Deliciously Dark & Tasty! SXM Sint Maarten

It’s gooey. It resembles tar. It smells wonderfully sweet and coopery. It tickles the tongue with a sweet, almost tangy taste.  It’s a distinct, yet almost indescribable flavor. It’s a key ingredient in many holiday treats. Molasses!

The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word ‘melaco’, which is ultimately derived from ‘mel’, the Latin word for honey. But make no mistake. This is not honey. It’s a far cry from honey, in fact.  Molasses is a great substitute for honey and even maple syrup. Molasses comes, mostly, from sugar cane. The process of creating molasses actually led to the discovery of rum! But that’s a whole other story! Let’s stick to the deliciously dark wonders of molasses.

The pressing of cane to produce cane juice and then boiling the juice until it crystallized was developed in India as early as 500 B.C. However, it was slow to move to the rest of the world. In the Middle Ages, Arab invaders brought the process to Spain. A century or so later, Christopher Columbus brought sugar cane to the West Indies. Another two hundred years later, sugar cane cuttings were planted in New Orleans. Molasses figured prominently in the infamous slave trade triangles of the late seventeenth century. English rum was sold to African slave traders who brought slaves to the West Indies and then brought West Indian molasses back to England.

In the sugar cane processing plant, extraction can be done in one of two ways: diffusion or milling. The sugar cane stalks are loaded onto conveyer belts and subjected to hot water sprays to remove dirt and other field debris. Then, they are passed under rotating knife blades that cut the stalk into short pieces or shreds. By the diffusion method, the cut stalks are dissolved in hot water or lime juice. In the milling process, the stalks are passed under several successive heavy rollers, which squeeze the juice out of the cane pulps. Water is sprayed throughout the process to facilitate the dissolving of the juice.  Locals and many visitors to the Caribbean and other islands have long enjoyed the taste of fresh sugar cane juice made by a hand turned mill or press. Just imagine that on a larger scale. Before the creation of harvesting machinery, laborers performed the back-breaking work of cutting and stripping the sugarcane by hand. Mule-driven mills pressed the sugar cane to release the syrup, which was then cooked in large kettles over a fire until thickened.  

The extracted juice is clarified by adding milk of lime and carbon dioxide. Hold on…what is ‘milk of lime’, you ask? It may not be what you’re thinking. Milk of lime is used in the clarification process. Essentially burnt limestone rock, it is produced in the factory by heating lime rock in a super heated over or kiln. The lime rock is then mixed with sweet water—a byproduct of a previous clarification process. Carbon dioxide is released in the lime milk process. It is purified in tanks and also used in to clarify the sugar juice.  The juice is piped into a decanter, heated and mixed with lime. The juice passes through carbon filters, producing a mud-like substance. Called carb juice, this mud is pumped through a heater and then to a clarifying machine. Here the mud settles to the bottom and the clear juice is piped to yet another heater and treated again with carbon dioxide. Once again the mud is filtered out, leaving a pale yellow liquid called thin juice. The juice is pumped into an evaporator that boils the juice until the water dissipates and the syrup remains. The syrup is concentrated through several stages of vacuum boiling, a low temperature boil to avoid scorching the syrup. Eventually, the sugar crystallizes out of the syrup, creating a substance called massecuite. The massecuite is poured into a centrifuge to further separate the raw sugar crystals from the syrup. In the centrifuge, the sugar crystals fall away from the syrup that is being spun at a significant force. This remaining syrup is molasses, and it is forced out through holes in the centrifuge. The molasses is piped to large storage tanks. It is then pumped, as needed, to the bottling machine where pre-measured amounts of molasses are poured into bottles moving along a conveyer belt.

Crazy molasses fact: The Great Boston Molasses Tragedy!*

THE DATE was January 15, 1919, a Wednesday. It was about half-past noon. In Boston's industrial North End, folks were going about their business as usual. Only one small detail seemed out of the ordinary, and that was the temperature — unseasonably warm, in the mid-40s, up from a frigid two degrees above zero just three days before. The sudden thaw had lifted everyone's spirits. To anyone who was out on the street that day, it scarcely seemed a harbinger of disaster. But trouble was brewing fifty feet above street level in the form of a cast-iron tank containing two-and-a-half million gallons of crude molasses. The molasses, owned by the United States Industrial Alcohol Company, was slated to be made into rum, but this particular batch would never make it to the distillery. At about 12:40 p.m. the giant tank ruptured, emptying its entire contents into Commercial Street in the space of a few seconds. The result was nothing less a flash flood consisting of millions of gallons of sweet, sticky, deadly goo. The Boston Evening Globe published a description based on eyewitness accounts later that day:

