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Hallo!
I'm telling you, when that alarm goes off, it drives me crazy. But I know I gotta get up and at it. Hope and I say our "good mornings." but then there's a long silence. We're both dead tired. I don't know why I'm always the sleepy one, because I head to bed first.
We get up and pack our travel bags and head up to breakfast. I decide to try the french toast this morning and I was quite surprised. It was pretty good. Of course, coffee. It's really good. I know I've said that before, but it is.
The ship docks at 9 and we disembark into Philipsburg. I know the blog reads "Paradis" but won't allow me to enter St.Maartern. We head over to the tours desk and a gentleman approaches us and asks us if we want a tour and flags down a woman in a Lincoln Navigator. Her name is Alma. Her business cards read "Lady Al Taxi Services."
Alma started the tour with a bit of history of the island, beginning with the sights we were seeing on the Dutch side.
St. Martin's history shares many commonalities with other Caribbean islands. Its earliest inhabitants were Amerindians, followed by Europeans who brought slavery to exploit commercial interests.
Ancient relics date the island's first settlers, probably Ciboney Indians (a subgroup of Arawaks), back to 3,500 years ago. Then another group of Arawaks migrated from South America's Orinoco basin around 800 A.D. Because of St. Martin's salt-pans they called it "Soualiga," or "Land of Salt." Mainly a farming and fishing society, the Arawaks lived in villages of straw-roofed buildings which were strong enough to resist hurricanes. Their tranquil civilization valued artistic and spiritual pursuits.
Their lives were turned upside-down, however, with the descent of the Carib Indians from the same region they had come from. A warrior nation, the Caribs killed the Arawak men and enslaved the women. When Europeans began to explore the Caribbean, Carib society had almost completely displaced the Arawaks.
In 1493, on Christopher Columbus second voyages to the West Indies, upon first sighting the island he named it Isla de San Martín after Saint Martin of Tours because it was November 11, St. Martin Day. However, though he claimed it as a Spanish territory, Columbus never landed there, and Spain made the settlement of the island a low priority.
The French and Dutch, on the other hand, both coveted the island. While the French wanted to colonize the islands between Trinidad and Bermuda, the Dutch found San Martín a convenient halfway point between their colonies in New Amsterdam (present day New York) and Brazil. With few people inhabiting the island, the Dutch easily founded a settlement there in 1631, erecting Fort Amsterdam as protection from invaders. Jan Claeszen Van Campen became its first governor, and soon thereafter the Dutch East India Company began their salt mining operations. French and British settlements sprang up on the island as well. Taking note of these successful colonies and wanting to maintain their control of the salt trade, the Spanish now found St. Martin much more appealing. The Eighty Years' War which had been raging between Spain and the Netherlands provided further incentive to attack.
Spanish forces captured Saint Martin from the Dutch in 1633, seizing control and driving most or all of the colonists off the island. At Point Blanche, they built Old Spanish Fort to secure the territory. Although the Dutch retaliated in several attempts to win back St. Martin, they failed. Fifteen years after the Spanish conquered the island, the Eighty Years' War ended. Since they no longer needed a base in the Caribbean and St. Martin barely turned a profit, the Spanish lost their inclination to continue defending it. In 1648, they deserted the island.
With St. Martin free again, both the Dutch and the French jumped at the chance to re-establish their settlements. Dutch colonists came from St. Eustatius, while the French came from St. Kitts. After some initial conflict, both sides realized that neither would yield easily. Preferring to avoid an all-out war, they signed the Treaty of Concordia in 1648, which divided the island in two.
A legend grew up around the division of the island. According to legend, in order to decide on their territorial boundaries, the two sides held a contest. It began with a Frenchman drinking wine and a Dutchman drinking jenever (Dutch gin). When both had sufficiently imbibed, they embarked from Oysterpond on the island's east coast. The Frenchman headed off along the coast to the north, while the Dutchman followed the coast south; wherever the two groups met was where they would draw the dividing line from Oysterpond. But as the Dutchman met a woman and stopped to sleep off the effects of the gin, the Frenchman was able to cover more distance, but apparently also cheated as he cut through the northeastern part of the island, and therefore ended up with more land.
Let me tell you, you have no idea how many times we heard this same story today.
Though oft-repeated, the story is not historically accurate. During the treaty's negotiation, the French had a fleet of naval ships off shore, which they used as a threat to bargain more land for themselves. In spite of the treaty, relations between the two sides were not always cordial. Between 1648 and 1816, conflicts changed the border sixteen times. In the end, the French came out ahead with 21 square miles (54 km2) to the 16 square miles (41 km2) of the Dutch side.
In 1651, the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique sold the French part of the island to the Order of Saint John which was sovereign over Malta. The Order's rule lasted for fourteen years, and in 1665 it was sold back to the French West India Company along with the Order's other possessions in the Caribbean.
