2025 ST MAARTEN LAND VACATION

DAY 7: A DAY OF HUNTING BEACHES

Up at the crack of dawn and the waves below were still crashing over the rocks. The beach area over by the restaurant was a mess now.

Is it just me or does the satellite image of this hurricane look to be a tad bit bigger than extended out 30 miles wide? It just seemed like it was huge out there.

There were a lot of Frigate Birds gliding over the ocean. I guess at least they liked the water all churned up. Some of them came really close to our balcony.

The hubby made egg and bacon omelets for breakfast and we all sat out on the balcony trying to figure out what to do today. Then I noticed someone in a kayak come around the corner of the building from out in the ocean and paddling their way into our bay. Are they serious? The waves were still pretty rough.

Yea there would be no snorkeling to be done in that water any time soon.

I was reading online that it was recorded a gust of 102.6 km/h (which is 63mph) wind was recorded in Grand Case. The island remained on yellow alert for risks of submerging waves, heavy rain and storms. Erin's direct effects were expected to end Sunday morning around 6am. Tropical waves were coming in.

We decided we would try the bird sanctuary again. I couldn't remember if they said when they would be open and if they were the one's that told us Monday or not. I was reading on the St Maarten facebook group that they were open so we were going to give it a shot and headed out for the day.

Along the way we decided to stop at the mountain top to see if the pigs were there and yep they were...but no pink pigs darnit!

There were little shelters up there with chickens and roosters on it along with tons of cats.

The view was beautiful up there.

The hubby taking a picture of me taking a picture. He likes to sneak those in every so often. He knows I hate having my picture taken 90% of the time. Especially when I'm not looking.

The hubby seen a trail leading up higher and decided to explore and off he went. Can you see him almost to the top? From the picture it doesn't look very steep but it was.

I looked at the kids and they stared back at me. We were reading each others minds and took a step forward. Yep, they were going up and I guess that meant I was too because they weren't leaving me behind. I guess this would be the closest we'd get to hiking on this vacation so why not? Yes I'm danger prone. Yes, I don't do well on hills going up since my leg injury and not being able to bend my foot forward to climb. I always have to turn my foot sideways to climb anything with a substantial incline but I made it up the hill and felt accomplished.

This is William Henry Bell II. He purchased the Cape Bay Estate along with his siblings who purchased parts of the property of 300 acres. William passed away a year later at the age of 33 and left his portion of the land to his father and surviving siblings. Many years later the Board of Directors of the NV Bell Realty Corp, that now owns the property, dedicated the Look Out Point in Williams honor.

Sint Maarten's National Flower is the Yellow Sage. This plant forms large shrubs with small clusters of flowers and can grow up to 2 meters. The color yellow symbolized hope, positivity, friendship, and happiness. The Yellow Sage has remarkable resilience, thriving in the face of harsh tropical climates and extreme weather conditions. However, it is becoming increasingly scarce on the island due to ongoing development. It was not blooming when we were there.

Ok, time to head back down.

We arrived at the bird sanctuary and YES! IT WAS OPEN TODAY! We were all excited and walked up to the window to pay and found that they ONLY accept cash. Wait, what??? Are you serious? Well, strike two trying to get into this place. Ugh!

Well, what now? Let's go and try to explore some beaches or something. The first place we headed to (although not a beach) was to Rotary look out. We had came here before with our cruise friend Kia and she had told us that she would always come here because the water was so shallow in the area that you could walk over to the little island and also there were always so many starfish in the water. When we came with her, there were no starfish. We would see what it offered this time around.

We were driving along and I definitely remembered the area. There was an entire goat family walking down the street last time. This time, we would see goats as well along the side of the road.

The hubby always keeps us laughing and he wanted to hear the goats yell at him. I'm over here saying "Baaaaa" with no response. So he says "You have to yell at them" and he did.

We made it over to Rotary and the water was definitely too high to walk out in. They have steps to an upper deck for viewing.

We headed back down and the hubby was off taking pictures of his own while I searched the area for sea glass.

I did manage to find quite a few pieces of sea glass in the area. Actually there was tons but I only took a few that I liked.

There were several lizards around us. They would dart in and out of the rocks. They reminded me to the blue spotted lizards (Whiptails) you see in Aruba everywhere but these appear to have lost their coloring. They had blue spots but most of the body was brownish in color. From what I've read these are "Ameiva" lizards and the one's on St Maarten are Ameiva Plei.

