We walked along the Boardwalk in town, which leads directly to the beach, the whole place reminds you of European resorts in places like Tenerife, and not for the good points!!  Cruise days are a bit of a pain, you get hassled everywhere with touts trying to get you into shops, which are the same in all the cruise dock areas in all the islands, and trying to sell a taxi tour of the island, very annoying.  What would probably be great for the cruise passengers was a nightmare for us and we only stayed a couple of hours, and despite all the shops selling jewellery and designer bits and pieces, we only bought 3 wire brushes and some deep heat cream for my still sore back!!

There is more bad weather coming in over the next few day, nothing to worry about, just some higher than normal winds about 25-30 miles an hour, and some fairly hefty swells so we have saved a few boat jobs as we might be stranded on board for a couple of days.  All forecasts say we should be clear by the weekend though.  

Tomorrow we are going early to Marigot the French side to do some food shopping, we went on a provisioning trip today but the cost was unbelievable and the choice very poor - you have to check the prices on everything over here as odd things, usually the ones you least expect, are horrifically expensive.  We will also have a look round the town area as it was largely closed when we were there on Sunday.  As it is now getting close to Xmas, we have decided to stay here as we can't leave until Friday at the earliest, and that is getting a bit late to go to a strange place and get organised, as most places will be shut from Friday night until after the holiday weekend.

Another thing here is the language barrier - not the Dutch language, but the American!  I had an interesting time trying to find dustbins the other day - one wag wanted to know if I had an especially large amount of dust!!  Eventually, and it pains me to say it - I had to asked where the garbage cans were!  If you ask for the toilet in a bar they look at you as if you are speaking a different language, and you can forget about finding a petrol station - they don't exist anywhere!!

  The Boardwalk and beach area of downtown Phillipsburg

  A very familiar sign - the Hard Rock Cafe

 This restaurant was tucked into a back street, and looks far more like the Caribbean we are used to.