Sun, sand, sea and
numpties.

 

We arrived in Sint
Maarten or St. Maarten or St. Martin at about 10am our time, roughly three pm
your time. When we arrived it was
raining but this did not bother us at all because we knew that rain on this
little island does not last long and the sun usually shines all day. By the time we disembarked from the ship, it
was blazing hot with clear blue skies. 
St. Maarten is almost completely opposite in landscape to Aruba. It is very mountainous with colourful houses
built onto the sides of these lush green mountains.   The island itself is divided 60/40 between the
French and the Dutch. The French claimed
more land but there are more people living on the Dutch side. The Dutch side is Sint Maarten and the
French, St. Martin.

We began our day
quite traumatically because we decided to be brave again and book a taxi to
take us to Maho beach. The traffic on
the island is terrible and it appeared to us that we were going to be stuck in
the taxi all day. We also feared that we
were heading in completely the opposite direction to where we had asked to
go. Our reason for wanting to go to Maho
beach was because this beach is very close to the airport and St. Maarten is
famous for the planes which swoop only thirty feet above the beach as they come
in to land. Before you read more of
this, go to YouTube and search for videos on "Planes landing at St.
Maarten". Anyway, we made the brave
decision to jump out of the taxi and to walk. 
By this time we had moved from the Dutch side to the French side and
realised we definitely not where we had asked to go. We had wound up in a place called Marigot
which, apparently, sounds very similar to Maho when said with a French
accent. It was a bit of good luck that
we found the place because it had a lovely market with outdoor stands selling
all kinds of local handiwork and tourist type gifts as well. I took some photographs of the harbour and
marina from here but it is hard to do justice to how beautiful this place
is. The sea was turquoise and the sky an
intense blazing blue colour, just how you would imagine a gorgeous Caribbean
island to look. We realised we were way
too far from Maho beach to walk it and, after exhausting our tour of the pretty
little market we sought out a taxi driver who understood English accents a
little better. It was here that we found
the amazing Michael.

Michael didn’t have
a minibus like the other taxis we have been travelling in. He used his car and this was great for us
because we did not then have to share with other people and it made the
experience a lot more personable. 
Michael was a chatty and charming man and was clearly very proud of his
island. He loved pointing places out to
us and was happy to take us to Maho beach so we could go and see a few planes
come in. Not only did he want to take us
there, but he insisted on waiting for us so that we would not have a problem
getting back to the boat after we had seen our fill.

Being in a smaller
car did not make the traffic situation any better on the Island but the lovely
Michael even had a way around that. He
drove us the wrong way down a one way street the entire way down until we came
back out on the main road way ahead of all the cars who had been backed
up. It was very funny and he was
laughing to himself and telling me in his very strong Caribbean accent to
"put that in yer blog!"  We
arrived at Maho beach and agreed with Michael that we would just need half an
hour to watch some planes and then we would meet back up with him.

The beach itself was
packed with people but because we were not going to be spending long there, we
did not mind too much. The sea proved
too inviting for me and, despite not having a towel, I had to peel off my shorts and T shirt and
run into the water. (I had a swim suit
on!!!) There were no rocks, very different to Princess Cays, and the sand was
sugary and almost pure white. The water
itself was warm, very warm, and was also very deep. I only 
needed to walk out a few feet before I was in over my head. Dave took some photographs of me messing
about in the water but he missed the bit where I was watching a plane land and
a huge wave crashed over my head, dragging me onto the beach and filling my
swim suit, ears, nose and mouth with the lovely powdery sand. I STILL have not got all the sand off of me
even as I am typing this.  

I think I should
explain now about these airplanes and the appeal. The runway is just a few meters away from the
beach itself and the planes have to come in very low over the beach just before
they land. They have several large
planes landing each day and it is quite a site to see these beasts barely
thirty feet above you as you stand on the beach looking up.   We saw a couple of smaller planes coming in
to land but also saw two large planes taking off. Now…..take off is a whole different ball game
to landing. The perimeter fence for the
airport is just over the road from the beach. 
(6 meters away or so). There are
big signs everywhere warning of death or grievous bodily harm caused by
airplane jets.   Because the planes back
right up to the perimeter fence to give them enough runway to take off, some
very clever people think that running across the road from the beach and
clinging on to the fence as the airplane jets starts is an ace idea. We stood on the beach to watch and, even from
here, we were blown backwards by the power of the jets engines. The heat was also incredible and it was
impossible not to recoil and shield your face. 
Quite an incredible experience. 
This is the best bit….

We saw one very
large plane taxiing in readiness for takeoff. 
Right on cue the muppets ran across the road from the beach to the fence
and took their positions. One of these
muppets was a lady in an very badly fitting bikini. She was holding the fence with one hand and
chatting happily to people still stood, rather more sensibly, on the
beach. The airplane engine started to
roar and, at this point, she was still only holding the fence with one
hand. The other men who had taken their
positions were all clinging on to the mesh for all their worth. I trained my camera on to the female because
I rightly sensed that something both bad and funny was going to happen. I was not disappointed. As soon as the jets on the aircraft roared
into life the woman was blown off her feet. 
The only thing which stopped me from getting the photo of the century
and the woman from getting killed was the very quick thinking lad to her
left. He grabbed her around the waist
and held on to her. My photo shows her
just after her feet got blown out from under her, I wasn't quite quick enough. If you look closely you can see she very
nearly lost her knickers. :-)

Dave and I laughed
and chatted about the "what could have been" for some time after this
rather exciting event. We came to the
conclusion that the Darwin awards had lost a prospective candidate by the skin
of her teeth but that another idiot would, no doubt, step into her shoes. Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of
danger….But these are aeroplane jet engines you are playing with….the heat and
the power from the beach was enough. 
When that particular plane took off, people on the beach itself were
forced back from the power.

After meeting
Michael again for our journey back to the port he treated us to yet more of his
brilliant short cuts. We still spend
probably over an hour in the car with him but he was so fun and nice to be
around the time went very quickly. It
was good to be out of the sun to be honest because it was just blazing hot,
especially at that beach. Michael slowed the car down so that I could take
photographs as we climbed the windy mountain path on our way back to port.   We got to the town of Phillipsburg, said
goodbye to Michael, (after taking his photo for the blog) and then looked
around the shops as we walked back toward the ship. It was actually a long walk but we did cool
off with a Caribbean beer on the way. I
found a couple of bits here for Sebastian and Aimee, I hope Liane likes them! Once back inside the port itself there were
more shops and it was here that we tasted some of the local spicy sauces. Dave loves these and makes brilliant chili
and spaghetti Bolognaise using all kinds of spices we have collected from our
travels. I tried one called Ghost
Pepper. I thought my tongue was swelling
up it was so hot. The store lady
helpfully told me to try the BBQ one to try and lessen the heat of the pepper
but this really didn’t work. Dave bought
a different one in the end, still hot but with a very nice flavour. I managed to cool my tongue down with a
coconut smoothie freebie given to me by a very nice lady. Horrible stuff that ghost pepper!

All in all we had a
brilliant day it St.Maarten. It was as
beautiful as you could imagine a Caribbean Island being and the towns and
markets really made it a perfect place to explore. We are glad the taxi journey went a bit wrong
initially because, if not, we would never have wound up at that out-of-the-way
market and we wouldn’t have found Michael. 
Now we are looking forward to a very early start tomorrow at the Island
of St Thomas. 7am we dock!!

Till then….adieu.

 

Don't forget to
youtube those planes coming in!