Chasing the Sun # 4: The Split-Personality Island

Thursday morning, we sailed into the picturesque -- make that photogenic -- harbour of the island of Sint Maarten/Saint-Martin.  These pictures were actually taken just after sunset, as we prepared to depart, but nothing much changed in the view during those 11 hours except the sky, which was laden with rain clouds in the morning.

Since we landed in Philipsburg, we were of course in Sint Maarten, the Dutch portion of a unique bipartite island community.  Our ship was one of four docked on two of the major piers of Philipsburg harbour, the main port of entry for commercial goods in large quantities.  St. Martin is such an unproductive, near-desert island, that virtually all food is imported, as well as almost all building supplies, through this container port.

The tour I picked was a long one (five hours) but gave a good overview of the major highlights all around the island, with a number of photo stops.  We followed most of the circular road marked on this map, except on the west side.  From Marigot, another road (not shown here) goes in a loop all around the Grand Etang/Simsonbaai via the Sandy Ground, Les Terres Basses, and the Low Lands to Mullet Bay where we rejoined the marked road.

The island was formally divided between the Netherlands and France by the Treaty of Concordia in 1648.  The actual border line was changed or adjusted a number of times during the years, and some of the local stories about the ever-changing border are hilarious bits of folklore.

This monument commemorates the historic signing of the treaty.

This monument stands right at the border on the east side of the island, adjacent to a long-disused customs post.  This sign appears nearby.

For obvious practical reasons, in so small a community, there are no longer any border controls between the two sides of Sint Maarten (Dutch) and Saint-Martin (French).  Each has its own capital, respectively Philipsburg and Marigot, and each has its own mountains.  Although each side has its own airport, the rugged geography dictates that the airport in Saint-Martin will forever be limited to small commuter aircraft due to its short runway.  Thus, the Dutch Princess Juliana International Airport hosts incoming long-distance flights from both France and Holland, as well as from the USA, Canada, Germany, and other countries.

As well, each side has its own police department, fire department, hospital, school system, currency, telephone system, and on and on we go.  Our gregarious and amusing tour guide/bus driver, Manny, had us in stitches all day with his consistent game at the expense of the "two of everything" line.

For shock effect, nothing could beat his announcement that any telephone call from the French side to France is considered a local call and charged at local rates, but a call across the line to Philipsburg on the other side of the island is long distance (a separate area code) and priced much higher accordingly.  To prove the point, he waved at us his two cellphones -- one French, one Dutch.

Another stop was at the scenic overview above Orient Bay.  At this distance it looks like paradise.

So it was, until Hurricane Irma ripped through St. Martin as a Category 5-Plus storm in the fall of 2017.  The resort hotels on Orient Bay, like many of the resorts on the island, are still closed due to the catastrophic levels of storm damage -- especially from the storm surge which flooded all over this low-lying area.

Unless and until those hotels and the various restaurants reopen, Orient Bay is going to be a pretty quiet, unhappening place.  It used to be a huge tourist attraction due to the "clothing optional" policy there -- although, as Manny pointed out to mixed groans and chuckles, this just meant that you saw all the same people you would see on any normal beach, except that they were letting it all hang out.

We saw enormous amounts of storm damage on our circuit around the east and north sides of the island -- the sides where the hurricane struck directly from the open ocean.  In Grand Case, many of the famous restaurants are reopening under temporary conditions -- Manny told us that, apart from the damaged buildings, Grand Case is an incredible place to sample authentic Caribbean cuisine first-hand.  It's also the host of the longest Carnival season held anywhere in the world.

Coming down the west coast, we stopped at a viewpoint overlooking Marigot, the French capital.  

We had an extended shopping stop in Marigot, and I bought precisely nothing.  After years of travelling, I've finally clued in that nine-tenths of the stuff for sale in any holiday destination is geared towards women: women's clothes, women's beachwear, women's jewellery (a huge item in the West Indies at duty-free prices), women's watches, women's tote bags, and on and on.  I'd love to leave some more cash behind me for the benefit of the struggling local economy, but there are limits.

The circle tour around the Grand Etang/Simsonbaai took us past more closed hotels.  It's obvious that the tourist industry is struggling along largely on cruise ship passengers for the time being.

And so we came to the most famous sight on the island, the one almost everyone has heard of, seen videos of, or shaken their heads over: Maho Beach.  What makes this beach so special?

This:
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Internet photo

Trust me, this picture from the internet is not photoshopped!  Even with Princess Juliana Airport's now-lengthened runway, a large overseas aircraft like this Boeing 747 has to touch down at the earliest possible moment before slamming on the brakes and reverse thrust ASAP.

Our tour bus stopped there for almost an hour, but we didn't see anything that spectacular.  Story of my life, other people go to Maho Beach and see 747s or giant Airbus airliners; all I get is this:

The bigger planes were taking off away from the beach, which brings on the other hilarious sport of standing behind the plane and trying to hold on to the fence when the jet blast hits.

That is, it's a hilarious sport until someone gets hurt -- easy enough to do when each engine is generating anything up to 75,000 pounds of jet thrust.  In fact, one woman actually died of brain injuries in 2017 after the jet thrust hurled her backwards into a concrete wall.  When you get right down to it, Maho Beach is also a good place to photograph candidates for the Darwin Awards.

The beach is a lot narrower and steeper than it used to be.  After the 2017 hurricane, it had completely disappeared with most of the sand washed up onto the airport runway.  That sand has been moved back by now, but inevitably the dynamics of water and waves have changed in other ways which only time will tell.

There was one spectacular takeoff by a larger jet which soared into the air right above our bus as we pulled away, but by that time my camera had finally died for the day.  RIP -- my bad, I forgot to charge the battery the night before.  I missed some more pretty amazing views as a result.  Sigh.

I guess this means that I will have to come back to Sint Maarten/Saint-Martin again.  Right?

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A Footnote

We're now well into the second of two sea days on the way back to Fort Lauderdale, so this will be the last blog post for this trip.  Sea days are often curiously unmemorable.  You can do everything, and the list of daily activities in the Princess Patter newsletter is enormous.  Or you can do nothing.  Combine ingredients in proportions to suit your own taste.

I will just mention, though, that Regal Princess is a real winner of a ship.  The cabin and its balcony are both a bit tighter than on the older Princess ships on which I have sailed (Caribbean, Ruby, and Crown), but still both adequate and comfortable.  There is much more space to put things away than on those older ships -- more drawers, more shelves, more everything.  The other thing that impresses me about this ship is the much greater space allocated to such public areas as restaurants, the buffet serving areas and seating areas, the Piazza (atrium), and the open seating decks around the pools.

The odd result is that this ship, which holds 600-700 more passengers than the other vessels named, actually feels less crowded.

I've also been really taken by the quality of the service in all departments.  My last two cruises were a bit lacklustre in that respect, but the entire team on the Regal is friendly, prompt, helpful, and accurate.  Only on Day 5 did I finally hit a glitch, and it was promptly and quickly remedied.  I'd be more than happy to sail again on such a beautiful ship with such an awesome crew.