Pictures on St Maarten

The St Maarten Marina on the way to the Sunset Bar
No warning of strong rip tides etc on this beach! It all JETBLAST!!!!

The Sunset Bar

A private jet about to land, the smaller planes came in much higher than the big Boeings etc because they need less runway to stop.

An Air France Air Bus waiting for clearance to take off, this baby HURT!!!

Antigua

English Harbour / Nelsons Dockyard
Horatio Nelsons bedroom

The layout of the dock yard

Mega yachts in English Harbour

The Antigua Yacht Club in Falmouth

French spell checker

I have not spell checked any of these new posts because we are in St Barths and everything, including the web browser is in french! Please dont mail me and tell me I cant spell! deal with it, bad spelling is better than no posts!

Pictures of Brimstone Hill Fortress

This is a picture of the courtyard in the citadel, it reminded me of the court yard for Pirates of the Caribbean!

The ruins of the Officers and Artillery Lutenents accomdation

An ariel view of the Citadel, the rest of the fort and gun batteries were wide sperad all over the hill.

St Maarten

Today we were gong to do the Americas Cup sailing but before the party last night we changed our mind because it fell right in the middle of the day and there was a few other things we wanted to do while here, and now in retrospect there is no way we would have been able to help sail a 40ft racing monohull in the state we were in.
After showering and packing our stuff for the day we stepped outside to be greeted by 3 other cruse ships sharing the dock with us, our ship was tiny in comparison, one of the ships was a Royal Caribbean Eagle Class Cruiser, in 2003 it held the crown for the biggest cruise ship in the world. I saw a documentary on the design and construction of these behemoths, cinemas, pools, Restaurants, ice rink, dance clubs, casinos, shopping mall, climbing wall, mini golf, artificial surfing waves, theatre, spas, gyms, you name it the ship had it! Google it and you will see what I mean!

We missioned around town and caught a taxi to the Sunset Bar. The Sunset bar is world famous, not for the actual facilities, (which are rather nice, kind of like La Med) but for the fact that it is on a beach that is 2m away from the Princess Juliana International Airport main runway! The planes land and take off right in front of you, and let me tell you an Airbus A340 on line up for take off with full brakes and full throttle is f&%king loud! The jet blast is indescribable and it HURTS! 4 Turbofan jet engines each with 30000 pounds of thrust 40m away from you is an experience to behold! It is impossible to stand up, when the pilot powered up I saw a dude who was intentionally standing behind the plane get blown over like he was hit by a train, the cars don’t even drive past when a plane is powering up for take off, what an idiot, but it was really funny! We were off to the edge of the runway and we still got sandblasted!

Just as cool is having a Boeing land over your head so close you have a reflex to run away as it is on final approach and it gets closer and closer to you, the beach and the run way a few meters behind you! It feels like you could jump up and touch it!
What an awesome experience it was to be there! For some of the time we sat on the deck and had lunch of hamburgers and coke, (no alcohol yet!) while planes of various makes and sizes were coming and going.
There are some filthy rich people here we saw mega yachts in the marina and private jets at the airport that would make Mark Suttleworth feel like a street beggar! Foreplay, the biggest motor yacht we saw at the Cape Town boat show is the same as the smallest yacht we have seen here! I saw a Boeing 737 – 200 private jet, SAA use those for the CT-JHB domestic flights!
After the sun had set we took a walk up the main shopping street of Cole Bay and were humbled again, this time by the jewellery, the only thing we saw with a price tag was a R100 000 necklace, no problem!! And it wasn’t even one of the fancy ones in the window! No cubic zirconium here!
With our tails between our legs we caught a local bus back to the capital, Philipsburg, to explore the boardwalk and beachfront. St Maarten is tiny, 47 sq miles in total so it sounds like a long way but really it isn’t!
The boardwalk was mainly closed up because it was after dinner and all the other ships had left, but it was still cool, white sandy beach on one side and high-end shops, bars and restaurants on the other. We found a place that had WiFi so we sat down for a drink, Richard had recovered somewhat and decided he was brave enough to try a beer, so we ordered two draught Heinekens, which much to our surprise went down rather well! We could not get the Internet to work so we packed the laptop away and enjoyed our beer and the jazz band that were playing on the other side of the boardwalk. One beer was all it took for poor Rich and he was pissed again, I was also feeling rather touched as we walked back toward the ship. We had dinner in the Deck 4 restaurant called Fusion4, this is where we normally eat if we eat onboard, shortly afterwards we decided to retire for an early night instead of having another hangover in the morning!

We leave St Maarten tomorrow at 7am so we have set the alarm to wake up and watch us sail out, the trip to St Barths tomorrow will take about 45mins so we will hangout on deck while we are underway and while we drop anchor when we arrive. I’m sure we will be tendering in St Barths again as I could not see a Cruise Terminal on the map. Apparently St Barths Main Street is comparable to New York 5th Avenue shopping so no doubt it will be another humbling experience for us!

Cheers till next time!

