CHAOS!!

10 January 2012

Chaos.

I was pretty thrilled at the idea of stopping at Sint Maarten, mostly because it is part of the Netherlands and less so because it is pretty and the ocean is the most amazing colour. Naturally – I would be showing you pictures of that but the glitch continues so you will have to live by my descriptions for now. Suffice it to say – sun, surf, white sand beaches and aquamarine water.  But then there is that chaos thing I mentioned at the top…

                                                      Yup - the water really IS that colour

To clarify, the Island of Sint Maarten (or St. Martin) has pretty much only one industry and that is tourism.  The island holds the curious distinction of being the smallest island in the world to be split into two completely separate nations. Two capital cities, two airports, etc. And never the twain shall meet. One side is Dutch (the side we stayed on today) and the other, French.  The whole island comprises less land than we farm and has some 75 000 permanent residents. And now for the chaos…

We pulled into port at 9am. There were already 3 ships in port ahead of us. Another one pulled in after us. We were by far and away the smallest. Between 8am and 9am these ships disgorged what we estimate to be 12 000 tourists plus an undetermined number of crew. Now you understand the chaos part.

Yet despite the teeming masses we had a great day. In Sint Maarten you take a water taxi most places so we hopped aboard and had ourselves a wander through town. We actually did our only shopping of the whole trip and found things that we liked and will look at again amidst the reams and reams of standard tourist crap.  We looked into tiny cheese and chocolate shops, beautiful linen shops and even the World’s Smallest Bar (about 8 square feet).  We walked along the beach, dipped ourselves in water that was the perfect temperature, found some sea washed shells and had fruit smoothies in the shade of an umbrella.

Dale was a little disappointed that he missed a chance to go sailing on an America’s Cup class yacht. Friends of ours made the trip and had a blast. Oh well, there will be other sail boats somewhere for us to board.  We then compared days with friends and are now getting ready to join them for fine dining in the steakhouse and learn some more about each other.

We have 2 more days at sea and then we reach Ft. Lauderdale and the end of this adventure. I am running low on expensive satellite internet minutes so this will likely be the last posting before we get home. I promise to  post more pictures from there.

To those of you who have followed along throughout the trip – thanks for taking the time to travel with me. I love doing a little writing and it is nice to know there are a few people out there who don’t mind reading it.

So I bid you adieu from the islands. Wish for us smooth sailing to Florida and we will tell you all the details upon request once we are safe at home.

Marsha