St. Thomas and St. Martin - Life's a Beach
After being cooped up on the ship during our five day navigation of the Atlantic Ocean we were hot to trot right off the boat and onto a Caribbean beach! Our first berth in the Caribbean was Phillipsburg, St. Maartin. We hired a driver to take us around the island to show us the French and Dutch sides. We learned that salt production used to be the number one export and industry, but now tourism is number one. Hurricane Irma tore over St. Martin in 2017, and only in the past month has tourism resumed after the damage. The Dutch side is home to casinos and brothels where the French side is known for the creole food and nude beaches. Each has their own capital, Phillipsburg on the Dutch side and Marigot on the French side. Crossing over is as simple as driving over a line on the road. Despite our driver messing with us and telling us if we didn’t have our passports we couldn’t visit the other side of the island, no passports are required to cross back and forth.
This little island is unique because it is one of the only islands to be divided and shared by two European countries who colonized it hundreds of years ago. If you pay attention to European colonization around the world, one theme that’s evident is that they don’t like to share. They’re like, “Hi, we’re here now, and this is all ours now.” That’s why we found it especially interesting that the Dutch and French agreed to stop battling and killing each other in order to share this island 300 years ago (after they came and killed all the Caribs first, of course). The Caribs were the natives who lived there, and there are no remaining tribes. The majority of the locals are descendants of slaves who were brought to the island by the French and Dutch colonists.
We stopped on the side of the road to check out some iguanas. There’s a guy who feeds them and when he can catch one he’ll put it on an adventurous tourist for a photo opp, and that’s how me makes his money. There was a large orange iguana fondly(?) known as Donald Trump, or Donny the Iguany as we re-named him.
Each side of the island has its own beach. First we went to Orient Beach on the French side. If you’re inclined to sunbathe in the buff, the French side of St. Martin is the place for you. It’s certainly closer than the French Riviera. It was an uncrowded beach with fine white sand, but they wanted 30 euros per person to sit on a beach chair. Our towels on the sand ended up being a very comfortable place to sit. Next we drove over to Maho Beach on the Dutch side, which is famous for being located right in front of the airport. You can watch planes take off and land dozens of meters above your head. It’s a tiny strip of beach that is crawling with people who want to watch planes. We watched about 6 small jets land, but there were no commercial jets landing while we were there. Being that close underneath a commercial jet landing or taking off will literally knock you off your feet. But if you’re so inclined, you can walk right up to the fence on the perimeter of the airport and hold on for dear life while a jetliner rockets over you and blasts sand in your face. We did not opt for that experience.
All that plane spotting had us hungry again. We tried some Creole red snapper with rice and beans on the French side, and then we wrapped our day by finding a third beach. This time we found a guy selling his chairs for twenty bucks with 6 drinks included! Now that’s a deal. This beach was somewhat crowded but we had our own little slice of it complete with beach chairs, an umbrella, and rum punches being brought to us. We slowly sipped our rum punches and watched the sun dip towards the horizon. Finally we had to return to the ship for the night, but we would wake up the next morning in another paradise, St. Thomas.
Our Entrance to St. Thomas, a U.S. territory, was the first time that individuals on the ship had to go through customs. On one hand we were annoyed that we were alerted at 10:00pm the night before that we had to be present at 7:00am with our passports to go through customs. On the other hand, we were glad to be U.S. citizens, and it wouldn’t be the last time that we felt that way.
At 7:00am we lined up with the 30 other U.S. citizens on the ship. We were marched to the front of the line past all of the other passengers waiting in line for customs since it was quickest to get U.S. citizens re-entering through customs first. I have been grateful for my U.S. Citizenship many times in my life, but this moment ranked pretty high. I smiled and strutted past a long line of French people muttering under their breaths about “Americans.” Take that, suckas! In my head I was singing, “And I’m proud to be an American…” Ashley felt bad that we were cutting all the people who had to wait in line for an hour, I was thrilled that we got to start our day before everyone else.
We went on an MSC excursion that took us to a few spots around the island. We started out going to the highest point on the island for a nice view of nearby St. John and St. Kitts. Of course MSC took us to a large souvenir shop, we’ve noticed this a regular facet of many MSC tours. We like to spend money on local goods but not from giant souvenir shops. I get annoyed when they take us to tourist traps like this. On the bright side, Ashley did get to have “The World’s Best Banana Daiquiri!” We like to joke about “World’s Best” anything, like Buddy the Elf, “Congratulations! You did it! World’s best cup of coffee!!”
After our daiquiri fix, we drove back down the hill to relax for a few hours on the beach in Magen’s Bay, pronounced like Megan. Arthur Fairchild obtained the land and eventually donated all of it to the Municipality of St. Thomas so it is a public beach now. It was one of the most beautiful beaches we’ve seen so far with calm clear water and white sand.
MSC’s last stop was to take us back into town for you guessed it, more shopping. At this point we ditched the tour and found a spot for lunch. We asked our guide what a good local spot was, and she did not disappoint with her recommendation of Gladys’ Cafe. We had some delicious jerk chicken, with rice & beans, veggies, and sautéed plantains. We also got to use Gladys’ valuable wifi so Ashley could tend to important things like re-configuring her bank account and auto pay information, which had been hacked. I tackled my very important business of updating Instagram.
With a few more hours to spare we asked around for another beach, and we lucked out finding another one just a short cab ride away. We ended up at a hotel with a private beach so we were practically alone, which was a nice change of pace. Sometimes we get a little testy with the MSC tour groups, and being alone on a beach is the perfect remedy. We enjoyed our last moments in St. Thomas wading in the ocean soaking up the last rays of the day.