Bonfire

I think it is safe to say last night was the biggest night of the trip so far, it bought new meaning to the phrase “Pull It”.
We left the ship on the 8pm tender ride and walked back to the Double Deuce bar, all was quite there so we decided to walk down the beach to where the Bon fire would be, the beach was not like the other beaches that are lined with beach bars and apart for the occasional it was deserted all the way to the Sunshine Bar. We were told to pick a table by a waiter and ordered a Rum Punch, later we found out that they were serving us Killer Bees which were a tad bit stronger than the rum punches we were used to. I should have guessed this from the gag reflex and squint eyes Rich had on his first sip! After a while we still had no menus and the owner who was sitting behind us on a big sofa shouted to the waiter (in a typical Caribbean / Jamaican accent) “Moffie! Hey Moffie what you doing?” The other waiter was a gay black local dude with tight knee length jeans and a black cowboy hat. He replied, “I is busy mon” and Sunny (the owner) said “Rubbish mon, Dukkie (our waiter) is f&%king around again, get these guys a menu” You had to be there to laugh at it but it was hilarious. The bonfire we were supposed to be having was coming along rather slow. The man in charge was a stoned drunk Rasta of about 70 years, with torn jeans bright island floral shirt and a big beanie for holding his dreads up, the task was proving challenging to him! He had stacked a pile of four wooden packing crates against each other and was in the process of stuffing cardboard in some of the gaps after which he lit it, walked away and succeeded to burn all the cardboard in the structure with out setting fire to any of the wood, he now had a smoking mass of pallets and no more cardboard, he was very entertaining while we waited for our ribs to arrive. After a few minutes he appeared again, with a fat joint and a fresh beer, realising his fire had gone out and he had used all his cardboard in the first attempt, he walked (the slowest I’ve ever seen anyone walk) over to the edge of the rain forest and started collecting dry coconut husks and branches and attempted to relight the fire, he succeeded this time but only just. Next to the bonfire pit was a large stack of wooden pallets that he was too feed the fire with, he did this from time to time and stumbled around the beach in a rather confused looking state, actually stumbling is not right, he was walking VERY slowly and swaying from side to side with a joint in one hand and a beer in the other.
Our Ribs arrived with more Killer Bees, both went down the hatch with satisfaction.
About 30mins later the bus from the Cruise arrived with a load of fellow cruisers who had opted to eat on the ship and come to the bonfire with an organised excursion. We moved into the open air lounge and joined up with them on some big over size couches along with 2 fresh Killer Bees, we chatted about where we were all from and what we had done during the day etc The one girl was having a birthday so they bought over a Papaya complete with candles and we all sang for her while the “moffie” cut open the papaya with a panga. The rest of the time at the beach bar was taken up by dancing (not us) and standing around the bonfire drinking and taking to other people from the ship (us).
The taxis arrived for the trip back to the jetty to get the tender back to the ship, we bummed a ride and said we had lost our return ticket, the driver didn’t seem to mind as I presume he was paid a set rate by the ship for the trip. After we got back to the ship everyone we straight up to the deck 5 bar where the DJ was busy trying to get a party started with those who did not go to the bonfire party, it all went out the window from there and is mostly a blur. I have no idea what time I got to bed but it must have been around 3ish, Rich ninjaed before that and was flat on his back when I got back to the room completely and utterly broken. Much to my dismay I woke up at 7am with a monster hangover but luckily I fell asleep again. While I was asleep Rich, in all his wisdom, threw up in the sink and did a solid job of blocking it up, the oddity in this is that the toilet was 20cm to his right. I woke again at 2 in the afternoon feeling much better but still crappy, Rich was trying to clean the sink, but was not feeling to intelligent either! We have done many “firsts” on this trip and I’m sure we have done many things no one else has ever done, like taking apart the sink in their Cruise liner cabin because it was blocked with puke! He had cleaned it out with toilet paper but the water was not draining away. Don’t worry I have it on video, Rich sitting on the toilet taking the water trap apart and cleaning it out! I’m sure with the sate he was in it was as challenging as rocket science!

Nevis

So as you gathered from Rich we are in Nevis today and we were in Antigua Yesterday. We got off the boat today and caught the Tender across the the island, they do not have a deep water port here so the boat is a few hundred meters off shore. We arrived at the jetty and walked into town, not allot going on here,I guess they don't get many tourists. After about 10mins walking we found the beach and the Double Deuce Bar. Thankfully they have a Wireless Network! So here we are, 20m from the beach, rum, balmy breeze, private yachts, flat Caribbean sea, white sands and our cruise ship visible through the coconut trees.
When we boarded the Cruise ship in St Kitts 2 days ago it was so cold we had to put a Tee Shirt on! and I cant remember the last time i wore closed shoes, slops all the way!
Lunch was good, I hand the King Fish and Rich had a hamburger, we both had rum, what else! We have met a few other people, some Americans and some British folk we have been keeping and eye on the NZ Vs WI game online, and trying to explain to the yanks how it works, a lost cause.
A bit later there is Bonfire down the beach but we will go back to the ship first to drop off the laptop and cameras etc, I think we might pull it (again) tonight!
Well its getting late and the tender is arriving soon so we need to start taking a walk back to the jetty.

I'm sure we will update from St Maarten tomorrow. AND tomorrow we are going sailing on an Americas Cup sailing boat! NICE! US$75 for 3 hrs but it will be worth it! and then afterwards it's off the the legendary sunset bar to watch the 747's land and take off over the beach!

Cheers!