St Martin

We flew into St Martin and I was looking forward to our "girls trip". Brad's such a trooper and becomes one of "the girls" in the most hilarious way when we get together. I had 3 of my girlfriends who were joining us and 2 were coming in from Chicago. My friend Debbie came from LA and beat us here by an hour...that speed demon. Bish met us with Debbie at the airport in our rental car. And off we went. 

Since Brad and I had already spent time on St Martin during our last trip, we took Debbie around to see the sights. All of us had a ball driving around the island even though we found everything to be closed as it was Sunday. Skanki's included. 

We ended up having an early dinner and margaritas at Jimbos in the marina. Constance and Angela had their Chicago flights cancelled due to "snowmageddon" on the east coast, so they would be arriving the following afternoon. We will be packing in as much as we can of this island before we head to St Barths.

The next day Brad, Deb and I drove to Orient beach on the French side of the island. (There's a French side and a Dutch side) 

We went to the same beach club we had previously been to with Kat & Matt, and the people watching once again didn't disappoint.

 You can't make up this kind of outfit! He was wearing a woman's sarong with nothing underneath...As if the nip-slip top wasn't enough of a shocker!

This Frenchie was busy jogging and getting her exercise in...good for her! 

Deb & I took a walk and ended up walking down to the NUDE beach. Who knew?! Ok-we did know about it, but had to see it for ourselves. What a sight we saw!! It's interesting how you never see anyone under 50 at a nude beach. "Gravity" is also interesting to observe here. Haha!!  We should have been tipped off when we walked into this beach boutique along the way and spotted these...

Yes, a MAN STRING! Awesome. Why Brad doesn't want to sport one is beyond me. 

We then walked by a beach bar and noticed this signage on the "nudie" side..

Notice how someone wrote in, "but please, sit on a towel!"  

We knew we were back in the "safety zone" when we spotted this sign...funny how there wasn't one walking toward the nude beach. 

The three of us enjoyed a great lunch that afternoon. 

Our fave Rastafarian came by and Brad stumped him by saying, "Jah Jah gives me everything" which are lyrics from one of his songs. We had previously bought a CD from him on the last trip, and after he got over the shock of Brad possibly being a fellow Rastafarian...he sang the entire song to us. Then, he was on his way as he knew he couldn't make another sale to us. What a character!

Meanwhile, back at the beach club...it turns out that water is a precious commodity. Haha!

They may have been making subtle suggestions around this place. 

Constance and Angela arrived later that afternoon, so it was time to leave the beach and head to the airport. As soon as we scooped them up, we went to Sunset Beach Bar to watch the airplanes land and take off. This place is one of those rare locations where the planes look like they are about to land on top of you. (you can see it to the extreme far the right on the beach, in the photo below)

  This bar was also famous for their token topless woman, but she hasn't been seen there in quite sometime. Maybe because they won't give her a frozen drink? That could be the reason this is called the #3 beach bar in the world and not #1 Brad tells me.

We had fun staging this photo nugget...

then back to boat to unpack and relax. 

Brad got a great shot of the megayacht masts between these sailboat masts. 

Bish had afternoon appetizers & rosé at the ready!

 We headed to the  La Samanna resort for dinner. We had liked it so much on our previous trip (thanks for the tip Missy!) that I thought it was the perfect spot to start the girls off with.