St. Maarten Vacation, Day 4

Today started with a trip to the beach (of course) but otherwise mostly revolved around food (not surprising for Mobergs).

We ate midday at the Greenhouse Restaurant and Bar in Simpson Bay on the Dutch side of the island. It is right on the beach, so we were in the mood for seafood and had some tasty dishes, like shrimp with bang bang sauce and even Caribbean conch made into spicy fritters.

Not too far from there, we later took a tour of Topper's Rhum Distillery. We sampled many (very tiny portions, actually) of their flavors of rum, made right on site. They also make gelato, which of course we had to sample, too.

Then we stocked up on groceries and enjoyed seeing the tropical fruits and vegetables and unusual meats and other foods available there.

Our evening meal was at Fat Tony's Smokehouse, a restaurant right next to Abigail's apartment in Cupecoy on the Dutch side. There was live music featuring a vocalist and a steel drum player!

(Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

This has been a typical sight for us at the beach near Abigail's apartment: the girls in the water, boats nearby, incoming planes overhead, and lots of sun and blue skies.

Family photo at the Greenhouse. Notice that Hillary and Abigail's chairs are about two feet away from the sand of the beach!

In this room at Topper's, an employee shared with us a history of their business specifically and of the island's rum industry overall. She also told us that we clearly are related to one another!

The employee asked for volunteers to help serve rum and food samples for one stage of the tour ... so we volunteered Abigail.

Hillary and I are pretending to pose for a photo at supper, but really Susan wanted a photo of the steel drum player behind us.