Divi Little Bay Wedding...elegant!

The photographer at this afternoon's wedding had great light...rich blues and greens and long shadows.   It was easy to get shots of the photo shoot, right in front of our unit.

After a few minutes, the bride hitched up her skirts and they were off. The smile on he face is for the groom, just out of the frame behind the wedding planners.

Fort Amsterdam and Divi Little Bay Beach Resort

 Bud and I have been admiring Dot's enthusiasm for taking morning walks up the hill through Divi to the recently restored/refurbished Fort Amsterdam Historical Park. She found all kinds of trails and this morning we asked her to take us on a tour.  After all, in 16 years of Divi ownership, we had never gone beyond the fort itself.  Shame on us!

As we entered the park area, Dot took a sharp right, past the the Brown Pelican Nesting Area and entered a trail that soon turned into a steep, overgrown paved road--a surprise!

At the bottom of the road, we came to a rocky beach piled with serious rubble. The remains of a large dock were half in and half out of the water. apparently this area was used as a supply route either to the fort when it was a signal/communications station (through 1985) or perhaps to Divi. In any case, it's been rendered useless by hurricanes---no doubt 1995's Luis had something to do with it.

The shore might be disused, but the water was busy this morning. Here you see diving concessions, a sailing excursion heading into Little Bay, a military landing craft on manuevers, and in the distance the island of Saba and the Rotterdam, still on patrol in the region.

Aside from the walls of the fort (first built in 1631 by the Dutch, then conquered by the Spanish, then back to the Dutch in 1648), there are a few buildings...the most dramatic of which is the Signal Station, just below the crown of the hill. It was used as a military and then civilian communications post through 1985.

Sloping fields run below the fort on all sides. Well-worn paths run throughout.  Here Dot is leading us east towards Great Bay.  You can see the cruise ship at Philipsburg's new cruise port.

This path ends in an overlook--the chairs are often occupied by people who are just enjoying the view--but historical markers are ever-present in case you want to delve into local history.

Around the corner, the path ended abruptly at the top of a cliff, but still provided a good view of Philipsburg and Great Bay.

You can also turn about and head west around the point.  The paths stick fairly close to the edge of the cliffs, so you have to be careful.

And you're right on the edge of the Brown Pelican's nesting area (protected May-November). They are the national bird and are always fun to watch.

Turning west, you can see over the tops of some of the Divi timeshare buildings to Little Bay. The low building is the end of the Divi Resort (foremerly hotel rooms, now timeshare unit) and the higher, scallop-roofed building is Belair Beach Resort--more timeshares, and with a very loyal following. We've met several owners.

As you come down out of the fort and head back through Divi, you can take a left and stop at the Infinity Pool with it's new hot tub.  Divi has been making great strides recently to improve the resort's amenities.

 Down on the main Beach at Divi, you can now rent everything from kayaks to ski-doos and Hobie Cats.

The beach has always been one of our favorites...plain and simple.

Shooter still at large, but we go back to the French side to make perfume anyway!

Earlier in the week we had all signed up for a class in perfume making at Tijon in Grand Case--yes, over on the French side not that far from where the shooting was.

At Tijon (part perfumerie, part classroom/lab, part upscale boutique selling island-made items) all was calm and owners Cyndi and John Berglund were ready for us.

John started out with a very lively and informative lecture on the history of perfumes and how they are designed and made.  He talked a lot about aromatic oils (natural and synthetic),how they combine to produce pleasant and lasting scents and how our olfactory sense works. He threw in very cool facts like our sense of smell is the only sense fully developed at birth, and that perfumes don't last as long on blondes as they do on brunettes.

Tijon has a 300-oil "organ" with distillations of everything from coconut to wysteria (one of my favorites).

The idea was that we would learm a bit about the types of "notes" or depth of scent/oil. Base, middle and top "notes" or scents each play a different role in making a perfume last, have distinctive character and complexity.

We each got a lab station, a workbook, beakers and pipettes for mixing oils and trays for selecting and transporting oils from the organ.

 We could use the pre-mixed recipes, classified as citrus, earthy, oriental, floral and so on. We could also work from scratch or ask John to look up our own favorite commercial perfume recipes and pick some of those scents.  That was my choice--I have loved Fragonard's Soliel since we first visited their factory in the south of France in the late 1990's. I needed jasmine, orange, lily and wysteria for starters.


The champagne flutes you see are used for a toast to our successful completion of the class (you can also choose one as a souvenier--Bud and I now have a matching pair).

How professional do we look?  See how neat our work stations are?

This is after we've been working an hour or so!

We each ended up with our own scents (John and Cyndi keep the recipe in case you'd like to re-order), named (I called mine "Breeze" after the Caribbean breezes--light, a bit floral, a bit citrus)), bottled and labeled. You also get a gift basket of product samples as well as a bottle of one of the perfumes they have developed.

As much as the guys fussed about "being dragged" to Tijon, they got into it and each came away with very manly and nice colognes.

We decided NOT to go to Cul de Sac for lunch and headed instead for this open-air restaurant above Orient Beach (way, way above the nude beach).

How's this for a view of St. Bart's, Galeon Baie and the Bayside Riding Club--where Bud and I rode horseback on the beach for my article in the USAirways Inflight Magazine.

