Voyager of the Seas Part 2 St Maarten

 It's been brutally cold in Colorado - temps in single digits for several days with wind chills of -20 - so I'm focusing on some Caribbean warmth today. Let's go to St. Maarten and reminisce about the aquamarine water and some beach time!

St. Maarten was our third stop on our Voyager of the Seas southern Caribbean cruise (if you'd like to read about the first two stops you can do that here) For years I have been hearing about my brothers trip to St. Maarten, and I had never been, so I was looking forward to visiting this half Dutch - half French island.

St. Maarten consists of Sint Maarten, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, on the Southern part of the island and Saint Martin, a French overseas collectivity, on the northern part. It's known as the smallest landmass to consist of two nations and I was hoping to visit both. We docked on the Dutch side so we planned to take the water taxi to the island and spend the morning there. Then we signed up for an afternoon excursion to the beach in the French side. Our day was all sorted.

The water taxi travels between the cruiseport and Phillipsburg. (Round trip is $7 per person) I was told that we needed to see Phillipsburg and especially do some shopping. So we walked some of the streets but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary that I needed to purchase. One cool thing we did see was an historic Dutch school, the Oranje school, and we could hear the students doing recitations inside. (It was originally built as a church in 1738, then became a school and in 1938 it became a government school)

We still had plenty of time before our afternoon excursion so we decided to hang out at the "Dutch Blonde Beach Bar" in a very interesting building. Having just been in the Netherlands a few months before, I enjoyed talking to the Dutch bartenders (and I believe bar owners) about their country. And you couldn't beat the view!

Dutch Blonde Blonde Ale brewed on the island

We took the water taxi back to the ship to get ready for our excursion. We were to take a coach to the French side of the island and be dropped off at Orient Beach - where one side is a nude beach and the rest is topless - to lounge in a beach chair. We were dropped off and given our included rum punch, found a chair and settled in. The beach was very nice - a bit windy but beautiful views. There were beach bars all along the sand and accommodations across the street.

 The blurb from the excursion guide said to expect people trying to sell you things but I think this was the most "beach selling" I've ever experienced. So we decided this was the time to take a nice long beach walk before the rains came in. We made it pretty far until we got to the "nude" area of the beach and turned around right before the rain came in. We took shelter in a cafe and then it was time to go. 

Our drive back went quickly and before you knew it, it was time to set sail again. On to the next island!

How about you? Have you been to St. Maarten?

Linking up with: My Corner of the World at Photographing New Zealand!