Disembarking at St. Marten



We're more accustomed to oaks, maples, and pines that this.


Real life sometimes gets in the way of doing my favorite things, so it's taken awhile to post. Here's the second part of our fun, fun trip. And if you were overly impressed by our dress-up photo, you'll love this post. The camera doesn't lie - you'll see the 'real' us. I'm going to tell you about both St. Marten, and St. Thomas, since, after two islands in two days I'm a bit confused about what we saw where...

I opened my eyes, the third morning, looked out the balcony window, to see lots of little, twinkling lights of all colors. St. Marten was just waking up. We expected it to be flat, for some reason, but it was in fact hilly and wooded, if you can call groves of palm trees that. Cars were going here and there, as people headed out for the day, involved in getting ready for us to 'disembark'. We pulled up alongside the port. For someone who is challenged to parallel park, I was duly impressed as the captain parked this 950 foot long vessel. He backed in! We were required to insert our little plastic cards in a machine as we left the ship. They told us this was to let them know who they were waving goodbye to, in case any of us were late getting back onboard at the end of the day. They were serious.

St. Marten has two governments, French and Dutch. Neither works real slick. We heard more French than English, which sounded charming. The French side has a reputation for being cleaner, and more liberal. The first thing our tour guide told us was that everyone on the island, who works in the tourism industry, makes $6 an hour. I think that was the priming for all the tips we gave during the day. Lots of tips.



Overlooking St. Thomas, and further outlying islands.


We chose to do a tour of the island, both days, from an open-air vehicle. It looked much like something you'd see driving around Disneyworld, although they are built for mostly slim people, and of course not everyone is. That made for some interesting stops, while we took time to squish in some people, or get someone unstuck who'd only made it halfway onto the vehicle. Literally the driver had to get out and shove on someone's rear to get them loaded. All the island natives wore long pants and long sleeved shirts. We were all stripped down to the minimum, thinking it was hot. Likely March seems cool to them, in comparison to July or August. Both tours took us on a circle of the island. Overall St. Marten was trashy, I'm sad to say. Hurricane damage was evident everywhere, and some businesses or residents had rebuilt, but they leave the rubble right there. New next to ruined. Trash littered every street - they seem to have no concept of recycling, or of keeping their island beautiful. St. Thomas, on the other hand, is beautiful, clean, has a good sized airport, and they are very proud of the fact that they have Kmart, Burger King, Wendy's, etc. The St. Thomas guide kept reminding us they are a part of the U.S, and he'd say, 'you have it, we have it'.