Saturday, January 27, 2018- St. Maarten

Saturday, January 27, 2018- St. Maarten

We awoke to find the ship tucked into port at Philipsburg, St. Maarten.  There was an empty second cruise ship dock outside our balcony, and a small containership facility beyond this.  St. Maarten appears to be made up of multiple cone shaped peaks.  There were a pair of large water storage towers on the hillside closest to the cruise ship docks, but one of these appeared to have been smashed in and partially collapsed.  Undoubtedly the result of hurricane Irma last fall.  The destination lectures included pictures of the cruise ship dock showing a nice large building at the head of the dock housing shops and poorly working wifi.  However, when we looked off the bow of the ship, instead of the building, there were piles of debris- another victim of Irma.  The temperature was about 80 and there were scattered clouds with a forecast for partly cloudy weather.  

We had breakfast in the Horizon Court buffet.  Unlike our experiences on Norwegian Cruise Line, where we always had trouble finding a place to sit, there seems to be much less crowding and greater availability of seating in the Horizon Court.  The breakfast selection was satisfactory, although I noticed there was no cottage cheese when I was craving some cottage cheese and peaches this morning.  

We noticed we were docked next to a fabulous mega yacht named “Eclipse”.  Everything about this boat just dripped with money.  It had it’s own custom power gangway that retracts into the hull, and a custom landing complete with carpeting with the “Eclipse” logo emblazoned on it.  There were two helicopter pads, and the dingy appeared to be as large as one of the Island Princesses tender vessels.  The captain made an announcement that this was a private yacht, the second largest in the world, owned by a 51 year old Russian private investment fund owner.  I wondered if that really meant “launders money for the Russian mob”.  

We had booked our excursion through the iPhone Shipmate App, which processes the orders through a company called Shore-Ex.  The printed electronic ticket included instructions to meet the representative of Blue Bubbles by the bronze statue near the tourist information desk at the head of the dock at 9am.  We had no trouble finding the spot and arrived at 8:45.  9am rolled around and nobody showed up.  We waited until 9:10am, and then called the local contact number, which didn’t pick up, and then the emergency contact number, which ended up being a disconnected number.  We were beginning to get a bad feeling about this, but on the second call to the local contact number, someone picked up and instructed us to get directions from the tourist information desk on how to get to where they were.  The tour desk person said to walk out through the cruise dock security gate and ask for “Kayum” or something like that.  So we walked out of the cruise terminal gate to find a bunch of taxi drivers milling about.  I shouted “Anyone here know Kayum?  We are supposed to do an ATV tour with him.”  One of the taxi drivers put his sign down and had us follow him down the road.  There is a lot of debris and torn up infrastructure, including large holes where the sidewalk had once been, and conduit and wires poking out of the ground all over the place. We walked about a half block and then crossed the street to what looked like an alley.  There was a small lot surrounded by battered fencing that contained what looked like a bunch of wrecked ATV parts, but this was apparently our guy.  A young man with gold chains around his neck and gold caps on his front teeth came out to greet us and introduced himself as Safraaz.  Janet asked if that was a Carib name, but it was Arab.  He had come to St. Maarten from South Africa.  He got on his cell phone and after a brief conversation with whomever was on the other end, he concluded that we were the only two customers for his tour today.  This was actually the first time they have had customers for ATV tours since Hurricane Irma devastated the island.  The Island Princess was only the second Princess cruise ship to call on St. Maarten since Hurricane Irma.  

Safraaz then walked into the lot and miraculously started up and backed out two ATV’s.  Looking around, it looked like there were only 3 out of the more than 20 ATV’s in the lot that were in drivable condition, so I guess it’s a good thing we were the only customers today. 

After the briefest of safety and instructional briefings, he mounted a small scooter- not an ATV, and lead us off. While we were on an ATV tour, we might all just have well been on scooters or motorcycles because the entire tour stayed on St. Maarten’s paved roads.  However, the ATV’s are easy to use and feel a bit more substantial than his tiny scooter for getting around in the island’s traffic.  

Shortly after we headed off, it began to rain on us, but the rain was fairly light and the 80+ degree weather made it not at all uncomfortable to get a bit wet.  That lasted less than 5 minutes. We were probably doing 40+mph on the roads in places, but got to see most of the island.  The island is very hilly, and there is quite a bit of traffic, so this would not be a place to do a bicycle tour. 