Fragments of the great tank were thrown into the air, buildings in the neighborhood began to crumple up as though the underpinnings had been pulled away from under them, and scores of people in the various buildings were buried in the ruins, some dead and others badly injured. The explosion came without the slightest warning. The workmen were at their noontime meal, some eating in the building or just outside, and many of the men in the Department of Public Works Buildings and stables, which are close by, and where many were injured badly, were away at lunch. Once the low, rumbling sound was heard no one had a chance to escape. The buildings seemed to cringe up as though they were made of pasteboard.

The bulk of the devastation was caused by a "wall of molasses" at least eight feet high — 15, according to some bystanders — which rushed through the streets at a speed of 35 miles per hour. It demolished entire buildings, literally ripping them off their foundations. It upended vehicles and buried horses. People tried to outrun the torrent, but were overtaken and either hurled against solid objects or drowned where they fell. More than 150 people were injured. 21 were killed.

The story  isn't an urban legend per se, though there is a longstanding folk belief associated with it: On hot, summer days in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston, they say, a faint, sickeningly-sweet odor wafts up from cracks in the pavement — the stench of 85-year-old molasses....

*{Story courtesy of http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/historical/a/molasses_flood.htm}

What ever happened to Manners? SXM Sint Maarten

I am trying to ask this politely as, lately, I’m seeing less and less manners and common courtesy on our little rock. I recently went to the movie and was sorely reminded as to why I don’t go that often. People have gotten so rude and discourteous. I had the distinct displeasure of having 2 young women (I refuse to call them ladies) sit directly behind me and began chatting throughout the entire movie. Added insult was the constant kicking to the back of my chair. Now, I realize it’s only $6 to go to the movies, but what gave these women the impression that their $6 was more important than mine? They were asked, rather patiently, by other patrons to stop talking. After the 3^rd request, one woman’s cell phone began ringing. Seriously? After enduring about 2 minutes of the phone conversation, I then lost my patients and told her to shut up. I received as response a loud teeth suck. Wonderful. Such charm. There is no such thing as a ‘good’ movie experience on this island.  Another couple, sitting in my row was just as annoying, as the young woman kept constantly complaining as to how cold it was in the movie. True, it was cold, but does a constant stream of complaints change the situation? Either get up and alert the Cinema staff or close your mouth. Besides the incessant giggling of the 2 woman and the complaining woman, add into the mix the unsupervised children rampaging about the theater. Again: SERIOUSLY? Where are their parents? Could the parents be watching the G rated movie while their kids are wandering through R rated movies? Again, is my money not worth as much as their money? Do I not have the same rights to get what I paid for? I did not pay to attend a daycare. If you can’t get a sitter for your kids, don’t go out. It’s rather simple. Children require making sacrifices, but not at other people’s expense. And where were the staff of the cinema? Shouldn’t the doors of the theaters be monitored? As for the ‘adults’ in the movies: respect the others around. Everyone paid to see a movie and enjoy themselves. Who are you to ruin someone else’s experience? Who are you to believe you are more important, that your money is worth more. If you can’t keep you mouth shut and your phone off, rent a DVD.

What is a mega yacht? SXM Sint Maarten

People move to the railing, eyes wide, cameras at the ready. Slowly they come, moving forward cautiously through the narrow channel. Oohs and Ahhs can be heard as first one, then another maneuver through the bridge. Cameras go off, people cheer and applaud. It can be consider a national past time in St. Maarten to gather at the Simpson Bay Bridge at 5:3O to raise a glass, daily, to the villas of the sea. The Mega Yachts are back!

Each November marks the beginning of High Season in the Caribbean. The rich, famous and infamous flock to our sandy, sun kissed shores to play in the emerald and indigo waves and to enjoy the wonderful Caribbean climate. Fresh from the Mediterranean summer season, they come on their yachts. Not just any yachts but MEGA yachts.

So what defines a mega yacht? The name ‘mega yacht’ started showing up around the beginning of the 20th century when the super rich began constructing large private yachts for personal pleasure. Examples of early luxury motor yachts include the Cox & King yachts, M/Y (motor yacht) Christina O and M/Y Savarona. Early luxury sailing yachts include Americas Cup classic J class racers like S/Y (sailing yacht) Endeavour and Sir Thomas Lipton's S/Y Shamrock.

