I just wanted to call something to your attention regarding the history of this forum.
It came about primarily because of Gert trying to provide a forum for information sharing after our famous hurricane Luis.
That's why he also has stormcarib.com, which is for the entire Caribbean.
Gert's wife Annemarieke grew up on St. Maarten and she has a business called GoBeach Vacations.
You can find the link at the bottom of the page.
She represents many nice villas on SXM and other islands.
This web site was, if I am correct, set up for her business.
As you know, Gert accepts no advertising. So he, or maybe the GoBeach Vacations business, pays for all of our chatter.
I am telling you all this so we can be considerate of that fact, and realize, that a very nice family is hosting us, and therefore we should treat this place and our hosts with respect.
and please let's not post a lot of unnecessary BS.
every word we post costs Gert.
So maybe we all can just keep this in mind.
Have fun, and ,maybe if anyone needs a villa, check out the GoBeach Vacation pages.
thanks

Gert, I hope you don't mind that I posted this.

[barcann.livejournal.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2008 11:14AM by Barbara1.

Don't mind you posted it at all - it is very important that people know that this board is out of the heart of a gentleman and his family. Known that from the start.

Thanks for posting that Barbara.

This forum actually started after Lenny in 1999. People kept hanging around on the Pleas for Help board of the [stormcarib.com] website. When the next hurricane season came along, and I needed the Pleas for Help forum for its original purpose, we had to decide to either close the forum or continue it elsewhere. That's when we moved it here.

My [stormcarib.com] website was definitely inspired by Luis. Back in 1995 there wasn't much internet. [Gobeach.com] was one of the first with general St.Maarten/St.Martin island information. So my wife got inundated by e-mail from worried people. The next year I started 'The Hurricane Page' where we posted what we heard was going on on the island. Then people from other islands started contacting me with information so it became the Caribbean Hurricane Network. Now I have over one hundred 'special hurricane correspondents' on most of the islands who report on the website. Out of principle I don't want to make any money of other people's misery, so I won't put any ads on.

Regarding the costs of this forum, as long as we don't go over our quota it doesn't cost anything extra. It is not like the hurricane website where I can get millions of hits per day. So don't worry about it, post freely. I happily donate my time to monitor and do the maintenance and upgrades to keep this forum running smoothly.

Gert

Thank you Gert it's a wonderful board ...

I remember way back when I first discovered this site. It was right after the hurricane hit and I was so appreciative of having this site to keep posted on what was happening on the island. Because of this site, we decided to keep our trip intact 2 weeks after the devastation and truthfully, it was not only one of the best trips we ever had but we were both happy to help the economy of the island when so many were turning their backs and going elsewhere.

I have not frequented this site for some time, mainly because unfortunately there came a time a few years ago when uncalled for disruptions began to hit too close to home and so out of disgust, left. But I am glad to see that things have righted themselves and that the information people ask for is coming to them without having to filter out the thoughts of a few, shall I be polite by saying, "insane" people.

Thanks Gert, as well as the monitor(s) for doing a good job!