Colin and Cecile Travels

  St. Thomas, the final stop on our cruise before returning to Puerto Rico to fly home. Not my favorite on the cruise. The island is very upscale, and the tour was primarily consisting of retail therapy. We did go to the "Mountain Top" where the Banana and Strawberry Daquiri reportedly first created. Afternoon packing everything back up for disembarkation. Lots of sailboats in the harbor near us Lots of vey high end Yachts here.  This one on the end is actually for sale and it could be yours for a mere $199 Million as we headed up the mountain we could see another cruise ship coming  in to park next to us. In another part of the port, they park the Mega Cruise ships, the one here  is Royal Caribbean and the one coming in to join them was Celebrity From the mountaintop you can see several other islands including St. John and  St Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands), Tortola, Little Tobago, Great Tobago, Jost Van  Dyke (British Virgin Islands) and a number of smaller islands and Cays

Another wonderful Day in St Maarten. We took off on a special tour today, after a little sightseeing on the way we went to Toppers Rhum Distillery (Dutch still use the H in Rhum). We learned all about making and bottling Rum. Our Guide (Dutch Girl) Explaining the process of making Rum These six Flavors (Banana Vanilla Cinnamon, White Chocolate Raspberry, Coconut, Mocha Mama, Caribbean White, and Spiced) are shipped to the U.S. and sold through their distributor in the U.S. Total Wine and More. They actually make 100 different flavors, but you can only get the others on the Island. Into the Kitchen where they prepared chicken marinated in Coconut Rum with pineapple, sant & pepper and a little chili powder. YUM. They also make Gelato and several have rum in them. Our Chicken dish More samples, we got 25 of these ( this was White Chocolate Raspberry and Spiced Rum) Sample of White Chocolate Raspberry Rum Gelato...OMG The six flavors that are exported, are made in larger quantities

The smallest landmass in the world that is ruled by two separate nations.  St Maarten and the port of Philipsburg, the capital of the Dutch side is where most of the cruise ships come in.  The Dutch side (16 Sq Miles) is officially part of the Netherlands and the people are dutch citizens.  The French Side (23 Sq. Miles) is a French colony and the people are French Citizens. People of this Island are citizens of the EU so they can freely travel to and work in Europe.  The island took a direct from Hurricane Irma in 2016 then again by Hurricane Marie in 2017,  You can still see a lot of the devastation caused by the Hurricanes. Of course as soon as they started to recover Covid 19 Hit. Beautiful Oyster Bay Resort While we were looking at the beach and guys getting ready to kite surf, the wind came up and we had cloud cover and rain in about 5 minutes.  It poured for a short time then it was sunny and clear again. Kite Surfers On the French side of the island we visited the main city of