St Maarten 16 April 2012

St Maarten is great it has a Dutch side and a French side. We checked in with immigration on the French - much cheaper. We also anchored on the French side because it costs nothing and on the Dutch side you pay $ 20 just to put your anchor down and then I do not know how much but you pay so much per foot length of your boat on top. You can see where the border is because there are no more boats. Looks funny. After we checked in we walked around the French part which does look very French with narrow streets and lovely water front restaurants. Great bakeries. We also walked around the markets and found the fruit and veggies not that good and very expensive. My friends wanted to walk on but I asked this friendly looking lady why it was so expensive. 'all imported we do not grow anything here'. I then asked about the local stuff like cassava or yuca yam and dashe
(not sure how you spell that) she asked if I liked cooking so I told her 'not all that much but we have to eat and I might as well learn to cook what is from here'. Then she asked if I had read 'an embarrassment of mangoes'. This book is famous here because the woman wrote it about their 2 year cruise in a sail boat from The US to Trinidad with all their problems. She also gave some recipes of local food. I have this book and also know that she written a second one called Spice necklace. Now this woman Olive from the market is in this new book and showed me a magazine with her and the new book in it. Why I had to meet her I do not know but it certainly made my day