Caribbean Cruise Day 9

St. Maarten! The best stop of the week!

Lincoln & Ardena, Max & Steph, me & Matt, Brenda & George

 The morning started early and we had a lot we wanted to see at this little tiny island.  We grabbed our taxi and started to talk about our options.  It was $8/per person each way to get to any beach... we had two or three we were interested in, which added up pretty quick!  Our taxi man, Stan suggested he could be OURS for the day for $30 a person.  We had been pretty cheap the entire trip and decided it was well worth it.  So far we had spent around $16-20 each day/per person on taxi's.  Many tour/excursions on the island were between $35-50 for FOUR hours and you don't get to stay as long as you want at the stops!  Wow, $30 for a day seemed great!   I guess the other option would have been renting a van but its so much nicer to not worry about getting lost/stuck in traffic, etc.

Our first stop was a place where tons of iquana's live.  They were all just hanging out in the sun!  There was was hiding in the trees that was at least 4 feet long with huge spikes on his back!

We continued our drive across the island.  It is split in half -- one half is dutch, the other is french.  Each side is beautiful with amazing beaches along the way.

 Oyster Bay -- beautiful!  It looked like they had some amazing snorkeling here.  I couldn't read any of the information because it was all in french.

 We wanted to check out Orient Beach first.  This is on the french side.  It was obvious that this is a very popular place!  Tons of restaurants, bars, chairs, umbrellas and people.  We found a free picnic table and put our stuff there for a couple hours.

I thought this sign was funny -- free kiss from the beach boy

 This beach is GORGEOUS!

Yep we still love each other!

The sand was like powdered sugar... so soft.  Us girls enjoyed the little waves and swam until it was time to go... the men did too, but no one took any pictures.

The only drawback of this place is that its french and there is an exclusive nudist club towards the end of the beach.  Of course, Stephanie and I were curious and had to walk down there.  As soon as we got over there we could hear a lot of people laughing.  A tour group was standing there laughing out loud at all these naked people on the beach!  The naked people didn't seem to care at all!  One man just stood there bearing everything and watched the group of people!!  I guess this is just something I'll never understand!

Ignore the man standing there... if you look past him and my darling sister Stephanie you can catch a glimpse of what I'm talking about... no shame... just bending over to get stuff out of her bag!!  What on earth?!

ANYWAY, we continued our tour of the island and drove through some cute little towns.

 Marigot-- the french capitol.

We stopped at a gas station to get some cheap snacks.  Everyday we would skip lunch or buy a few things from local restaurants but tried to not spend any money on food, simply because we had free food waiting for us on the ship.  Anyway, we stopped and got some french cookies and our favorite sodas and then headed towards Mullet Bay... check out this beauty:

Ahhh... this beach was so refresshing and fun.  We all decided that on our next cruise when we stop here we'll just come to Mullet Bay and spend the entire day.  It was THAT good.  The water was warm and the sand was soft.  There were a few bars on the beach but nothing overbearing.  There were no naked people and the water had the perfect waves.  In the picture below you can see the waves.

 It was so fun because they would slowly get bigger and bigger until a huge one would pound us and we'd have to go under or get smashed into the sand!  Some of us weren't so lucky (Lincoln) and got pounded!  He eventually got up and had sand all over his head and beard!  We laughed and laughed and then finally asked him if he was ok!  He was laughing too, and was a good sport!

We reluctantly left our beautiful paradisaical beach and went to check out another one-- Maho beach.

The airport is directly behind this beach.  It used to be sandy and people would get shoved into the water from the planes taking off!  Now, there are rocks instead of sand but it still looks awesome.  We were lucky enough to watch one small plane and a bigger one come in.  After watching some videos on YouTube I can see why they got rid of all the sand!

 You'll have to scroll to the bottom to see the airplane... oops!

This sign was at the port as we walked in -- I am SO GLAD we were the only boat.  I can't imagine that place with thousands of other people!  That big one has over 5,000 passengers... wow!  I am so glad we didn't come in peak season.

This was a picture I took early in the morning when we were docking the boat.

 We were so sad to leave this little piece of heaven.  It was such a fun day!  Definitely a great way to end our trip.  If we cruise the Caribbean again I'll be sure that we stop in St. Maarten for sure!