Imagine waking up to the sound of the waves crashing below you and as you slowly open your eyes you are rewarded by the most amazing view...

...and you realize that you have woken up on a beautiful Caribbean island!  I don't know about you, but that is quite a wonderful way to start the day!

Keith was already up, making use of our Internet connection to keep in touch with work while enjoying the most scenic sitting area.  Not a bad way to telecommute!



Ahhh...I think I could get used to roughing it like this...





We decided to brave the island and head out to Orient Bay where the most popular beaches are.  I still was pretty freaked out from all of the bad things I had read on Trip Advisor and didn't bring much with me just in case we were robbed.  Yes, I do like to start the day with positive thinking.

The nice thing about the ocean front house we were staying in was that it was in a gated community, which at least helped us feel a bit safer.  We ventured out, expecting the worst but hoping for the best.

We drove through the little community of Oyster Bay...



...and then headed in the direction of the French Quarter, to make our way to Orient Bay. 



I was already mesmerized by the beautiful tones of blue in the water, something that just makes me feel completely and utterly excited to be in the Caribbean.

Not so different from home here, although instead of herds of sheep there were herds of goats getting in the way of traffic on the road.





Orient Bay was only about a 20 minute drive from where we were staying in Dawn Beach and a little less built up than I expected.  Yeah!  We were finally at the beach!



The beach is gorgeous and stretches out for a couple miles in each direction.



There are a ton of bars right on the beach and everyone has a different deal to offer you that includes an umbrella and a beach chair.  The water was HEAVENLY, and we spent a good part of the day lying on the chairs, floating in the water and drinking some nice rum punches to cool us down!



After we started feeling like we had enough sun (which often is a BIG red flag you already have had too much sun) we drove over to Phillipsburg, the town where all of the cruise ships stop in, to do a little shopping and have a look around.



I was still feeling REALLY paranoid at this point, convinced that someone, possibly anyone walking by might try to mug us or do something.  I felt like an idiot for being so crazy about it but I couldn't stop thinking about all the things I had read from other travelers.  So far nothing had happened and in fact everyone was quite nice, so I'm not sure why I felt the need to continue to be so aware except that I just am a worrier.

Phillipsburg was a lot smaller than I expected and also a bit more down to earth than the poshy cruise ship customer environment I was expecting.  Since St. Maarten is duty free there were mainly a lot of jewelry shops but plenty to keep me busy shopping for the afternoon.

After shopping Phillipsburg we headed back to our oasis in paradise and enjoyed a rum punch while watching the sunset from our pool overlooking the ocean.  Yep, life is rough...

Dinner was at another local restaurant in nearby Oster Pond at a place called Captain Jack's.  It was good, not incredible although where we sat was above a huge tank where we could watch turtles, sharks and other fish swim by. It was pretty entertaining.

By the time we made it home both Keith and I were pretty much on fire from our overdose of sun on Orient Beach.  I suppose it is better to get it out of the way first thing in the vacation but I had been hoping to bypass this bit of stupidity.  I had forgotten the golden rule of re-applying after getting out of the water and always using double the SPF on the first day.  Silly me.

Silly, red, burning hot me!

Comments

speciale da Matteo Written by viacortona on 2008-06-18 02:04:09     Ci volevo venire anchio!

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