Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The winds were howling around the island at 30 knots today, so it was time to do shopping and a tour of the circumference of the island with Lauren & Rob. We started by passing the airport, then driving by the new development projects at Cupecoy and threading our way past the hidden villas on the NW side of the lagoon to end up in Marigot, where we successfully found a parking slot and had breakfast at La Sucrière before continuing on our journey. We bypassed Grand Case and visited the NE coves and shore. Continuing on our trip we looked at the difficult cut getting into Oyster Pond and decided that no boats were going to go in or out, since any skipper experienced and skilled enough to transit the channel would know better than to even try to leave the safety of the harbour.
We did some shopping at the typical “yachtie” haunts – Ace Hardware, NAPA and then had a late lunch before hitting Island Waterworld, our final shopping stop. We managed to get past the Dutch bridge at 16:25, just prior to the bridge opening and then changed our plans and wanted to see the Air France Airbus land or take off from the infamous bar at the end of the runway to Princess Julianna Airport. Unfortunately, the jet was already there (I’d mis-remembered the arrival time) but we had some fun at the beach while waiting for the 17:30 departure. Rob was using a small digital camera which had some sort of random delay built in, so each time he set up for an artisitic shot framing trees, beach and an approaching aircraft he got a wonderful picture sans jet.
Rain clouds rolled over the hills shortly before 18:00 so we headed for our boats and were at the dock just as showers hit, so we stayed there a while and heard, but didn’t see, the airbus take off over us. Perhaps some other day we’ll get a shot of that takeoff.
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