Caribbean Cruise Part 2 - St. Thomas and St. Maarten

Instead of reading about our usual RV traveling, you've just landed in the middle of a Caribbean Cruise! We're actually on day 4 of a nine-day trip in the Southern Caribbean. If you're not too sea-sick, come along to the next two port stops--St. Thomas and St. Maarten. 

When booking a cruise, you always envision those beach days with the turquoise water and sunny blue skies. But in reality you could run into some rain. That's what happened to us in St. Thomas. But it was the stop that we were the least excited about because we have been to St. Thomas before. We had less planned this day, so the rain impacted us less. When we pulled into the port, we could see that it was already raining on the island.

St. Thomas is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, but its location so far from the mainland means that things can be expensive. As much as we are lamenting the high price of diesel at home, at least it's not the St. Thomas price of $5.79.

We are frugal travelers, so of course we are not doing one of the expensive shore excursions that the ship offers. We've decided that we want to go to a local beach, and we learned there is public transportation to Coki Beach on the north side of the island. After much research we found the "dollar ride." Imagine a flatbed truck with bench seats and a canopy overhead. If you want to sound fancy, it can be called a "safari bus." Locals use them to get to jobs and the market, and we had read where we should be able to find one. On our walk from the ship, we found a retired American couple who are living in St. Thomas, and they verified our instructions for riding the bus. So when it pulled up we asked the driver if it was a dollar ride going the direction we wanted, and we hopped on. We were the only people on the bus that weren't local.

It was an adventurous ride through the rolling hills of St. Thomas. It was a little slower because we made stops at places like grocery stores and hospitals. But we knew to get off at Louie's Market on Smith Bay and paid our dollar to the driver. It's a half-mile to the beach from here, and of course it started raining again as soon as we started walking. 

While it's not great beach weather, that meant that it wasn't crowded today. We met a young couple from our ship that were ready to leave when we arrived. They had paid an expensive taxi fare to get here, and it had been raining every since. But we talked them into staying, as the weather was supposed to clear shortly.

Besides, you're going to get wet snorkeling, so who cares if it is raining? We had heard this was a good snorkeling beach and we did see some colorful fish.

We talked to a local couple that always bring a supply of dog biscuits to feed those colorful fish. They gave us a big biscuit and told us to put out little pieces to bring the fish to us. This is probably against some official policy, but they were also selling bags of dog biscuits at the little shop on the beach. We really did have a great time feeding the fish at Coki Beach! Those colorful salt-water fish were right in our faces as we snorkeled around the rocky areas on the sides of the beach.

We shared our biscuit with the young couple from our ship and another family. It changed a rainy bummer of a day into some unique fun. So even though rain wasn't in the plan, we still enjoyed the beautiful scenery on St. Thomas.

The water was perfectly clear, and we got a little dot of blue sky on the horizon before we left. We didn't have to fight the crowds, and the day was almost free with the help of the dollar bus.

We walked back to Louie's Market, and caught the dollar bus back to town. We got a tour of the north and east sides of the island, and had the canopy to protect us from the rain that started again on the ride back. Everything was wet, including the lovely St. Thomas blooms that Denisa was admiring.

We were glad to get back to the ship to dry off and get ready for dinner on this wet day in St. Thomas.

We were blessed that the next day brought sunny skies, as our ship docked at St. Maarten. Right across from our ship was a tall mast ship with a much shorter passenger list. That would be a great experience, but is a significantly more expensive way to explore the Southern Caribbean.

This island is one country, but it has two different spellings. The southern side of the island is where we docked, and it has a Dutch spelling--St. Maarten.

This south side of the island is where most of the residents live and work, and the Dutch claim the deep water port where cruise ships dock on a regular basis. Our ship offered expensive shore excursions, but once again we found a less expensive option that fit us better. We found a local company--Bernard's Adventure Island Tour--that offered a five-hour tour for $60 per person. We made the four minute walk from the ship to check in with Bernard's. While they had some big busses in the parking lot, we were glad to see that we would be touring in a van with another family of three.