There are several different explanations/definitions for mega yacht. Some people consider a boat to be a mega yacht by length, of displacement, or of cost, but it depends on who you talk to. One thing most people seem to agree on is that yacht can be classified as ‘mega’ based on size. Generally any yacht over one hundred feet in length and made with high standards and top quality materials. That’s the simplest way to begin describing a mega yacht. From there, the definitions get a little watery, but there are still general ‘facts’ that qualify yachts as ‘mega’.

Mega yachts are usually privately owned. Some are used exclusively by their private owners, while others are operated part-time or year-round as charter businesses. A large private yacht charter can range from a few tens of thousands of dollars to nearly over a million dollars for one week.  For these high fees, you get a unique experience unlike any other. These yachts are often referred to as floating villas or homes.  Just about anything you can imagine can be found on a ‘mega’, depending on the size of the vessel. What you find onboard these yachts can blow the mind away: helicopters, swimming pools, spas, basketball courts, movie theaters, concert halls, floating golf courses; what an owner decides to put on board is limited only by their imagination. These floating villas also have the advantage of taking passengers to destinations otherwise unreachable by any other means. Mega yachts typically have no real home port, although a yacht must be registered in a port of the country of which it flies the flag. Many times the yacht will have never been to the port!

More recently, over the last decade or two, there has been an increase in the number and popularity of large private luxury yachts, over 24 metres. The number of very large yachts has increased rapidly since the 1990s and increasingly only yachts above around 65 metres (213 ft) stand out among other luxury yachts. Yachts of this size are almost always built to individual commissions and cost tens of millions of dollars! And believe it or not, most super-yachts cost far more than their owners' homes on land, even though those homes are likely to be among the largest and most desirable. Makes it no surprise the owners book charters. Have to pay for those Megas!

As the world's wealthiest compete to keep up with one another, large private yachts are reaching colossal size. Many yacht builders are taking orders for super large mega boats well over 400 feet, 122 meters. Wherever you look today, yachts are straining to escape the bounds of gravity and even at times credibility, and as we try to wrap our minds around these trends, the word that comes to mind isn't super, or mega, but GIGA! These private giants of the seas have begun resembling cruise ships in miniature. A giga yacht is a vessel of 1OO metres of more. That’s over 328 feet! It boggles the mind! Though still fairly rare, giga yachts are getting to be a more common sight. The very largest yachts have begun to incorporate such features as helicopter hangars, indoor swimming pools and even miniature submarines!

What in the name of the High Seas is going on in the yachting world? Big yachts getting bigger-so big they're housing submarines? Big yachts looking like small yachts-enormous versions of what are essentially open and express cruisers. Yards and builders are getting bigger. Heck, even owners are getting bigger, with larger-than-life characters that span the spectrum from American and Arab and Russian and Chinese. Big yachts are getting bigger. I’m not just talking about size, but the price tag gets bigger as well! When you go from 150 feet to 300 feet, it is not twice the yacht, but closer to six times as large in terms of interior volume, tonnage, complexity and cost.

St. Maarten’s waters were recently graced by the one of, if not THE most expensive yacht in the world. The yacht ‘A’, which some said resembled everything from a capsized cruise ship to a submarine, has a price tag of $3OO million dollars. No, that is not a typo. That’s right! The "A" was designed by French architect Philippe Starck and Martin Francis, and built at the Blohm + Voss shipbuilding yard in Hamburg, Germany. It is owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko. The yacht includes, among other things: a disco, several pools, lots of Baccarat crystal, a love nook, a helipad and state of the art security. A's trimmings also include six guest suites with moving walls to create four larger suites, each with a stainless-steel whirlpool bath. The master bedroom, located at the top of the watchtower, contains an enormous bed that rotates on a turntable for a panoramic view out all the windows. A also has a hovercraft, a garage, over 100 audio speakers, and more than a dozen plasma TV screens, many of which can be mistaken for mirrors. A's indoors include doors unlocked by electronic finger pads, spotlights, and motion sensors! Ok, take a moment to catch your breath!

Though, for most of us, owning a mega/giga yacht is the stuff of dreams and fantasies, we can still look out our windows and gaze upon them on a nearly daily basis, every high season, letting out dreams set sail on the seas!