Ben's USA Cycle Blog: St Martin

I landed at Princess Juliana Airport on the Caribbean island of St Martin about 2pm on Monday. The airport is located right on the edge of the island and its runway is perpendicular to Maho beach. The beach has therefore become popular amongst plane spotters who come to see them fly just feet above the beach before landing and experience the jet blast as the aircraft take off. This was the main reason I chose to come here having seen it on tv and never having been to the Caribbean. The weather was hot and sunny when I arrived but there were some dark clouds around and shortly after arriving at my hotel there begun a tropical down pour lasting a couple of hours. After it subsided I wandered to a nearby beach side restaurant and sampled the local mahi mahi fish and some coconut pie which were both delicious.

On Tuesday morning I walked to Maho beach to watch the planes. The airport is not very busy and the majority of daily flights are propeller planes from other Caribbean islands but there are half a dozen larger aircraft from the US and Europe. I got to see a couple of big ones whilst I was there, the highlight being a 747 KLM flight landing from Amsterdam. I took a video of the incoming flight but my attempt to do the same as the plane departed an hour or so later were thwarted by the sand blasting into my face forcing me to shelter behind the beach wall. After that I wandered back to the hotel, the hotel is right on the beach so had a dip in the lovely warm, clear sea. It is still low season here in St Martin and I pretty much had the beach to myself. Later in the afternoon I took a 20 minute bus ride to Philipsburg. The island is half French (the north) and half Dutch (the south), Philipsburg is the largest town on the Dutch side. The buses are really just small beat up old people carriers that you seem to be able to flag and stop anywhere, but at $1.50 far cheaper than you'd pay in a taxi. I had another nice fish (grouper) and rice based dinner by Simpson Bay lagoon.

On Wednesday I went on a speedboat trip round the island. We set off from Philipsburg and stopped off at various spots during the 6 hour trip. We did some snorkelling, visited a couple of small islands, had lunch (more mahi mahi) in the French side and went past a beach side mansion belonging to one Donald Trump.

My flight today was not until the afternoon so I had time for another lounge by the beach next to the hotel and another trip to Maho beach for plane spotting. The weather has been great since the first day's down pours and it has been a nice couple of days spent on this cool little island.