Tour around the island Sint Maarten and plane-spotting
Sint Maarten is part of the Netherlands Antilles. I was very excited to visit this island for its Caribbean Dutch culture and for the plane-spotting. We walked from the schip to the town Philipsburg. It is a 10 minutes walk. My first impression. There are many of duty free shops in Philipsburg, to buy: licor, cigarettes, parfum and jewelry. Great bay has a beautiful white sand beach and the town has many well-kept colonial buildings.
Sint Maarten was a major exporter of salt
The island has a French and a Dutch part. Sint Maarten is named by Columbus who passed by the island on November 11th 1493. This day is the day of Sint Maarten. The 42.000 inhabitants of the island still celebrate Sint Maartens day every year on November 11th. Sint Maarten was known for its salt production. The salt lakes fill up with salt water. In the dry season water evaporates and the salt can be harvested. On the Dutch side it lasted till 1949 and on the French side till 1967 that salt was produced here.
In Philipsburg we asked a taxi driver to give us a tour around the island. The private tour is $100, but it was worth every dollar. The taxi driver told us about the hurricanes and hurricane-season. On September 6th 2017 Hurricane Irma had a huge impact on the island as it is today and which main income is tourism. The Princess Juliana airport suffered many damage. Infrastructure and houses were destroyed. You still see the impact it had, but you can also see a lot has been done to rebuilt the island. We saw the French side and most of the Dutch side of the island.
Most people speak English and the US dollar is the most used currency
On a tour around the island you’ll see beautiful beaches, goats on the side of the road, iguanas, rocky coastlines and small villages. At the Maho Beach you should stop for the most spectaculair sight of the island: plane spotting. The small strip just before the runway is Maho Beach. You get the feeling you can touch the planes by reaching your hands in the sky.
Do you want to read more of my travels, start with It’s time to travel the world. We visit all these amazing places because of the cruise we make with MSC Divina.
