Island with split personality!
28 March 2015
Belinda & Kit
Photo shows low flying Jumbo approaching Sint Maarten Airport.
Position: 18 02.79N, 63 05.88W Anchorage in Simpson Bay Lagoon, St Martins.
View more pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/yacht.quilcene
St Martin/Sint Maarten; the smallest island to be divided between two countries; France and the Netherlands.
All very confusing as the French side use Euro and the Dutch use $US and Netherlands Antillean Guilder (notated as NAf for some reason?) - and just to add to the confusion some places accept $EC too! We had to have separate bags of money and remember which one/s to take every time we went out! Even worse as there are no actual borders, just a border monument, and buses just go all round the island.
Simpson Bay Lagoon where we anchored straddles both countries. We entered the lagoon through a lifting bridge on the Dutch side and motored across to a causeway road bridge which opened 15 minutes later for us to go through. If you anchor on the Dutch side you have to pay high customs and immigration fees and also pay to anchor, but on the French side it's free and the check in is only 5 Euro. We dropped the hook somewhere near the border under a hill wonderfully named 'Witches Tit', so we were probably swinging between two Countries! (if anyone asked we were definitely on the French side tho'.)
The only drawbacks are that the waters of the lagoon are a murky brown/green - not at all inviting for a swim, and it is a long, often choppy dinghy ride to either side and we always ended up with wet bottoms!
The whole island is tax free so great for buying expensive items - like a liferaft; Ours was getting a bit old and annual servicing is quite expensive so we opted for a new one with a 3-year service warranty. The liferaft delivery was on Caribbean time so we also did some general maintenance and updating aboard whilst we were there. If/when we eventually get up to the US they are very strict on safety so everything has to be in service date and conform to their regs.
Madeline and Roy on Mithril arrived and anchored nearby so it was over to them for sundowners and a catch-up. It was great to see them and we enjoyed a few 'happy hours' with them during our stay. The four of us also went for a day out to the famous Maho Beach at the end of the airport runway.
Now you'd expect a beach to be a quiet spot to swim and relax but tourists flood to Maho Beach on Sint Maarten for the opposite reason. Maho is known for low-flying planes, they approach so low above the beach that the young and foolish stand in the Jet blast to be blown into the water, and it's even stronger on take-off. A sign vividly depicts what the consequences of these actions could be! (see Picasa pics)
The Airport is not only close to the beach but has a very short runway. In order to land and take-off the planes get as close to the beginning of the runway (just across the road from the beach) as possible - and fly right over the heads of tourists taking pics of this impressive sight.
The Sunset Beach bar displays timetable boards so that people can be there for the Jumbo Jet arrival - as we were! ...and it was impressive; see pic above (taken from the shade and safety of the Sunset Bar)! We did see folks getting blown into the water as planes took off but it's not a thing you can really capture on camera - and thankfully no-one was injured whllst we were there. Oh yes, and Mad & I also managed a lovely swim in the vivid blue water!
Two weeks on St Martin flew by in a flash and soon we were preparing to leave for an overnight passage to the British Virgin Islands.....