Our next four stops are with the Saints. St. Maarten, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and St. John. We have been to all four but that was back in March. I don’t believe I wrote anything in the blog about our trips. We realized after we were an hour into the excursion in St. Maarten that we have been on this exact excursion before. Oh well, it was nice to enjoy again. The ride was long due to a lot of traffic but otherwise a nice trip. It was a nice bus tour through the mountains and then a short boat ride along Marigot bay. We started out on the Dutch side of St. Maarten and then drove over to the French side, spelled differently. Sint Martin. This is where Marigot bay was located. Such beautiful homes over on that side.
Being the smallest island in the world divided between two countries, it is about 37 square miles with the Dutch side owning 16 square miles and the remainder 21 being french. 85% of their income is tourism so they are very excited to see the cruise ships back in port. There were 5 today, 3 of them were Royal Caribbean. They love Royal Caribbean.
They are semi independent where Holland is responsible for all of their external affairs on the Dutch side while they handle their own internal affairs and foreign relations with the USA and UK. The french side has some of the same responsibilities with France. To me, this seems a little confusing but I guess they make it work. If you are from the french side and meet someone and marry them on the dutch side, you get a choice where you want to live. If you have children, they too get a choice when they go out on their own. Although there are no physical borders on the island, there are 37 beautiful beaches.
Slightly more people, however, live on the Dutch side of the island (where the estimated population is 39,689) while 31,754 people reside on the French side. Philipsburg is the biggest city of the Dutch side while Marigot is the capital of the French side.
A funny local folklore about the two divisions in the island indicates that the division of land began with a walking contest between a Frenchman and a Dutchman. Before they started, the Frenchman drank wine while the Dutchman drank the stronger gin, allowing the Frenchman to cover more territory and claim more land. The Dutch say he cheated. I’m sure he doesn’t remember if he drank that much gin!
Christopher Columbus was here too in 1943. I think there’s no place on earth or at least in the caribbean americas that he does not have his footprint on!
The most popular attraction here as I’m sure you have all read or experienced is the very short runway. Many people line up on this dangerous beach as the planes land to take a photo underneath the plane or at least have a selfie with it in the background. Not my idea of a good time!
A fun day indeed!
May God Bless you always!
Chuck & Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 