St Martin’s Ice Cream Boat

After many hours in the sun, after a few too many ti’ punches, you hear it.

There isn’t the traditional Mr. Softee jingle.

It’s more of a high-pitched honk, but it gets your attention.

And that’s important when you’re trying to draw attention away from the turquoise seas and sugar-white sands of Pinel Island off St Martin.

For almost two years, the Ice Cream Boat has been patrolling these waters, offering cones and Magnum bars to tanning travelers and beach goers on the tiny beach bar-covered islet off the coast of Cul de Sac in Saint Martin.

And every time it honks by the sand, it draws a crowd, young and old, enticed by the promise of cold ice cream and

It’s part of a welcome trend in the Caribbean that has seen new purveyors of food pop up, most recently the famous couple who deliver pizza and ice cream in the US Virgin Islands.

Lily, who runs the boat, says she got the inspiration from the waters off Greece and Turkey, where many beaches have their own aquatic ice cream purveyors.

It’s a very cool idea.