What was quite striking was the extensive damage everywhere.  Trees and cacti were in twisted heaps along the roads, and most homes did not appear to have roofs on them at this point.  We did spot some huge bright orange and yellow iguana’s sunning themselves on some of the downed twisted up trees.  Along the water, there were boats of all sizes and shapes strewn about or capsized in the water, or on the shore.  There were hundreds if not thousands of wrecked ships in the waters and harbors around the island.  Many cars were driving with smashed windshields and plastic duct taped over other windows that had been smashed.  We also saw a few upside down airplanes and crushed cars in a few places. Virtually every standing building has some damage to the siding and roof, and there are lots of lots that are just piles of debris.

Our first stop was at the famous (infamous) Orient Beach on the French side of the island, or St. Martin.  There were French flags marking the border crossing, and not much else.  Orient Beach is touted as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and features a nude portion as well.  The hurricane ended up pulling a lot of sand off the beach, and utterly destroyed the Orient Beach Resort that backed onto the beach itself.  The locals have erected a bar and cantina at the near end of the beach, and have set out beach chairs and umbrellas.  When we were there, there must have been a 40mph wind blowing onto the beach, so getting in the water would have not been so much fun.  We walked along the beach, and encountered a few nude sunbathers, but with bodies that you really did not want to see in the nude.  It was funny to see some of them with the Princess Cruises blue tote on the sand next to their beach chairs.  I’m not sure we’ll want to be dining with any of them.  At the end of the beach is the remains of a once famous bar and restaurant.  It as totally destroyed.  The front of the building looked like a giant had decided to sit on the building, and it slipped out from behind him as it collapsed.  

We walked back to the ATV’s through what had once been the resort.  The bungalows were made of steel reinforced concrete, but they looked like a giant had crushed them like saltine crackers, and knocked them down.  We found some conch shells amongst the debris that will make their way home as souvenirs.  

Our next stop was Marigot, the French capital on the island, which had a shopping district that we passed on.  We also drove by Grand Case, an area famous for its cuisine.  There were some delicious smells wafting out of the restaurants as we rode by.  We also saw some seafood vendors cleaning fish along a seawall as we rode past.  

We then rode around the St. Maarten airport, which has it’s only runway backing on a small but beautiful beach.  You’ve probably seen YouTube videos of tourists standing under enormous jets flying just over their heads making their final approaches to the runway, or tourists getting tossed about like rag dolls in the jetwash from jets taking off from the runway.  We got there about 11:45, and a Jet Blue airliner was scheduled to land at 12:05, so we took a quick but refreshing swim in the beautiful blue water and waited on the beautiful white sand beach for the Jet Blue to arrive.  It never showed, but two turboprop commuter planes did land over our heads, so it wasn’t a complete loss.  A 737 did take off, and we saw a bunch of Japanese tourists, scrambling down the beach towards the water, blasted by sand and jet wash, along with their hats and bags. That was worth the trip seeing that little comedy.

Our last stop was a huge flag erected on a hilltop to inspire the islanders after Irma.  It was erected 3 months after the storm.  We wondered if it had the desired effect, but Safraaz said many islanders would have rather seen the effort and concrete put into putting roofs on houses.  

We got showered and changed back on the boat, and had a little bit of free time before the ship was scheduled to depart.  Ben decided to try to walk into town to see if he could get some pictures of the devastation since we didn’t stop while we were driving the ATV’s to take pictures.  He got halfway into town when the sky let loose with a huge downpour.  Ben turned around, and by the time he got back to the ship, it was like he had stepped into the shower with his clothes on.  

We had afternoon tea with a couple who had taken the ship’s bus tour around the island and compared notes.  We certainly got a much closer look at the destruction at Orient Beach. They never say any nude people or any of the resort.  

We had dinner and then saw the late showing of Lovena Fox doing some Broadway show tune.  It was a terrific show, and she got a well deserved standing ovation.  

We dropped in late on a music trivia game featuring power ballads, and confirmed what we already know- we suck at music trivia, although none of the teams competing did very well.  The winning team got 17-1/2 points out of 40.  We arrived halfway through the game, and scored 8.

Today was international chocolate cake day, so there was a wide assortment of chocolate cakes of many different styles featured in the buffet.  We picked up samples of several, but aren’t really sure when we’ll get around to eating them.  

Tomorrow we arrive at Martinique, a bit of France in the Caribbean.  We have a tour booked with a local provider outside the Princess shore excursion offerings.  We’ll see how that goes.