An Interesting Road Trip, Friendly Parrots, Iguanas, and Old Friends

In Saint Martin and Sint Maarten, there is much more than just marinas and yachts, more than just beaches and bars, there are also art and wildlife. A road trip, looking at friendly parrots, and friendly iguanas, and meeting other cruising friends was a great change. Since the previous blog https://kiwiflyingfish.com/2023/05/sint-maarten-simpson-bay-and-lagoonies/ we had not been out of the marina. The alternators and belts were off the engines so the boat could not move. When you are in a marina or boat yard too long you have to get out and find other things to do. or you start to go nuts. You have to get a day away from the yacht and look and see what else is on an island. Traveling inland and to beaches we would not normally anchor at this is what we found.

Maho Beach

We decided we had to come and see this tourist attraction and it didn’t disappoint. You cannot anchor near here due to the approach/departure path of the airport. Between watching the aeroplanes coming in and out and watching the photographers getting thrown across the beach it was a lot of fun. Despite all this, it is a beautiful beach. There is a large casino and hotel to the north side with a restaurant close to the beach which we tried out called Tortuga. There is also a real beach bar – the Driftwood Boat Bar.

On the other end, there are several other restaurants which you can watch from. They will serve cocktails and food in takeaway containers so you can go down to the beach to be closer to the action.

The rocks below the bars and restaurants contain several birds that seem totally unmoved by all the activity and noise.

Road Trip

When we asked what was good to go and look at there were only two places that were recommended one was Loterie Farm and the other was Parrot Ville. On the way there we thought we should stop in Philisburg the main town on the Dutch side. The area has many of the big retail shops/chain stores as well.

Philipsburg

This trip was the first time that we had been to the Dutch side – other than the area around the marina. Philipsburg is a cruise ship town. It is dead if there are none there which was the case this weekend and so it was very quiet when we walked around and all the shops were either shut or had about 5 staff and no patrons. There is quite a pretty beach and the boardwalk caters to tourists as does the first street back from the beach so it was all very quiet even at 10am. Here are a few photos to give you an idea of the town.

The electricians who were working on the alternators on the yacht were out racing in trimarans this weekend so here are a few pictures of the yachts.

Parrotte Ville

Parrotte Ville is privately owned and operated https://www.facebook.com/parotteville/. It is a very low-key large aviary in one of the suburbs of Philipsburg. They give you a small cup of seeds to feed the birds and the birds can hold onto the edge of the cup so they are quite happy. They are very friendly birds and if you don’t move much they will climb all over you. I had to give Hew my cup as I was trying to take photos but the birds were happy to come and talk to me anyway. At one stage Hew had 5 birds on him. It was great fun and very relaxing to see so many happy friendly birds.

There is a viewing platform in the middle of the aviary and some of the birds like to hang out underneath it. You can see parts of it in the pictures. There were many forms of climbing frames and ropes for the birds to play on. There were also birdhouses all around the enclosure and many had been opened or had the entries made larger by various birds to suit themselves. There was also a lot of vegetation in the gage similar to Taro plants that they both used as shade and occasionally nibbled on. The guide for the days says they do not usually wreck the plants as they just regrow so a good one to have.

The Toucan is kept in a separate enclosure because it is a meat eater and the meat attracts rats and mice. Funnily there were lizards in the Toucan enclosure as well and they did not seem particularly concerned. His favourite place is under a table, probably for the shade.

Loterie Farm

Loterie Farm https://loteriefarm.com/ is a private nature reserve of 54 Hectares on the french side. There are walking tracks, a zip line, swimming pools, and a restaurant. It was midday by the time we got there and we felt it was too hot to go walking so we just took in the restaurant with a nice lunch, a lovely cocktail, and a large iguana walking over the roof. We then had a relaxing couple of hours around the pool for our afternoon siesta.

Sundays

We decided last week that we would get a rental car as we had several jobs to do that needed to go all over the island.

Since it was Sunday and all the shops are shut or shut at lunchtime we thought we would go out for a late brunch and then onto the beach. We walked around Marigot town and it was empty and only new thing was another painted wall I hadn’t seen before. I love the street art you find in these islands and wonder why we do not make more use of our blank walls in New Zealand.

We finally found an open cafe for breakfast near the airport. We then headed up the coast past Maho to find a beach. After driving up and then back down the coast past many gated communities we finally went and had a swim at Mullet Bay beach. A lovely beach and surprisingly sheltered. It is one bay over from Mahoe so you can still see the arriving aircraft. It has a very steep sand bank at the moment. There is only a small beach bar and no big development like Maho. The beach is backed by a golf course which I assume has kept it from becoming totally developed.

Iguanas

On Monday Hew needed to get a new gas bottle and fittings as our Italian ones could not be fitted here and we couldn’t find adaptors so off to Philipsburg again. We managed to get all the parts and a bottle at one stop. Just down the road, we watched as a huge Iguana near the bus stop decided to move out of the sun and up the hill. the Iguanas are very common around the island and often sun themselves on the rocks around the bridges. Their colour really depends on their background. You can see the difference between these two photos and the one above at Loterie farm which was very green being on a very leafy tree.

We also needed sheets and went to a great store called Cost for Less which was very like Costco in the USA – everything in bulk. We decided that we really did need a list so we did not buy anything extra and left the shopping for another day.

Seamog

Matt and Jo friends from the South Island who we met cruising last year had turned at the end of the week. We had a lovely dinner at Dock 46 with them on Friday. Then on Tuesday, they needed to come into the marina and since it was fairly full they tied up alongside. They too are off to Europe.

It looks like it is going to be a social week again.

The alternators are finally in and the belts arrive today. We are expecting Di and Pete tomorrow and to be off the dock the day after. I hope all will go as planned.