Dodgers vs Cardinals

We would attend 5 - 6 Dodger games a year when we lived in Long Beach.  Living in Riverside makes it a tad harder to get to games frequently.  But with Kershaw throwing countless scoreless innings, we wanted to go watch the game in person.  Great game, Dodgers won!  After the game, we went to Philippe's....they serve the best french dip sandwiches!!

I love visiting LA.  Although we have our "usual" places we visit, I would love to explore LA a little more...like a tourist.  We usually go into the city for a planned event, then exit the city as fast as possible to avoid the hustle & bustle.  This time, before the game, we found a park to hang out at.  It had a beautiful view of the stadium and the city.  This is when I realized that there is so much going on in that hustle in bustle that I have yet to explore.
Now off to see what LA has to offer.

Missing the Island

My attempt to re-create the island feel at home with a fresh coconut and an inflatable pool!  Oh, how I miss the Caribbean vibe and the St. Martin life. 

Anguilla

Anguilla is a 20 minute ferry ride away from St. Martin, so we decided to take a day trip to the nearby island.  We originally looked at splitting our 2 week vacation between Anguilla and St. Martin, but quickly changed our mind when we saw how expensive Anguilla cost for everything.  It's a very exclusive island, that has no flights from US.  The majority of the tourist come via private jet, yacht, or ferry.  Since it's not frequented by many tourist, a lot of celebrities and TV shows flock to the island for the unbridled island feel. 

We learned a lot about the island from our taxi driver.  Anguilla is a British island, under the queens rule.  The island is basically flat, lending to it's name translation of eel.  The sand is glaring white, which reflects the sun so strongly that you can burn your eyes after 10 minutes without sunglasses.  The most fascinating story to me was about the people of Anguilla who are looking to increase tourism in their country and would like to cater more to the middle class, but needed publicity.  The perfect opportunity arose for them when "offered" to host the Real Housewives of Atlanta.  However, Anguilla does not have tourist funding or financial wherewithal on how to bring large productions to the island.  In an eagerness to bring attention to the small island, the local business owners offered to foot the bill for the cast of Real Housewives of Atlanta, and the entire crew to film and vacation on their island.  A local hotel owner offered up 90 ocean front rooms, local beauticians performed make-up and hair services, local chefs catered the meals, and local boating operators offered their logistics and assisting in transporting the crew, goods and production equipment.  Hearing this blew my mind!  Bravo TV, nor the housewives themselves paid for this awesome trip that was showcased on TV. It says a lot about both Anguilla and The Real Housewives (a show which I love by the way).  Anguilla's eagerness to have publicity at their beautiful island caused the community to come together and offer whatever they could to assist.  They knew that their efforts would lend to the long term prosperity of their people.  I love the sociological aspect this tells of the culture.  Here is a link to a thank you letter written to the people of Anguilla by a parliament member.  Pretty amazing.  I always knew reality TV was far from reality, but I am let down!! The "Housewives" are edited to look like they live a life that affords them vacations to exclusive islands. In reality they vacation off the backs of hard working people. 

We knew we wanted to go to Shoal Bay, which is listed as one of the top 10 beaches in the world, notably for the soft, white sand.  We rented beach lounge chairs right on the water for $10 each for the day.  There were two restaurants in the sand behind us that had reasonable priced food...we felt like we scored!  We later talk with some people who rented lounge chairs at a resort for $80 per person, which they thought was a good deal.  Our budget savvy way of enjoying Anguilla was more than enjoyable.  It was great to see a different island, culture...and get a new country customs stamp in our passport. Here are some photos from our day in Anguilla:

 

On the boat ferry from St Martin to Anguilla

The smallest customs check ever!   

The harbor of Anguilla.  Goods ship mostly from Puerto Rico

Shoal Bay where we spent the day

Lounge chairs at Shoal Beach

This picture makes me smile.  We call it the stone-cold Jerry Duane pose

Understandable why this beach is voted top 10 in the world

Anguilla has an old Caribbean feel - not inundated with tourist yet!

Snorkeling was fun, but not many fish

We welcomed the intermittent cloud cover since it was so hot!

Conche pita - Jerry loved trying different preparations of conch.

Jerry enjoying fresh coconut water. So refreshing in the blazing sun!

Tintamarre Island

One of the excursions we decided to go on was a catamaran day trip to Tintamarre Island, just 2 miles off the coast of St. Martin.  The day included breakfast, a few hours snorkeling at Tintamarre, lunch on the catamaran named Celine, snorkeling at Creole Rock, and ended with a mud bath at Happy Bay, St. Martin.  This excursion ended up being one of our favorite days in St. Martin.

We sailed thru a little rain and gray skies, to end up at the sunlit island. The water of Tintamarre Island was the bluest of blue.  We have never seen water so incredible in real life, only on TV.  It was romantic and unreal.  God’s work was ever present.  It would be hard not to feel bliss here as it was so amazingly beautiful.   When our sailboat docked just off shore, we were given the okay to jump off the back deck.
Jumping into the clear, blue water from a catamaran was definitely a dream.  Once in the water, we got our snorkel gear on and swam about 20 yards to shore.  It was great to be in this pool-like water swimming amongst turtles and sea life.  It was a very surreal experience!

Just after we got to shore, the crew brought umbrellas and ice chests full of drinks (beer, rum punch, water) to the shore, by dingy, for us to enjoy.  Jerry & I ventured off to snorkel.  This part of the Caribbean is not known for snorkeling.  It was nice to swim out to the reefs and see small schools of fish along the way.  However, not too many tropical or pretty colored fish were present.  The water was definitely the hi-light!  So, we headed back into shore to enjoy some beverage and chatted with others from the boat, as we admired the turquoise water.

