The Meandering Ones

We planned to go to Islet Pinel, a tiny island visible from Orient Beach, on the French side. It was a bit cloudy in the morning, we were hoping it wouldn’t rain. We left the condo around 10am, needed to get to an ATM for cash, but were told there are none on the French side. A few raindrops started to come down as we were driving through Marigot so we almost stopped, making a shopping day instead. But we kept driving, and were rewarded with bluer skies on the other side of the mountain. We parked in Cul-de-Sac (a town name, that’s not just generic :->) then boarded the small ferry to Pinel. It’s $6 per person round trip, and was so incredibly loaded with people we felt like Cuban refugees trying to make it to America. I was hoping the boat wouldn’t sink before making it just to Pinel. The boat ‘captain’ was pretty salty but seemed to loosen up as we docked at Pinel. Yeah! We made it! There were padded beach lounge chairs and umbrellas all over the beach - $15 to rent a pair of chairs and umbrella for the day. So we parked our things, paid the overly chatty money-collector (not sure what his actual job title was, and he seemed to be more interested in sleeping than working). As more people showed up on the island we seemed to become surrounded by more obnoxious Americans by the minute. All the quiet Europeans (mainly French) were off to the other side. Note to self…
We did meet a very nice couple from Grand Rapids, MI who’ve been coming to St. Martin for the past eight years.

The drinks on Pinel are expensive, but still more reasonable than New York City, so I won’t complain. There are two restaurants/bars on the island, but a third was under construction while we were there. We chose to eat at Karibuni (I had read about it in Conde Nast Traveler magazine), the oldest beach bar on St. Martin. I desperately wanted lobster, but at the price they were charging - 6 Euros per 100 grams - it needed to be a small one. The dollar is so weak against the Euro right now, it makes everything so much more expensive. Our sweet waiter went digging through the crates of live lobsters floating just off the dock and ended up getting pinched by one. I felt bad, but he finally found one that was only going to cost us $45. SQ and I decided to split it for lunch. The waiter brought us both a salad and all of the side dishes, so it was actually pretty filling. And it was absolutely the best lobster I’ve ever had in my life. They split it and grill it, then serve the lobster with sides of butter. After we were finished eating, we were served shot glasses of banana-infused rum.

It got a bit cloudy again…but the breezes were so nice, and it was so relaxing to just hang out on a chair all day (something I find hard to do normally). We ended up catching the second-to-last boat back to Cul-de-Sac. We were told if you miss the last boat at 4:30pm they don’t come back for you, and you spend the night with the islands only residents - wild goats. We drove back to Sapphire for showers, then over to Grand Case for dinner. We chose a place called Calmos Cafe for dinner, and it didn’t look like much from the front, but it does sit right on the beach in Grand Case. The diners seemed to be primarily French, and they were very busy. But they did fix us up with a couple of tiny tables and plastic Adirondack-style chairs literally right on the beach, which is where most of the tables are. We were very close to the surf, and ended up with a very smile-y waiter named Nikol (sp?), originally from Biarritz. ‘Surfing is my region!’ he told us in a very excited voice.

SQ and I both ordered cheeseburgers and Rum Punch, a drink that’s seemingly a specialty of St. Martin. These were some of the best burgers we’ve ever had. Who knew the French could cook a hamburger so nicely? The atmosphere was great, very dark and primarily 80’s tunes being played. The funniest thing was the Black Lab dog who kept chasing a crabs all over the sand. He apparently didn’t want to eat them, but just thought they were toys. There were also lots of adorable children of the French families camped at the restaurant for the night (no wonder it’s hard to get a table!). They ran around playing in the sand and the gentle waves, good entertainment so the adults can talk the night away. To cap off dinner we each had a BBC (Baileys Banana Colada), another St. Martin specialty drink. It was so good, but more like a dessert. Nikol gave me the traditional French cheek kisses and told us we needed to come back. We’ll look for him when we go back next year.