St Maarten

Last port of call in the Caribbean. Stood in a queue for our shore excursion to tour part of the island and got rather wet in a sharp downpour. Sat in the coach in the hope that we would dry off but as the air conditioning was on and it was cool, it took a while. The tour took us through part of Philipsburg, the main town in the Dutch part of the island and some way up in the hills before travelling through the border into the French part of the island and we stopped in Marigot, the main town in the French part. To be honest, it was all rather disappointing and I had great difficulty in finding anything to photograph. We then took a trip around the large lagoon that separates both the Dutch and French parts but, again, found it very disappointing as we found very little of interest. We returned to the ship rather underwhelmed. We decided then to take the water taxi to Philipsburg and just have a wander around. The main beach is lovely and parts of the town historic. We met an American couple who are staying on St Maarten for five weeks and had a really good talk over rum and beer. So a disappointing start to the day but a better finish.

At 5.30 this afternoon we depart St Maarten and head eastwards to cross the Atlantic, heading for the Azores and then Southampton. Oh well!Read more