Calypso! Carnival! Regattas! On St. Maarten

Calypso! Carnival! Regattas! On St. Maarten
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The planes get smaller, the Antilles get lesser, the Carib beat gets more distinct, the further you fly into the Caribbean's Windward Islands.

I love the Caribbean, especially during Carnival, and my new party central discovery is Dutch Sint. Maarten, the crossroads of the Greater and Lesser Antilles. St. Martin holds 29,000 French souls on 20 square miles of volcanic rock, while 37,000 people share 17 square miles on the Dutch side of Sint Maarten. As a demarcation of meridians, ths island counts 82 nationalities as citizens, including Haitian, American, German, African, European, Canadian, Guyana, and all other Carib island people. With this diverse mix, no wonder the island's music is a conglomerate of polyglot sounds. Everyone seems to turn out for Carnival, and many turn in late, or not at all.

Even though I spent only one week at Carnival out of the 17 days of non-stop beat, from April to early May in 2002, I grooved into the spirit like music notes on a score sheet.

Compared to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Sint Maarten is a laid back vibe with an ease of moving around, except when gargantuan, two-story towers of speakers, called tractor trailer trucks snake down Front Street.

Our jetted-in contingent of revelers gazed with awe at the Grand Carnival Parade from the balcony of the famous Bearden Art Gallery on Front Street. We had a box seat and could reach out and touch the visible vibration posing as steel band floats "gliding" down the narrow 17th Century avenue like one huge note