The view of the island of St. Maarten as we pulled in to port.
We quickly and easily made it to our tour group and set off in a van around the island, first on the Dutch side. We drove through some fairly impoverished parts of the island, but also got to enjoy some beautiful views of some marinas like this one.
The tour made several stops on our way around the eastern side of the island towards the beaches on the northern tip. Some were just beautiful places where we could get great views of the ocean, and others were a little more peculiar but rather interesting, like this spot where 30-50 iguanas hang out because locals sell big leaves to the tourists to feed the iguanas! We elected to just stick with taking pictures! :)
After a handful of stops like this and a much appreciated complimentary beer, we made it to our first major stop, Orient Beach, where we spent a couple hours playing in the waves and enjoying the beautiful scenery!
When our time at the beach was up, we all hopped back in the van, drove over to the French side, and had lunch in a pretty nice part of the island that is full of high-end shopping. Before we departed for our last major stop of the day, we ran in to a nice French bakery that has fantastic reviews online for a couple sweet treats. With an apple tart and a couple macaroons in hand, we piled in the van and drove to Princess Juiliana airport. That might seem like a really strange place to visit on an island tour, but this is no ordinary airport! To be clear, we didn't actually go to the airport. Rather, we made a stop at a small beach called Maho beach which is adjacent to the airport. How adjacent you ask?
From the road next to the beach, if you look left...
And if you look right...?
Yeah. That's a Boeing 757 that I could probably hit with a rock from where I stood. Being a fairly small island with obvious hills in the background, there was barely enough room for a runway long enough for large commercial jets to land. So the beginning of the runway extends all the way to a very narrow road, across from which is a tiny beach. Naturally this beach is a huge tourist attraction as people like to stand on the fence, grab a hold, and try to withstand the tremendous blast of the jet's engines as it takes off. The less hot and windy attraction is watching these same large jets fly very low over the beach as they come in to land. How low?
REALLY low!
Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the ship. I snapped a few last pictures of the island on our way back,
Our last surprise of the day came when we boarded the ship. The security guard was not too pleased that we were bringing food onboard. He said we could either eat it in front of him or throw it out. Neither of us was at all interested in throwing out these delicious desserts, but we were hoping to savor them after dinner that evening. But given no other options, we looked at each other, put on a little smile, and set in to devour those things! St. Maarten was a very interesting first stop on our cruise. The island had quite a bit of run down, impoverished areas, some very fancy areas, and not much in between. As expected, the island was incredibly green and the views could not have been more beautiful! We really enjoyed our day on the island and agreed we'd be willing to go back some day, but probably wouldn't want to spend an entire week there.
Back on the ship, we had dinner in the main dining room, and spent part of the evening enjoying the warm ocean breeze on the boardwalk.
The next morning, we would wake up at another island that we could only hope was as full of fun and adventure as St. Maarten!
1 comment:
How cool to see big jets that close! I'm loving this tour of your trip. Thank you for taking the time to post this!
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