St. Maarten Part 1 - "the friendly island"

Our tour guide in St. Maarten kept calling it the friendly island. That's because it's half owned by the Dutch & half by the French. The port was in Phillipsburg which is Dutch but the beach we traveled to was on the French side. There was no guard station or any indication you crossed over except a monument on the side of the road. I guess they are claim friendliness since they travel back & forth freely.

This is either pulling into or out of port. We got in early (like 7am) so it's hard to tell. We had to set the alarm clock on island days to get the max island time possible.


This is a view of our ship docked at port from the shopping area of Phillipsburg. See how industrial the port area is compared to St. Thomas. We took a water taxi from the shopping area to the port.Here are some views of the beach at Phillipsburg. If you go to St. Maarten, don't hang out here. There are no waves and the water doesn't seem as pristine. It's near the boardwalk which is cool but that would be the only reason. More views of the Phillipsburg area below:

Meg, Ryan, & me on the boardwalk - I am now the shortest of the three.

View of Phillipsburg from the water taxi - seemed like a fun town with bands playing, etc. but we had about 45 mins there. We spent most of the day at the French side beach.

I would love to go back to St. Maarten again and spend more time. The beach excursion Bruce picked out was fabulous & will be pictures posted tomorrow.