Blogs from Sint Maarten, Central America Caribbean
November 3rd 2011
Caribb.110311 St. Maarten / St. Martin French/Dutch island We boarded out tour bus for a trip to the French side of the island Very narrow and congested streets. We had to wait at a roundabout, parked on a hill for 20 minutes waiting for a dignitary to drive by... Queen Juliana from the Netherlands was here to open something... (guide not to sure what was going on) Up until now our guides have been amazing (driver too), this pair... not so much... We finally made it to our beach after a short stop for some shopping.... beach was spectacular!!! Smooth soft white sand.. no rocks..no coral and easy breaking waves... 2 choices for lunch - ribs or chicken and both were great... 2 hours later and back on the bus to catch the boat... (3 people ... read more
July 7th 2011
I hope that everyones summer is going well. Life here has been full of interesting things! Conning the ship: Every arrival and departure we have a briefing on the bridge; for departures we cover the expected weather over the next leg, the distance and the required speed, engine configuration (as we’ve got 6), the current, tide, and present weather, and lastly who’s doing each of the jobs on the bridge. This includes who is going to do the maneuver. Departing St Maarten a couple weeks ago, the captain let me take the ship off the pier! With the Staff Captain and Chief officer giving advice I took the controls. Using just a fraction of the 80 000 horsepower on tap I gently lifted her off the pier and navigated the ship out to sea! Void Space ... read more
May 27th 2011
So we decided on Sint Maarten this year for our summer holiday. We have been to several islands in the Caribbean, but we have never landed here. Check it out on Wiki Travel (http://wikitravel.org/en/Saint_Martin) if you want more info on the island. This trip we are traveling on paid tickets, so it really takes the adventure out of getting there. It was nice to relax at the USAirways Club during our lay over. Not quite as nice as Bangkok Air's Club, but pretty cushy non the less. So the flight from Charlotte was uneventful, until it was time to land. We had to hold for about an hour because of a storm at Juliana airport. We finally made it, picked up our little car and made our way to the hotel. Flamingo Beach Resort is on ... read more
May 22nd 2011
May 10 – May 24, 2011 The distance between St. Thomas and the British Virgin Islands is a matter of an hour sail. We saw a lot of charter boats from the British Virgin Islands visiting several of the anchorages we were at in the American Virgin Islands. We never planned on spending much time in the BVI’s as we had explored the area before when we did a bareboat charter with Bob's sister Eugenia and brother-in-law Rick. We had such a great time on that trip that it was part of what made us decide to do this trip after retirement. We did make it to a couple of the same stops as last time – Foxy’s Beach Bar & Restaurant has been an institution for years on Jost Van Dyke so we checked that ... read more
April 19th 2011
ST MARTIN OPPS! Wrote it, didn't publish it. Today I was up early. Had breakfast is the Windjammer, really good scrambled eggs, fruit and potato patty. I was one of the first off the ship and checked in for my tour at the information booth. The sky was very overcast and didn’t bode well. Fellows around the booth were joking about selling tickets for skiing and they weren’t talking water skiing. One fellow was running around with a down jacket with the hood up. I guess they it felt cold to the locals. We got a bit of a late start and then the skies opened up. A typical tropical cloudburst! Water was running down the hillsides and the streets started to flood. Kind of reminded me of Guadalcanal, well that’s a bit of an exaggeration! ... read more
March 9th 2011
Priscila (Spanish) and I went out to St. Maarten, we wanted to go to the beach but it was drizzling. We quickly went to the store, and then to a bar called La Taverne, we had a St. Maarten cocktail. We then met Oscar (India) for lunch… so good to eat something other than the ship's food!!! Went to the beach after that, and then had to head back to the ship. ... read more
December 29th 2010
So we have been staying in Sint Maarten for the past 5 days but it is our last post. THat is because we spent most of our time in St. Martin and visiting St. Barts and Anguilla during most of the days. Every night we ate dinner in Sint Maarten though and most nights where at the Green House which I liked a lot. However, the last full day of our trip, after revisiting the Butterfly Farm in the morning on the French side of the island, St. Martin, we spent the day near our hotel in Philipsburg. Daddy and I were amazed how such a quiet town at night turned into a crazy busy, party atmosphere city during the day with the cruise ships. Sooo many people, shops, music. It was a lot of fun. ... read more
December 24th 2010
30. nov. d katameran. smokin. own room,own toilet. em say big storm comin.8 mtr waves, u crazy if u go 2day. saw on blog xie make hitchhikin actress in chevrolet comercial.nice.she is very active.couchsurfin,writin, ect.i, just movin arround. ok, matt ,captain , wana sail. we must trus. i like: like a hitchhiked speed racer, em drive like crazy, but i had no accident yet.bit worried bout gettin seasick, have no medizin. prblem:we drink yesterdaynight b4 sailin. matt,captain, is caotic cos somethin need repair we must stay. no escape of storm,no racin away, we must wait till monday,5th, till storm, mayb pass. seems matt is ok.2day we put underwind sail in in wich we had some stresssituations in wich i couldnt understand him. i couldnt act,i have 0 sail xperience.yep seems i ll learn sailin. cool. i ... read more
Cruise Chronicles: Kayaking and chocolate
Published: August 26th 2010Central America Caribbean » Sint Maarten
May 19th 2010
After disembarking form the ship and going to our "excursion" meeting point, our group headed to the boat that shuttled us to our kayaking launch point. The first steps on the island were disappointing, as the buildings around, you could tell, totally catered to Northern tourists. This was something I struggled with at many points along our trip, actually. We were led over to a dock and boarded a clean little catamaran, skippered by a weathered and wind-blown Frenchman. There were two large nets spread in the very front of the boat, and one could lie there and nap. Chris and I daydreamed about living on a boat like that and sleeping out every night. When we reached out put in point and went through a short kayaking demo, we took off from the Dutch side ... read more
March 13th 2010
23.02.2010 We checked in at Sopers Hole Tortola, and Bruce and I went ashore to have breakfast, in the Pusser’s Rum village. I think I have described this before, it is a deep inlet with a marina and boardwalk built along one side, and big wide decks with restaurants and shops. The sides of the valley are very steep and wooded. We normally tie onto a buoy in the middle of the inlet. It was a lovely warm sunny day, and when we got back to the boat we carried on up to Peter Island. The snorkelling was good there, and over the next couple of days we did both sides of the bay, seeing loads of bait fish, barracuda and reef fish. We went over to the baths at Virgin Gorda to snorkel. This is ... read more
