Our last port of call on the cruise was St. Maarten, an island in the Eastern Caribbean that is half Dutch and half French. Did you know that this is the smallest island in the world that shares two countries? The southern half of the island is the Dutch side (St. Maarten) with the primary city being Philipsburg, and the northern half of the island is the French side (St. Martin) with the capital city of Marigot. The photo below is a tile artwork of the entire island that we saw on the main boulevard in Philpsburg. Our ship was docked just outside Philipsburg, which meant that we stared off on the Dutch side of the island.
After disembarking early that morning we took a water taxi from the docking area to Philipsburg. The water taxi was a fun ride into town and offered great views of the small shopping and beach areas of this main town.
Prior to leaving the U.S. we had made reservations to go on an independent shore excursion on the other side of the island, so once we had arrived in town we hired a taxi driver to take us over to the north side of the island. Similar to our experience on St. Thomas, the drive across the island was a quite memorable experience. The topography of the land was much more flat than on St. Thomas, but it was interesting to see the almost rustic qualities of the landscape that you wouldn't typically expect from a Caribbean island.
All of my photos were taken from inside of the taxi so they are somewhat blurry, but what stuck me the most was the somewhat barren landscape and the borderline poverty (according to U.S. standards) that the households seemed to exhibit. Our driver (who was excellent and particularly well-educated about the island) told us that the way of life on St. Maarten is to pay as you go in terms of building your house. He said that nearly all commercial transactions on the island are cash-basis and that credit is not available. So he told us that if you see a neighbor with concrete blocks placed on the roof of his home, it likely means that he has saved up or recently come into some money such that he is able to expand his home to a second floor. A view like the one below would be viewed as a positive attribute within the neighborhood in the sense that it indicates a larger house to come in the future.
Our destination was a beach town on the northern side of the island, Grand Case. Grand Case was a very small town with one main street, flanked with small beach cottages for rent, a few restaurants and shops, and other small-scale tourist amenities.
You can tell we were on the French side by the different license plate relative to the ones we saw on the Dutch side of the island
The water views from the beach on the north side of the island were spectacular. This area was far more isolated and peaceful than the southern side of the island.
The excursion we planned was called the "Sea Explorer". The way the Sea Explorer trip ended up was that we boarded a small boat which took us out in the water about 500 yards offshore to a massive coral reef. Below is a shot of Amelia and I on the boat as we headed out towards the coral reef. The reef area itself is in the second shot below.
Once we were seated, a diver from the boat descended into the water with fish food. His goal was to release a large quantity of food to attract a good number of fish at once so that the passengers would be assured a good view of the animals while under the water. Of course this was really great, and we definitely viewed swarms of fish during this time. The striped fish are particularly easy to see in the photo with the diver.
And here is a photo of a sea turtle!
Overall the Sea Explorer trip was fun and an interesting way to view the fish and animals under the water without donning snorkel or scuba gear to do so. I am very glad the we planned ahead and booked this excursion!
After the boat trip, our tax driver came back to transport us back to the southern (Dutch) side of the island so that we could browse in the local shops. While the adults did some basic souvenir shopping, Amelia and John opted to hang out on the sidewalks instead.
This is the view of the ship from the town of Fredricksburg.
After browsing in some of the shops, we boarded the water taxi back to the cruise ship docking area and boarded the ship just 15 minutes prior to the deadline. Overall we enjoyed a wonderful day in St. Maarten!
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