Lunch was being prepared on the sailboat as we were ashore.  The crew motioned that lunch was ready.  We jumped in the water and swam back to the boat.  As I approached the boat, I realized the crew was throwing shrimp peels off the back deck which was attracting a lot of beautiful fish for us to see.  Admiring the fish, I was completely startled to see a four foot barracuda just to my right, eyeing me as I eyed the other fish…his future dinner.   The teeth of the barracuda nearly scared me straight out of the water, but I moved very slowly to the boat ladder, both of us not breaking eye contact.  I love the ocean and don’t know many times I have ever been fearful of it, but this was one.   As I got onto the deck, other swimmers stayed in the water and enjoyed watching the barracuda.  I was just fine watching from above!

Lunch on the deck of the catamaran was incredible!  The meal was one of the best that I had in St Martin. The view was something out of a travel magazine.  Sitting side by side with my husband experiencing this filled me with such gratitude.  For lunch, we enjoyed a huge buffet of grilled fish (my favorite), Ribs, Paella with shrimp & squid, green salad, potato salad, pasta salad and bread.  Everything was carefully prepared, tasted fresh and was beautifully presented. 

After lunch, we sailed to Creole Rock for an hour of snorkeling.  It was nice to swim around.  Again, there was not much to see here while snorkeling.  Some of our fellow boat friends did see some fish off in a different direction.  We didn’t see too much sea life, but it was really nice to again dive off the boat into crystal blue water and swim around.

Our final stop was at Happy Bay.  The name says it all.  This place just makes you feel happy.  Like Pharrell Williams song.  Just Happy! The water was perfect temperature, turquoise blue fading into deep blue, and palm trees that lined the shored kneeled into the sun.  It was beautiful.  Our boat crew had purchased mud for us to take "mud baths".  We initially thought we covered ourselves in mud on the shore, but we ended up doing mud treatment on the sailboat!  Turns out, mud baths use to be done on Tintamarre, but it is now illegal as the island has recently been sold and they no longer have rights to the mineral deposits (i.e. great mud!). History lesson aside, we really enjoyed rubbing mud on our bodies after a long day in the sun and water.  Once the mud dried on us, we jumped into the ocean and rubbed it off.  The surface of my skin was the softest that I have felt.  So hydrated and smooth like a baby’s bum.  It felt fantastic! 

As we sailed back to the marina, the crew served us fresh fruit and a big frozen shot of rum, chocolate and banana, rum- somethin-or-other.  It was the perfect way to end the day.  We had such a fun time on the Celine.  We met some wonderful people, enjoyed great food and saw amazing turquoise water.  I can understand why some of our fellow boat friends have traveled to St. Martin over 25 times and have sailed the Celine over 5 times.  Life is good when you are in a beautiful place, with good souls, enjoying amazing food, and seeing God’s beauty all around.  This trip will forever be a special part of our memories.

Looking at St Martin from Tintamarre

Docking at Tintamarre

Happy Bay

Sailing back to Marigot Habor

My souvenir was a sun burn, Jerry's was a hangover :) Good times!

The crew, captain & us aboard the Celine

Three meals in three different countries for my birthday!

After spending 11 wonderful nights on the French side of Saint Martin, it was time to depart the island for home.  We were traveling home on my actual birthday and tried to find the fun parts of celebrating my birthday while spending 10 hours in an airplane and a two hour layover in New York.   We were excited to get home to see our dogs, but were pretty sad to leave this island which we became so acquainted with.  One of our favorite parts of the trip was the food.  Not just the wide array of French ingredients, but the simplicity of French cuisine and the process taken to shop, prep and enjoy the ingredients.  If you have ever been to Europe, they tend to have a romantic relationship with their food…I just love this different way of thinking.  

 

As it was our last day, we tried to empty the fridge and enjoy our last meals on the island. 

7am EST 6/6/14 – Oyster Bay (French Antilles) The day of our departure, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise, and then got started on packing.  For breakfast, we enjoyed pineapple and bananas that we had purchased from a local stand and finished bread that we had purchased fresh from the local market.  Breakfast in France to start off my birthday…

11:30am EST 6/6/14 – Simpson Bay (Netherlands) We arrived to the airport in about two and a half hours early, so we decided to have lunch and some drinks at the bar.  We ordered a hamburger and fries to share.  The burger was huge and had prosciutto!!!  It was delicious and fitting, since we enjoyed so much prosciutto on this trip.

6:00pm EST 6/6/14 – New York (USA) After arriving at JFK in New York, we were hoping to find a pizza place that possibly had New York pizza.  It wasn’t the official NYC pizza, but we found a takeout place that had pizza…with prosciutto! Sounded good, fit our theme and we were craving cheesy pizza. 

Three meals in three different countries made me smile.  I wished I had realized beforehand that we would be spending time in three countries…we could have toasted Champagne and documented with photos.  Anyhow, my husband made sure to say Happy Birthday to me throughout the day.  Around noon, after a drink, I realized that he had said happy birthday to me in France and in the Netherlands. Plus, we still had to fly to USA.   So, that would be the third country that we visited, in one day that he could wish me a happy birthday.  I thought it was super cool and thanked him for “taking” me to three countries for my birthday.   It was a very cool way to spend my birthday.  Three meals, three kisses and three “Happy Birthday’s” shared in three different countries, all in one day.  I could get use to this!

Celebrating our last day in St Martin