Since we were on this part of the island I wanted to try to head over to Le Galion to check out the beach. It used to come highly suggested on the cruise forums because it was known as a family beach with calm waters. I know last time we were here, right after the hurricane, the beach was deserted and all the floating platforms (swimming for the schools/class) were gone, vendors shut down and no one came here anymore. We had the entire beach to ourselves that time. I figured we'd stop for a little swim (if the water was ok) and hang out for a short while but I had read to watch your surroundings because since this is no longer a beach people come to, locals will break into cars and steal things and a lot of thefts have been reported recently. If I remember correctly, there was a parking lot and you could pretty much pull up and see your car right from the beach. I also remember the sand was beautiful and palm trees lined the beach (but they were beaten up after the hurricane).

As we followed the map down the road it would dead end along the water. There were trees (not palms) and looked nothing like what we had seen before.

We seen locals in the area, having cook outs and just hanging out. I was really confused about the area and was sure it was not the right area. I did see a sign that said SXM Surf Club.

However, there was a sign that said Le Galion so I knew we were at least in the right area probably just not the right part of Le Galion:

A strong smell of sargassum in the area and there was a lot of trash. I didn't really want to get out or stick around. I knew it wasn't the right area. There was a sandy road but I didn't want to take a chance to see if it went anywhere or take a chance of getting stuck. A jeep came along with a bunch of people, you could tell they were vacationers exploring as well, and they decided to head down that sandy road. I decided to wait. They weren't back there long and they were coming back which told me it was a dead end and I'm glad I didn't attempt it.

Well, I would just pull up all the beaches I had marked on my map and just start circling around the island and stopping at each one.

First up was a place called Happy Bay Beach. It was supposed to be located between Grand Case and Frairs and it was probably the beach that Daniel #2 was telling us to go to. However, we were led into a residential area with several "No Trespassing" signs. If that was the place, I'm not sure they would get many people coming there to eat if you can't even get in.

Ok, moving on to the next.

There was a beach I had marked named Baie Rouge Beach. From the pictures that I had seen online it looked like a rather large beach and very beautiful. HOWEVER..... again, we couldn't find a way to get in. We drove every way we could and still nothing leading there. I'm really not having much luck at this point.

Blurp-beep "Good afternoon guests. This is your tour guide Mitsugirly. Here you have a dead end road. See all the private drives? Here you have dirt roads that don't look safe to go down. And here you, once again, have no way out and we must turn around." At least I got a few laughs out of the kids on this non-productive day but hey, at least we are exploring and not sitting back in our room with the rain pouring down not being able to do anything. 🤷‍♀️

Ok, well next up this way trying to find Plum Bay. We headed on down the road and turned into an area that you had to go through security. They didn't stop me and I acted like I was just a resident there and knew what I was doing. Well, I didn't! Of course right where it said Plum Bay was, were these mansions in the area with privacy fences as tall as their houses and the beach was located on the other side of the houses. That meant we weren't getting to that beach without scaling a wall, gliding past trip wires and security, and avoiding watch dogs to get there. I'm no Ninja so It just wasn't happening.

There were plenty of houses there that were still being built and they all have pools and it's every persons dream home. I'd take any of them. Just saying...Hey, I wonder if any are rentals for an airbnb. 😁

I asked the fam if they wanted to keep going or should I turn around. They replied "Well, why stop now? We're kinda used to not finding any beaches by now. Just keep going." 🙄Sigh! Ok, we tracked on.

All of a sudden we spotted a parking spot along a fence. I put the car in reverse and had to check it out. I noticed a sign that said "Avis Au Public" Wait, Public? I knew that word. Below it was Swim at your own risk. Ok, THIS IS A BEACH! I TOLD YOU I'D FIND ONE! It also had a board about sea turtles. Maybe we'd see turtles there?

We decided to leave our beach stuff in the car and first go check it out. There was a sandy walkway with a fence on both sides lining it. I guess this is the way we're going.

As we came out to the beach, the first thing we noticed were the waves. YIKES!

Yea, there wasn't any way we'd be able to swim here. It was also back to being pretty hot again so it wouldn't end up being a place we'd be able to just hang out for awhile and enjoy the beach either. Darnit.

It was a beautiful area and definitely an area I wouldn't have minded hanging out at and swimming if we could. But would you look at those waves!!

Up along the tree areas you would see very large holes dug in the sand. We knew these were from the turtles. It was pretty cool and they were everywhere.

Here's a short video of the area.

Back in the car and we continued down the road only to find out you would not be able to get out that way unless you had a key card for the gate. UGH! That meant we had to go all the way back through the neighborhood. I will say for brand new, probably million dollar homes, the roads were pure crap! So bumpy and made your vehicle sound like it was falling apart as you went down it.

Ok well now we will head to a beach that I actually KNOW I can get to and I'm very familiar with it. MULLET BAY BEACH!

We arrived and although there was plenty of parking, there were still a lot more people there than what I thought there would be with the waves pretty high.

Well this beach was really un-swimmable as well. Not only was the waves so high but half the beach was eroded as well. There was about a 4-5' drop to even get in the water. I have difficulty getting out of the water with a regular incline while sinking in the sand. This just wasn't happening. It did make a nice seat to sit at and surfer watch for awhile.