While our driver gave a running narrative of this 37 square mile island as we drove by sites, our first stop was at the southern tip with a view of the sea.

While the family in our group opted to stay in the air-conditioned van, we headed down the trail to find that this is home to a big group of iguanas.

These reptiles have no idea how lucky they are to enjoy beautiful turquoise-water views from their perch on top of the rocks.

Then we headed north, where we were welcomed to the French side. Now the name of the island is spelled Saint Martin.

Another stop showed us that some of the beaches on the north side can be quite rocky and deserted.

We stopped at the Iguana Park, where locals entice the iguanas to hang around by feeding them. They had greens available for purchase, that were attached to the end of a stick. But other tourists were already using the sticks to feed the iguanas.

We much preferred to find our own iguanas in a more natural habitat. This guy was hanging out in the water . . .

and more were stretched out in the trees.

With only five people in our tour, we had the flexibility to decide what we wanted to see and how long we wanted to stay. While the family of three had a different agenda than us, we both agreed that a stop at a pretty beach would be nice.

We were blessed with blue skies that really showed off the turquoise water today. We were also blessed with a beach so far from the cruise port that we saw only a handful of other people. We have wandered into another of God's wonders.

While the other family opted to spend their time at a cafe eating appetizers, we spent our time walking the entire expanse of the beach. We made it all the way to the rocky ledge where the beach ended.

The other end of the beach ended in a small boat dock, and a long row of shops and restaurants. When cruising, we always eat a big breakfast before we leave the ship. We also take a few snacks to keep us from getting hungry while we are out exploring.

That doesn't mean that we won't stop to eat a local snack while we are on an island. Our next stop was the town of Marigot--the biggest town on the French side of the island. So we immediately made a detour into the French bakery.

We chose the most decadent triple chocolate cheesecake, and called that lunch.

On the French side of the island, the welcome sign that says "I love Saint Martin" is abbreviated like this:

The coast at Marigot is surrounded by restaurants and little shops, and the family on our tour was happy to spend their time shopping and eating. Our driver pointed out the fort at the very top of the hill, but he definitely didn't recommend climbing the 92 steps on this hot afternoon to see it.

But of course, that's exactly what we did. After climbing all those steps, Mark climbed on top of the highest point of Fort Louis just to be sure we went as high as possible.

From the top we got the best views of Marigot and the sea. The wind at the top was whipping the French flag, and Denisa was having to hang on to her hat.

Why would people stay behind to go shopping, when a little climbing will get views like this?

We found more iguanas hanging out on the walls of the fort, and eating the berries from the trees.

We are liking our tour of Saint Martin!

If you google "top things to do in St. Martin" it will surely bring up Maho Beach. It is a lovely little beach with the most popular beach bar on the island. You can see Mark on the beach with the Sunset Beach Bar in the background.

But what makes it famous is its proximity to the largest airport on the island. The end of the runway is right past the sand, and any incoming airplane will fly right over the heads of the people on the beach. Our driver knew to bring us here in the afternoon, when more and bigger airplanes are arriving and departing the island.

We had to take the tourist picture where it feels like you can almost touch the bottom of that airplane with its landing gear ready to land in just a few feet.

But the real fun comes when one of the big planes take off. They take their place just on the other side of the chain link fence as they prepare to speed straight ahead down the runway. We learned that you find a place behind those big jet engines and hang on to your hat. We have found that videos don't work well with our blog platform, so we can only tell you to google Maho beach airport to find a video that shows the breeze that comes when a jet engine takes off that close.

It was a fun stop at Maho Beach, and our tour-mates took a picture of us before we left.

We made a couple more stops around the island, and our driver gave us time to take pictures of the views.

We had a good long day on St. Maarten/Saint Martin and we saw the sunset over the island as our ship set sail.

We're out on the deck of the ship, so blessed to be enjoying this Caribbean cruise, and two more port stops. And yes, we're heading to the back of the ship for Mark to get his ice cream before bed time.