Seahorse of Anguilla

... a community feeling to it, especially because we visited in the low season, hurricane season. The steets were very quite, many shops were closed and not many tourists were visiting the island overnight.

We stayed for 2 nights and almost didn't made it back to St. Maarten because a hurricane was passing close by and the seas were too high for boats to run. So we ended up taking a plane.

... up to Pic Paradis (the highest point on the island) and instead, whiled away an unproductive and unpleasant afternoon at the Hidden Forest Café. Long gone are the days of fearless gallivanting. I guess you can say this vacation was truly a different experience, as it should be when traveling with an infant.

Suffice to say, we had an amazing time, despite all the bumps in the road to ...

Most of our days were spent visiting the French side of the island. We spent a long and lazy afternoon at Le Galion Beach so our little one could play in some shallow water. It’s a perfect beach for families with small kids or infants due to the calm waters. In fact, even in the shallowest of waters we saw some fish ...

... no road work is being done and you won’t be re-routed) or pass through Philipsburg (the capital on the Dutch side). Shopping in St. Maarten is all duty-free. And in the Dutch capital, there are plenty of jewelry shops all in a row on Front Street if you plan on buying some bling. Of course I had passed those up, and instead was more interested in stocking our mini fridge in the hotel room with some baby food, water, and some ...

... an adventure we went. Captain Oliver’s Marina is just down the road on the French side where we found a neat harbor-side grill, a place to rent fishing poles, and boats galore. Once we had explored all the marina had to offer, including the talking parrots, it was time to eat.
Points be damned, cream sauce rules! We topped off the meal with desserts of homemade Apple Tart w/ vanilla ice cream (Cindy & ...

As the morning blushed pink at 6am all rose to bask in the glory of another day in paradise. Slowly the day unfolded with coffee on the balcony and later cereal inside. Everyone then decided to trek to the front desk to plan our week. Once that was taken care of; Cindy, Barb, and Jeff set off to the beach (showing none of the tender skin that suffered so much the first day) while Becky stayed back to get a massage in the room ...

We started the day well rested after an eventful travel day frought with delays, food vouchers and freezing airports. We woke to the smell of fresh ground coffee brewing which we happily drank on our balcony overlooking paradise. Cindy and Jeff are raring to go (what else is new) and head out to the front desk to buy water, Barb and Becky cook a delicious breakfast back at the ranch with eggs, bacon, toast and jam.
Always up ...

... the docks where the racing regattas were moored. He took about 15 minutes to give us some background about the history of the sport and told us that one of the boats being used would be the famous Stars and Stripes that won The Americas Cup with Dennis Connor in 1987.

Our group was divided into 3 crews for 3 different boats and my wife and myself were incredibly lucky to be part of the crew for the Stars and Stripes. How cool was this going to be!! We got to participate as ...

... inside the terminal area for us daytrippers. 11 years ago, after walking around Philipsburg for merely half an hour, Nelson and I decided to head directly to the French side. Dutch side was too commercialized and characterless, we thought (but there are a lot of duty-free shops if that's your thing). We arrived at Marigot, capital of French side by local bus (mini-van), which cost us only $1 each. We walked around and saw ...

As a little side trip while in the Caribbean we decided to visit one of the surrounding islands. We chose Anguilla, part of the British West Indies, for our one day excursion. This former colony is today a Britain dependency, and is located less than 20 minutes by boat from St. Maarten. They even drive on the left hand side or the road; probably one of very few ...