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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