Thursday (Thanksgiving!) in St Maarten

I think that's how you spell St Maarten? Josh, Paige, Lindsay, Andrew and Laurel took a water taxi to a cute little plaza with shopping, but since there was promise of sun we jumped in a taxi and went to the French side of the island, to Orient Beach.
We approached from a high, winding road, and the descent to the beach was gorgeous. This beach was in a really nice part of the island...beautiful homes nestled in lush green hills, overlooking pristine aqua water.






Josh and Andrew really enjoyed the water. Vendors were kind of annoying though -- they kept approaching our blanket and trying to sell us stuff. We came up with a solution...whenever one of us spotted a vendor, they gave the warning, and we all suddenly preteneded we were sleeping. HAHA - it worked! :)

We left the beach around 3, and headed back to the shopping area near the pier. We found a vendor selling cold beers for a buck!

Did a bit of souvenier shopping and headed back to the ship.



   

Gram had a good idea to meet before dinner in a lounge for a Thanksgiving drink.


 
The menu that night did in fact have turkey! The maitre'd sat all ten of us together for the holiday, which was really nice.