NO signs directing one to
>it. The downside was that there was essentially no breeze given that
>the beach is on the west side of the island and the wind is usually
>from the east. That didn't seem to bother the people using the beach.
>There were no waves as such, just large swells that broke from time to
>time.
>
>There is further high-rise construction in the Cupacoy area.
>
>I didn't have any problems with biting insects anywhere on the island.
>
>The Food World (RAM's) supermarkets were open and seemed pretty well
>stocked. Likewise the Match at Marigot.
>
>A number of cars were parked at Long Bay, but rocks at water's edge
>would make swimming unattractive to me.
>
>I went by Prune Bay twice. No cars one time and one car the other.
>Have there been "problems"? Water entry much easier than at Long Bay.
>
>The parking lot at Baie Rouge is a worse broken terrain course than
>any previous time I've seen it. At least they've better paved the exit
>from the main road.
>
>The entry road from Cripple Gate to Friars' Bay was in pretty good
>shape. Better than I'd found it in recent years.
>
>Orient Beach is in its "wide" mode except in the long undeveloped
>stretch between the Coco Beach area and almost to BooBooJam. There it
>has cut 15 meters (50 ft) from last year.
>
>There were little ads in the "classified" sections of the papers
>trying to sell individual units in the Mt Vernon hotel complex.
>
>Driving back to the airport from Grand Case (for example) I avoided
>the Marigot and Dutch side congested traffic by using the Galisbay
>cutoff from the traffic circle at the entry to Marigot, which puts you
>at the ferry terminal, and then the waterfront road past the reat of
>Marigot. I then went by Terres Basses at the speed limit all the way.
>The distance may be slightly longer but there is no traffic to slow
>one down. I went on past Hertz to the start of the congested area and
>filled the car's tank at the Shell station. Again a relatively good
>esperience with Hertz.
>
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