Although the Spanish had been the first to import slaves to the island, their numbers had been few. But with the new cultivation of cotton, tobacco, and sugar, mass numbers of slaves were imported to work on the plantations. The slave population quickly grew larger than that of the land owners. Subjected to cruel treatment, slaves staged rebellions, and their overwhelming numbers made them impossible to ignore. In 1848, the French abolished slavery in their colonies including the French side of St. Martin. Slaves on the Dutch side of the island protested and threatened to flee to the French side to seek asylum. The local Dutch authorities relented and emancipated the colonies' slaves. While this decree was respected locally, it was not until 1863 when the Dutch abolished slavery in all of their island colonies that the slaves became legally free.
After abolition of slavery, plantation culture declined and the island's economy suffered. In 1939, St. Martin received a major boost when it was declared a duty-free port. The Dutch began focusing on tourism in the 1950s. It took the French another twenty years to start developing their tourism industry. Currently, tourism provides the backbone of the economy for both sides of the island.
On September 5, 1995, Hurricane Luis severely pounded the islands causing numerous damages 35 years to the day after Hurricane Donna.
In 1994, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and France signed the Franco-Dutch treaty on Saint Martin border controls, which allows for joint Franco-Dutch border controls on so-called "risk flights". After some delay, the treaty was ratified in November 2006 in the Netherlands, and subsequently entered into force on 1 August 2007. Though the treaty is now in force, its provisions are not yet implemented as the working group specified in the treaty is not yet installed.
Alma took us around to great spots for photos. She said that she's actually driven Judge Judy, once. We were on our way to the French side.
We also headed over to Maho Beach. The place was packed with sun lovers on the beach. This is the spot to watch the 747s fly into Princess Juliana Airport.
Princess Juliana International Airport (IATA: SXM, ICAO: TNCM) (also known as Saint Maarten International Airport) is the main airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, located on the Dutch side of the island in the country of Sint Maarten. In 2007, the airport handled 1,647,824 passengers and 103,650 aircraft movements. The airport serves as a hub for Windward Islands Airways and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, St. Barthélemy and St. Eustatius. It is named after Juliana of the Netherlands, who as crown princess landed here in 1944, the year after the airport opened. There is also an airport on the French side of the island, called Aéroport de Grand Case or L'Espérance Airport.
The airport is perhaps best known for very low-altitude flyover landing approaches due to one end of its runway being extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach.
The airport was started as a military airstrip in 1942. It was converted to a civilian airport in 1943. In 1964 the airport was remodeled and relocated, with a new terminal building and control tower. The facilities were upgraded in 1985 and 2001.
Because of increased passenger traffic and the expected growth of passenger traffic in the near future, Princess Juliana International Airport is being heavily modernized following a three-phased masterplan, commissioned in 1997.
Phase I was a short-term program in order to upgrade existing facilities and improve the level of service at various points. This included widening, strengthening and renovating the runway, increasing the bearing capacity of the taxiways, construction of a new apron and an upgrade of the (old) terminal. Phase I was completed in 2001.
Phase II included the construction of a radar facility and a new air traffic control tower, the construction of a new and more modern, 27,000 square metres (290,000 sq ft), terminal, capable of handling 2.5 million passengers per year, and the construction of a Runway End Safety Area (RESA) of 150 metres (490 ft), including a 60 metres (200 ft) overrun, on both ends of its runway, to comply with ICAO rules. The new air traffic control tower and the radar station commenced operations on 29 March 2004, while the new terminal opened in late October 2006. The terminal has 4 jetways for large aircraft like 747s.
If traffic develops as forecast, Phase III of the masterplan will be executed, consisting of an extension of the new terminal building and the construction of a full parallel taxiway system. The new terminal building will also have more jetways and services etc.
However, the oil price increases since 2003 began impacting discretionary air travel worldwide by early 2008, and the prospect of further price increases threatens to reverse the recent expansion of tourist travel by jet which began with the 1980s oil glut.
We'd headed back towards the spot where Alma instructed us to meet her, but she shooed us on back until the bid double-decker plane flew in. I think the cabbies are so used to dropping folks at the beach and them spending the entire day there, she didn't know what to do with us.
We stayed and photographed more planes coming in, but then we headed back and if she dared trying to shoo us again, we weren't having it.
We hopped back into the SUV and headed over to a nice shopping area. Every island has some great unique items that catch your eye. Some handicrafts are sooooo different and you'd kinda of think you'll never see them again, soooo you just have to buy them.
I think she gave us 45 minutes, but I think we shopped a bit longer. Some of the shopkeepers were dismantling their booths and packing up to go home.
After our shopping we were heading back into Philipsburg.
Alma dropped us off and we said out goodbyes. Hope and I peeked in quite a few shoppes here near the port before boarding.
It was truly a full day and a great tour.
We rushed to get cleaned up and dressed for dinner. The ship set sail at 6 P.M. Tonight we were dining in the Chic Restaurant. It was nice. The chairs had beaded chains that hung to the floor, from all 4 sides of the seat. After dinner I left Hope behind, headed up to the Windjammer to nab my cookies and ice cream, headed to the room to call it a night.
Dag!
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Phyllis Jackson You should write for a travel magazine.