However, there were a few people down there but most were just sitting up above on the sand. I only seen one kid actually in the water getting thrown about but they were not far out.

There were several people that were extremely happy about the waves. That would be the surfers and they were having a blast out there.

I will say the place has really changed and expanded since we were there last. I remember a porta potty out in the parking lot and a small shack like restaurant. Now it has really grown to a restaurant and seating and a roof over your head. Yep, they have definitely come up. I believe there was another restaurant there now as well but we did not go down that way.

This beach is absolutely GORGEOUS. The water is GORGEOUS. But not today. Not after a hurricane. I was sad. 😢

There will be no swimming in the ocean today it looks like. It was just too rough. We headed back out to the car and along the way Sakari spotted a weird looking tree with something growing on it.

I think it's a Guava Tree?

Here's a video of Mullet Bay Beach.

If you noticed the last map I posted with the beaches listed on it, there's another beach (which really isn't much of a beach) named CupeCoy. I had really wanted to go there this trip. I had seen pictures and it looked amazing. But, not for the beach, for the cave that was there on the beach. So many pictures posted online and it looked awesome. From what I had read it was kind of hard to get to. You had to park somewhere on the hill, find the path to get there and go down to the beach and find the cave. Many people have tried and failed and others act like it's easy. We had actually thought about renting one of the places right there but ultimately went with the place we were at solely based on being able to use our points. We didn't even attempt to find this place now because of the waves. I'm sure the waves were probably pounding the inside of the cave at this point and it would be inaccessible.

If you get a chance to go here, hopefully you can check this place out. Here are a few pictures from the internet for reference and are NOT MINE:

Here's an amazing picture taken of the overall area by RTGH Photography:

Yea, I don't think we'd be able to get down to this area with the waves. Darnit.

We decided to just head back to the resort but I could hear Karl's belly growling in the back seat and the hubby and I decided to try out a place we had seen down the road from us. Instead of pulling into the resort, we passed it right up. The kids had no idea what was happening until we pulled into a place called Tap and Still. Karl's eye's lit up and we didn't have to tell him twice what we were doing. Daniel #1 had told us this was a good place to eat so why not try it out.

I completely forgot to take a picture of the outside of the place, so I pulled these off of their fb page. These are not my pictures:

It is an open air restaurant so no a/c and it was a little hot but manageable because they do have fans up.

The menu is on a piece of paper and you check off what you want on the paper and hand it to them. I loved the sign on the wall. It reminds me of my oldest son. He used to say that and do that when he was a teen. If he liked it he'd lick it and say "I licked it so it's mine" and then save it for later hoping that his sister and brother wouldn't take it.

Of course since Sakari had a piece of paper and now a pencil, she did what she loves to do...start drawing as she waited. Oops, we got it wet.

Our food came and it was REALLY GOOD! We highly recommend this place. It was only $9 for a cheeseburger. What I didn't realize is that I also checked the "toppings" box below for cheese as well. So, I ended up with double cheese. Oh well, I love cheese so no complaints. I added bacon for an extra $2. Not really a bad price and cheaper than other places we have been.

$86 for 4 people to eat wasn't bad at all considering what we've been paying so far. We should have discovered this place earlier.

With our bellies full we headed back to the resort and decided since we were unable to have an actual beach day, we would just hang out by the pool for awhile. Others seem to have the same idea but we still managed to find seats around the pool.

Immediately Karl headed to the bar. It was Happy Hour and we wanted some happiness today since I was still pouting from no beach time.

We swam a little and we had a few drinks. We had a good time.

Sakari and I walked along the beach to see what we could find. There was a lot of stuff washed up on the beach including shells, some sea glass and dead critters.

Eventually we decided to head back to the room and shower and Sakari was going to attempt spaghetti tonight under Karl's supervision. She's not doing too bad with this new hobby she has now. Her skills are increasing more on this vacation than they have in all the years at home. 😂

After dinner I started not feeling well again. The diarrhea was starting again and it was the worse yet. I literally stayed up all night. I couldn't lay down at all. When I did, I had excruciating pain in my stomach and felt like I was going to throw up. I was eating Tums like it was candy and popping Ibuprofen. Nothing was working. I think I took 3 showers and it was hard to even stand up straight. It was so bad I actually cried and thought I was dying at this point. This has been going on for 4 days now. It seemed to happen every time I ate at night. Within an hour the diarrhea would start but I never felt "sick" like throw up sick in the days prior. You are probably wondering why haven't I went to get anything to treat this like some Imodium. Well, because it only seemed to happen at night and each day it would stop and I would think well it must be over now. Boy was I wrong! I'm just absolutely miserable at this point.

😩🤮🤢💩