The "The Ice Cream Boat" Story

Riding the ferry to Pinel Island.

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting in the front row on a lounge chair with a beach umbrella providing the shade.  Carol and I decided to make a visit to one of our favorite spots while on the island of St. Martin.  A few hundred yards off beautiful Orient Beach is a small spit of land known as Pinel Island.  

View of Pinel from the ferry boat.

We have been making visits for many years to the island to relax on the white sand beach and take a dip in the clear blue water that is only waist high for close to fifty feet from the shoreline.  The island is uninhabited except for the many iguanas that make their home in the small hills on the island.  Every trip to the island finds us walking to the top of the island to snap a photograph from the same location so we can compare the shoreline from year to year.  

The spit of land where the beach is located can be seen
from the top of the island.

Sand in the nearby channel changes the beach from year to year and its interesting to see the changes each year.  Beach chairs and umbrellas are for rent as your ferry boat arrives at the dock and food is available at a nearby restaurant which brings food supplies daily by boat to the island.  In recent years we have found one new addition in the form of a small boat with a colorful sign across the top of it which reads "Ice Cream Boat."  It is St. Martin's seagoing rendition of a United States Mister Softee Truck.  

Lily and her Ice Cream Boat.

The young woman that runs the ice cream boat is named Lily.  Most days we visit she can be found in the shallows around Pinel Island.  Lily was a resident of Normandy, France before she decided to set sail and see the world.  She eventually found her way to the French side of St. Martin where she settled and bought a Mako boat that she rigged with solar panels to power the sub-zero freezer that she uses to keep her products cold.  What makes it so nice for adults as well as children is that she can bring her boat close to shore and everyone can reach the boat since the water in usually no more than three feet deep.  

Food is being prepared at the restaurant while
the iguana waits for a scrap of food from the cook.

You know she has arrived when you hear her horn blow.  Lily got her idea for the ice cream boat after seeing much the same thing along the Mediter- ranean as she began her world travels a few years ago.  Her ice cream is local so you get to experience local products when you buy from her.  She enjoys making her visits to Pinel, but would someday like to sail to Tahiti.  When Hurricane Irma struck in 2017 everyone wondered if and when she would return to Pinel Island, but when the beach chairs returned to the island, she was right behind them looking for customers.  One day she will get the urge to explore again and we will have to do without our afternoon treat from the St. Martin Ice Cream Boat.  But, for now, my afternoon treat of ice cream is still intact.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.