As a side note on the shooting, the newspaper account said the shooter had not been caught yet (we did see a number of gendarmes doing what seemed to be checking license plates today). It also said the victim was 30 years old.

John and Cyndi told us the "coconut telegraph"  (local rumor mill) had the shooting as a 8-month pregnant woman who was shot trying to avoid a robbery, with no word on whether her baby had been saved. How far from the truth can you get???

Too funny!

The French side--we witness a shooting and spend the afternoon with gendarmes!

Today started out on Plan B.  We were going to Anguilla, but the day began with rain and clouds.  What to do....?

We decided to go to Marigot on the French side for brunch anyway, but when we got there, the cruise ship crowds were a  bit overwhelming.  So Plan C...off to Grand Case to find a waterfront restaurant, but now for lunch.

But Grand Case restaurants were slow to open and on the pricey side.  Last year most were doing 1-for-1 Euros to dollars, but not this year.  So Bud suggested going to Au Grain du Sel (The Grain of Salt) in Cul de Sac, still on the French side. They have wonderful French pizza and a nice, funky decor. Steve and Noreen may remember it from last year. This is now Plan D.

We got there and waited a bit for the owner to surface, then settled at a round table in front of the open windows overlooking the street and two other restaurants on the opposite side of the street...Panchos and Ti Bouchon. There was a small house in between them.

As we were waiting, we could hear arguing from outside and saw one man on the steps of the house in between the restaurants, and another on our side of the street. They both had machetes and were gesturing and yelling in Spanish.  The man on the steps picked up a rock and motioned like he was going to throw it, and the man on our side of the street ducked behind some bushes and came out with a shotgun.

In a moment he raised the shotgun (with a sawed off stock) and shot at the man across the street. We could see the pellets hit the house. A car backed out from behind the bushes, did a reverse turn, and the guy with the shotgun pushed the driver into the passenger's seat, jumped in and they took off towards Marigot. Rich was snapping pics, and while he didn't catch the shot itself, he did get clear shot of the getway car--including the license plate.

Bud ran across the street to see what happened and found that the man had been shot in the right side and was lying on the floor. You can see the shotgun pellets in the yellow wall.

Pretty soon the gendarmes arrived.

As soon as they found out we witnessed the shooting and Rich had a picture, they wanted to see it and hear what we saw.

Pretty soon a crowd gathered and the ambulance and EMT's arrived.

We were glad to see the man was still alive when they transported him to the hospital.

Meantime, our pizza was ready.  We sat down to lunch and started chatting with the owner (though he spoke primarily French).  We learned that the man shot was one of a number of immigrants from the Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo) and had 14 wives (yes, 14!) and many children. He said before they came the area of Cul de Sac was "tranquil et calme"--very peaceful

The gendarmes came in to ask us more questions.

Then they asked if we would come to the Gendarmerie at La Savane and let them download some pictures and take a statement.  This took a while--translation issues and also they were very insistent on getting every possible detail. But they were both cheerful and professional.They wrote out the statement in French, then translated. Rich was the one with the photo, so he signed.



I took this shot of some evidence bags lying on the desk--sealed with old-fashioned sealing wax!

In all it was an exciting afternoon. I was impressed with the gendarmes.  They thanked us very much and said "We will get this man, thanks to you."

Tomorrow we will try for a more typical vacation day.

Life at Divi Little Bay Beach Resort...lazy!

Again I have to aplogize for neglecting my blog. I could fib and say it's because we have been racing around the island on excursions...but I can't lie. We've been relaxing and have slipped into a happy state of langour. Naps and sun. Sun and naps--though we do workouts or tennis at least every other day.

We've been thinking a lot about our 16 years of timeshare ownership here at Divi and talking to other owners who've owned even longer than we have. It feels good to see such a loyal membership--especially when we hear of problems at other timeshares around the island. We are happy here!

The resort is in fine shape now and we're inspired to use more of it.  I had a terrific facial at our Indulgence by the Sea Spa. We've been playing tennis on the refurbished courts--they even have night lights, though we are usually at the casinos after dark.

The pool above Gizmo's Bar is still one of our favorites. It has great shade and now even has two hot tubs. Bud likes it for reading the morning paper.

Each week they have a Manager's Cocktail Party at Gizmo's with live music, local vendors for jewlery and such and complimentary wine.  Bud and Dot sharing a glass...!



Just as the party was getting into swing, a whale was spotted in Little Bay.  We've seen them before, but were too late to catch this one.  Here the two interns form Holland are anxious get a glimpse...no luck! The whale didn't stick around.

We also missed the arrival of the HNLMS Rotterdam for her tour of regional duty on Saturday morning.  This is Rotterdam Class amphibious warship that helps patrol the area. She has a fully-equipped hospital and desalination plant and a huge deck for landing helicopters. There was an offical welcoming ceremony, complete with 21-gun salute and visiting dignitaries up at Fort Amsterdam. Dot got the announcement and made up to see the festivities (and also found this info online---thanks!). Bud and I slept through the whole thing--even the firing of the guns.

Three days later, the Rotterdam is still in port.  She looks a little odd next to all the cruise ships!

We've also been enjoying restaurants...I'll post some info and our (expert?) reviews later in the week. Tomorrow we'll head to Anguilla--something we have been saying we'll do for a good 15 years!