The Ellington Family: St. Maarten

Although our vacation was delayed thanks to Tropical Storm Erika, we arrived on Friday in St. Maarten ready to enjoy our vacation. One of the best parts happened immediately upon our arrival-no cell phones! It cost a ridiculous amount of $$ to use cell phones on the island (calling cards too) so they were turned off our entire vacation. This was amazing considering David is usually attached to his phone for work. No phone calls, no emails, no distractions!!!

sunset on our first night in St. Maarten of a small bay on the French side

The weather was still a little unsettled on Friday but we were able to enjoy a nice dinner overlooking the water. Saturday morning we awoke to the sun shining and headed straight out to the beach. We were staying at the Westin for 2 days, which is on the Dutch side of the island but a stones throw from the French side. The Westin had a beautiful beach and we parked ourselves for a few hours to soak up the sun before heading back to the airport to pick up our friends. We had heard of a small beach directly behind the airport where you can watch planes take off and land right over you. It was unbelievable and we got some neat pictures and videos! After picking up John and Merrilee we went to a bar next to the beach for lunch to continue watching planes land.

A large plane getting ready to land over us

a plane about to take off-notice the Danger sign! It didn't appear to keep people away!

Sunday we spent most of the day on the beach at the Westin. It was our last day there before heading to our timeshare exchange at Oyster Bay, which we were able to see from the Westin. Oyster Bay wasn't quite the Westin but it wasn't bad! We had a 2 bedroom unit on the first level and overlooked both the pool and the ocean. The great thing about Oyster Bay was having a kitchen. At the Westin we were just in a bedroom-a super nice ocean front bedroom-but no fridge or place to put groceries. We found a nice grocery store and were able to make meals in our unit so we weren't spending an outrageous amount of $ on eating out. In St. Maarten they had limits at a lot of places for using credit cards. For example, dinner out on our first night was great but we didn't quite spend the limit of $60 (we were like $8 short) so we had to pay in cash. Needless to say we weren't prepared for this and blew through our cash quickly.

view of Oyster Bay from the Westin

Monday we chose to head to Orient Beach, which is actually a bunch of little beaches side by side. We hung out at Waikiki Beach and walked down after lunch to the true Orient Beach-a nudist colony. Why is it that the people that actually live in a nudist colony are never good looking and should most definitely be wearing clothes?!? It was crazy and we quickly turned around and headed back to our beach. The boys did love the fact that all beaches in St. Maarten are European status so that meant there were topless women every where. Monday evening we decided to visit the Westin to have a little fun at their Casino. None of us spent much money but the poor Westin lost money on us thanks to all their free drinks!

Orient Beach

Tuesday we hung around Oyster Bay for the day and then took an amazing Sunset Cruise around Simpson Bay. Poor John is not a fan of water and had to have some liquid courage to get on the catamaran. When he asked the captain for a life vest, he proceeded to bring John a bottle of rum and told him that when empty the bottle would float! It was an interesting night! After we returned from our cruise we enjoyed dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Bay.

the 4 of us on the Sunset Cruise

John and his life vest

Our last full day was Wednesday and we spent the whole day at a secluded beach called Pinel Island. We had noticed it across the ocean when we were at Orient Beach and found out from the people at Oyster Bay that it was a beautiful beach and a must see. The ferry to Pinel left not too far from Orient Beach so we headed over early Wednesday morning. David and I ended up renting a kayak and snorkel set instead of taking the ferry over. It was such a neat way to explore the surrounding area and we saw some beautiful fish and even a stingray! Pinel Island was a wonderful way to spend our last day in St. Maarten.

action shot!

view of Pinel from our kayak

Stingray we saw while kayaking over to Pinel

Is that a Koala? No, its just David trying to get a coconut

I had to be back by Friday for a wedding so we decided to play it safe and leave Thursday so I didn't miss the rehearsal. Thursday morning we got up early, watched the sun rise, and soaked up the sun by the pool until it was time to head to the airport. St. Maarten requires you to be at the airport 2.5-3 hrs ahead of time and closes the flight 1 hr before departure. Apparently they overbook the flight so if you don't get there over 1 hr before leaving they give your seat away. Leaving the island to come home was sad, especially since Merrilee and John were staying through Saturday, but we had a great trip and would love to visit St. Maarten again. Hope you enjoy our pictures from our trip!