Coronavirus Virtual Cruise

[allatc]

Next stop : St Martin / Sint Marten

[JillD66]

Took a boat to St. Barts from St Martin - no sign of hurricane damage there - just lots of designer shops and posh yachts!

[Mervyn and Trish]

Ah yes. Here we are. Arriving on the Dutch side and driving across to the French side

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[Mervyn and Trish]

A couple of lunchtime drinks and then a meal Al Fresco at Epicurean. We had an overnight in port

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[Gill W]

I liked St Maarten ( I always think of it with the Dutch Spelling.

I think this is this same view as Merv's, and I also took my best ever butterfly photo here

[Gill W]

The sea always seems very blue in St Maarten

[Mervyn and Trish]

I liked St Maarten ( I always think of it with the Dutch Spelling.

I think this is this same view as Merv's, and I also took my best ever butterfly photo here

Pretty much.

[allatc]

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Phillispburg Sint Maarten

[allatc]

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Last time we called into Sint Maarten we caught the local bus from Phillipsburg to Marigot on the French side of the island.
3 euro or 3 US dollars each way. Interesting way to travel.


The mobile phone charges were something like 3 euros per minute in Phillipsburg - Dutch Antilles; and 9 cents per minute in Marigot - France.

[allatc]

Tuesday : Tortola

[Manoverboard]

We went and had a walk about but I cannot for the life of me remember what we saw ... was there a little white church up a hill or was that somewhere else. All those Islands looked the same to me
.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Loved Tortola. We did a tour which included Cane Garden Bay Beach. Our P&O escort was our lovely dance instructor Emma.

A quirk I noticed was that some islands drive on the left with right hand drive cars. Some drive on the right with left hand drive cars. Tortola drive on the left with mostly left hand drive cars. So lots of wing mirror clangs. The suggestion is they discovered it is cheaper to import cars from the US than Europe but haven't got round to changing the roads. Certainly it was older cars that were right hand drive and suited to the roads.

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[Mervyn and Trish]

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[Pam + Neil]

In November 2018 a year after the dreadful hurricanes we spent the morning wandering around the town and everyone was keen to tell us how it had been when it came through.
We could still the damage and they were busy trying to make repairs
.

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[Pam + Neil]

We then had an afternoon tour booked to Jost Van Dyke Island. A beautiful place but unfortunately it was quite overcast so we didn't see it at its best.

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This sadly is not the boat we sailed on. Getting ashore was an experience having to transfer to a landing craft. The life jackets they gave us to wear would never have passed Health & Safety over here.

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[Gill W]

I really like Tortola

Our last visit was in 2016, and they had done a lot of development in the port area since our first visit in 2005

[Gill W]

Some lovely places to visit such as Cane Garden Bay and Soper's Hole

[Gill W]

Also The Governer's House for somewhere cool and restful

[Mervyn and Trish]

Some lovely places to visit such as Cane Garden Bay and Soper's Hole

Somehow the former sounds more attractive than the second!

[Manoverboard]

Still no pics of our hill with several colourful houses plus a little church at the top ...

Mobietta says she remembers it too.
.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I remember being young and handsome. Doesn't mean it happened. Just saying.......

[Manoverboard]

I remember being young and handsome. Doesn't mean it happened. Just saying.......

And I will pass your considered thoughts on to Mobietta for a second opinion ...

[Jan Rosser]

I have some photos taken on Cane Garden beach drinking rum punch - my DIL is making a face - they were pretty strong - she’s a lightweight

[Mervyn and Trish]

Rum Punch seemed to be the common factor in every tour we did!

[allatc]

Time to move on. Tomorrow : St Thomas