A natural sandblasting

At 6:45am this morning, there was a banging on the door. It’s room service. We were supposed to have breakfast delivered between 7:00am and 7:30am. Oh well … I guess we’ll figure out this room service thing eventually. We enjoyed our breakfast while the ship gently sailed into Philipsburg, St. Maarten. Right behind us was Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas (biggest ship on earth, with over 10,000 passengers and crew) and Holland America’s Noordam. The Allure of the Seas docked next to the Celebrity Solstice which was already in port. When you looked at the ships side by side, the Celebrity ship is about 2/3 of the size of the Allure of the Sea. This ship is huge.

For those of you that don’t know, St. Maarten is an island that is approximatly thirty seven square miles. It is divided between the French (Saint-Martin) and the Dutch (Saint Maarten). It’s very interesting because there is double of everything. Two police departments, two different sets of currency and two airports. The electricity on the French side is 220 volts (just like in Europe) and on the Dutch side it is 110 volts. One side is peaceful and quiet, and the other is party central

 We got off of the ship and walked over to the information booth and caught up with Bernard’s Tours. It was a bit disorganized but eventually we got onto the bus. Our guide was Thomas and right from the start he was great. He told us that he made his famous Rum Punch at 5am this morning so it might be a little bit strong.

We didn’t drive too far before we had our first stop. Thomas pulled into this parking lot that looked like where you abandon cars. We walked a few feet and he started calling to the iguanas. All of a sudden, iguanas were coming from every direction. From this small pond, from the trees behind us. Thomas gave anyone who wanted to feed the iguanas some lettuce which we picked up earlier. Iguanas are vegetarians. There were at least over twenty of them, all different sizes and colours. Both Karen and I managed to feed a couple of iguanas.

We got back on the bus and that’s when the rum punch came out of the cooler. Yup … it was strong. It was strong enough that one lady didn’t even get off at the next few stops because she had a little too much to drink (after repeatedly asking … where is Mariah Carey’s house?). We stopped to meet Calvin, who showed us sea urchins, a conch shell, and a sand dollar that he had just retrieved from the ocean floor.

 Our next stop was Orient Beach where half of the beach is clothing optional. Some of the men on the bus were very excited about this. Why is it that you never see people on a nude beach that look like Christie Brinkley or Matthew McConaughey It’s always someone that looks like your grandmother or grandfather. And some people should not wear thongs! We spent about an hour there enjoying the view. The water was a beautiful turquoise colour but it was very rough today so we didn’t venture in.

There was some confusion as to which bus we should have been on because we had to be back by 2:30pm. So Thomas turned us over to Junior who was our tour guide for the rest of the day, with a bunch of other people from the Nieuw Amsterdam. We had a quick stop in Marigot which is the capital of the French side. We only had twenty minutes but we were able to pick up some Caribbean spices and some fabulous French tortes from a pastry shop called Sarafina.

The last stop of the day was the best … Maho Beach. This beach is famous because the runway of the Princess Juliana Airport starts at the beach. When the planes are landing, it appears that they are right above your head, and you can almost touch them. what is even better is when the planes are taking off. The plane gets lined up on the runway and then turns it’s jets on. What happens next is hilarious, the blast from the plane whips the sand up and has been known to throw people back into the water. Fortunately for us, we did manage to see one plane take off but the funny thing is that it wasn’t even a huge plane. Hats were flying, and people were getting pounded by the flying sand. There was supposed to be a 747 arriving from Paris while we were there but it was delayed.

All aboard time was 2:30pm and we made it back with only a few minutes to spare. Next time I think we’ll just get a cab and visit the places on our own. We didn’t even make it to the shopping district.

We were sitting on the balcony waiting for the ship to leave and we could see one gentleman hanging around the gangway. He was making a phone call, and waving his hands around. We looked at our watches and it was getting close to 3:00pm. This was a half an hour past the “all aboard” time. We were making bets as to whether he was getting on the ship without his wife or would he stay behind. At one point, he went on the ship but he came back a few minutes later with what looked like his passport. He was staying behind. At around 3:10pm, the captain had the gangway pulled back on the ship and we sailed away, while he headed back down the pier. I would hate to be his wife when she finally gets back to the dock and sees that the ship is gone. We figured she was shopping and lost track of time. Guess we’ll see them again when the ship reaches Fort Lauderdale.

We had dinner in The Manhattan Dining Room. Tonight’s appetizer was Bay Scallops Cocktail for both of us. Next up was Bacon Cheddar Cheese Soup for Karen and I had the Iced Melon Bisque. As for the entrees, Karen went with the Grilled Ginger Chicken Breast with Mango-Lime Relish and I went with the Master Chef’s Favorite Braised Short Ribs. We ended the meal with Frozen Watermelon Pie and the assorted cheese platter.

We went to The Screening Room and started to watch “Tree of Life” starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. We lasted about twenty minutes before we walked out. We just didn’t understand it (but the popcorn was good). Instead we headed to The Showroom At Sea to watch Hilby, the skinny German Juggle Boy. This guy was hilarious. The night ended as usual … heading to The Silk Den to post the blog entry. Luckily tomorrow is a “sleep in” day.