Last night we had a major squall, which was nice as it cleaned off the boat but again reminded us we have 3 leaking windows which i really need to try to do something about. the weather was not looking good for the 4th of july parade and we thought it might be canceled but we still headed in to grab a bloody marry and coffee at our favorite restaurant and plan our lunch. as we sipped our drinks the weather began to break so we headed to the naked bar to watch the parade. around 11am the sun came out and the parade came by. alas no pictures but envision a san fran sort of naked parade event but with red white and blue and american flags. of course we joined in waving our flags and singing the star spangled banner, yankee doodle and america the beutiful as we marched off the naked beach and by a slew of confused tourists. a few people where handing out flags and by the time we made the return trip we had most of the beach waving american flags and cheering us on. it did take aimee a bit of time to get into the “spirit” of the event but by the end of the parade she was waving away with the best of them
we ended up back at andy and cheryl’s just as the rain came in. we dashed in and decided on the buffalo shrimp salad with grlic bread. again another huge winner. this place may be our best restaurant in st marteen or the Caribbean for that matter. after lunch i was ready to head back to “town” for a change of pace and some more fuel. we got a bit ponded getting out of the bay but then settled in for a nice downwind sail. this was good as i estimated we had 5 to 8 gal of fuel remaining.
we anchored in our favorite spot right of the beach and headed in for the bridge opening happy hour at the yacht club. in the good old days there would be a stream of mega yachts, today we got one sailing “boat”. after giving our american flags to 3 young american guys we met at the bar (one Chinese one black and one puerto rican you have to love america) we thought we would swing by jimbos for wings. this place was dead too and while we where eating our wings and taco we got hit by an nice size EARTHQUAKE. being from california i have a lot of practice in earth quack proceeders so we held down our margaritas with one hand and braced our selves on the bar stools with the other until the shacking passed. is was a pretty good one, not sure the strength but as strong as i’ve had
at this point the sun was just setting so we decided to call it a day and head back to relax on palapa. alas we had one final bit of excitement coming our way. just after we pulled up to palapa we where boarded by the dutch coast guard! of course we where both naked as we where preparing for an evening swim. i grabbed a towel and aimee grabbed a sarong as they jumped aboard. they asked us how long we had been here and i told them we had just arrived from the naked parade at orient bay and where still checked into france. they did not seem too worried about this. we chatted a bit and finally i asked why they where there. they said something about we should where more cloths i responded “now you are just messing with us”. i never did figure it exactly why they came but eventually they left with me telling them we where going to the french side as it was too expensive to check into the netherlands. i am guessing they where just board.
and you can blame aimee for the photo of me!
Cheers Roger
