On Wednesday, we arrived in Sint Maarten/St. Martin. We docked on the Dutch side, so Sint Maarten.
This cruise, we booked our excursions through third parties that I found through forums and Trip Advisor. On Sint Maarten, we did a boat tour with Soualiga Destinations. It was so fun. There were 16 guests on the boat and we made five stops and went around the island. The guide, Brett, was really knowledgable but also really funny.
At our first snorkel stop, there was some people on a really nice catamaran along with their dog. A little later, I saw one of the women paddling the dog to the beach. He jumped out of the kayak, ran off into the brush (presumably to go to the bathroom) and then hopped back into the kayak. That dog must spend a lot of time on the catamaran!
Here's David at another snorkel spot.
We had a really nice lunch at a local restaurant. I have recently learned that it was totally destroyed by hurricane Irma. It's really sad. We are supposed to stop at Sint Maarten again on our Symphony of the Seas cruise in December 2018, so I hope to go on this same boat tour again and hopefully the restaurant and others have been able to rebuild.
Lunch spot - Yellow umbrellas - Pre-Irma
After lunch, we went over to the Princess Juliana airport and watched a plane come it. Capt. Brett said it was a flight from Amsterdam.
Sint Maarten was really beautiful. I hope that the island is able to rebuild and recover quickly from the hurricane.
Panorama from our lunch spot.
Panorama from the dock
The island was really lush and green. This is the French side.