Another day in paradise!  We woke up around 7:30 and actually hit the road within an hour!  Our first stop was the town of Marigot, capital of the French side of the island, for a bite of breakfast.  Again, we were really struck at the cultural differences between the two sides - while St. Maarten was almost completely Americanized; French St. Marten had the patois of a tropical France.  In town, the local women dressed and looked just like those you would see in Paris (or on the Riviera).  The frustrating thing, though, was that I wanted (and was in desperate need of) to practice my French.  And more often than not, they'd politely shut down my attempts at butchering French.  Of course, this didn't stop me from trying!

After breakfast at place called Mango! Mango! (a block away from the Post Office) that was quite yummy, and a quick stop off at the grocery store for picnic supplies, we hit the road north to Cul de Sac.  At the very end of the road, there is a small dock for the ferry out to Islet Pinel, off the northeast coast of St. Martin.  The ferry ($6/€5 per person, but free for Victoria) to Islet Pinel was anything BUT glamorous and we were crowded in like sardines, but it was safe and we were there within ten minutes. 

If you're on the St. Martin and are looking for a place to spend the day, I highly recommend Pinel.  For the most part, it's undeveloped - a couple of restaurant shacks and that's about it.  Whomever owns the island, though, has done a nice job with providing services including chairs and umbrellas, "chair-side" food service, an island boutique, aquatic rentals, and clearly-marked snorkeling areas.  Although we had brought a picnic lunch with us from Mango Mango, we are definitely of the opinion that next time, we'll just bring some snacks and plan on getting lunch on the island.

One definite plus for Victoria was that there was a lot of kids her age there.  Within five minutes, she was several good friends with some French girls, with lots of running, giggling and jumping in the water despite the fact that they couldn't directly speak with each other.  Later, she and some other girls started a spa of sorts, giving grownups (like lucky Kelley!) water treatments and sand rubdowns, which were apparently as painful as they sound! 

Kelley and I had some wonderful snorkeling off the island.  Although a bit more to see than at Little Bay by our resort, it was still not quite to the expectations I had built up in my head.  We still had a great time and (I think) got some good underwater pictures.  After about 90 minutes, though, we headed in when we saw a large group of tourists from one of the Princess cruise boats coming in to go snorkeling - ugh!

One side note just for feedback purposes.  Like all of the beaches on the French side of St. Martin, this is a topless beach, which caught us a bit off guard.  Although we have been to Europe a number of times, this was our first time on a topless beach.  Within a few minutes, I noticed that I quickly adapted a very blasé attitude, that it was very natural and non-sexual.  Yet something more that American Puritanism gets too freaked out about, I guess!

We left the island around 3:30 (the last ferry heads back to the "mainland" at 4:30) and returned to the Divi Resort for showers and a change of clothes for dinner.  We each had some down time, with Victoria reading and doing dot-to-dots, Kelley and Kathie crashing, and me exploring more of our resort.  I mentioned before that our resort looked across the Great Bay to where the cruise ships docked.  I was quite interested to see that the Queen Mary II, one of the largest liners in the world was in port today.  I ventured up to Fort Amsterdam, a 18th century fort at the top of the resort's hill and found a dozen others who were equally curious about this ship that completely dwarfed the other ships and was too big to even get into dock.

We were pretty excited about the possibilities for dinner.  We were heading up to the town of Grand Case, where every Tuesday night they close the main street to auto traffic and load it up with vendors, musicians, and food!  We were in heaven!  We tried to get into Le Cottage, but it was booked up.  We were luckier at Le TasteVin, where we literally got the last table available that evening.  We had a magnificent evening.  The best way to describe how good the food was that the wine we had was a delicious Sancerre from the Loire Valley.  The dishes Kathie and I both had took a good wine and made it delicious with all the flavors in it!  (NOTE - if you're going to Grand Case on Tuesday night, I HIGHLY recommend that you call ahead for a reservation if you want to eat at a specific restaurant).

By the time we got home that evening, it was only 9:00, but we were all totally wiped out.

Tomorrow: Shopping!