St. Maarten stuff

Our return to St. Maarten was made to feel like a home coming, as it meant returning to Shrimpy’s. Shrimpy’s is one of those special establishments that can truly be called a cruisers friend. They bill themselves as a tapas bar, so the menu isn’t very extensive. (We had the fish and chips once and it was good.) Their main focus seams to be to provide the cruising sailor with what they need. For starters, they have a big neon sign that faces Simpson Bay Lagoon where hundreds of boats are anchored. From the road you would never find the place. On the street side there is just a two-foot sign to lead you down an alley next to the grocery store. They don’t seem to want to compete with the two hundred other restaurants and bars that vie for the land tourist’s dollars. Instead, Shrimpy (the owner) provides a place for sailors to hang out, use the free dinghy dock and check emails with free wi-fi access. They also house an excellent laundry service, used boat gear store, book swap, Sunday gear swap meet and also offer water and even boat bottom cleaning (which explains why you will often see the proprietor in a wet suit). If someone is anchored in the lagoon, you will eventually see them at Shrimpy’s. No one seems to mind the 4 inches of water that run across the floor when it rains really hard or that Shrimpy (the dog) sleeps on the bar. When we needed a bit of sewing done and the sail lofts were too busy to look at it, Shrimpy recommended and then called a small canvas shop and even arranged to for her to meet me, at Shrimpy’s of course. He even let me lock my bike to the rail outside for the three weeks we were in the lagoon. In short ( no pun intended) Shrimpy is there for the sailor.


The hard-core mountain bikers in St. Martin get an early start on their mid-week training rides. They meet at 6 AM when it’s still nice and dark. That meant a 5:30 dinghy ride for me at a time of night that squalls sweep the anchorage about every hour. I waited for the rain to stop, then headed for Shrimpy’s Tapas Bar where I was keeping the bike. A fifteen-minute ride on pothole filled, unlit streets got me to the Texaco station where a dozen other riders were about to take off. They were mostly twenty to thirty somethings, obviously rode a lot and were all training for the thirty-five mile race around the island. The race sounded like fun until about thirty minutes into the ride when we really started to hit the hills. They don’t call it mountain biking for nothing here. The group pretty much kicked my butt, although I did notice that they had more low gears on their bikes than I have. One muddy stretch leveled the field a bit, but they left me behind on the next set of hills. I was mostly able to keep them in site and had a fun two and a half hour tour of the south end of St. Maarten. Man, I need to ride more!

Glenn