Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Tuesday–Day 4–ST. MAARTEN

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Katie kept asking, and we all were wondering….where exactly are we??? South of Florida by 1000 miles, and we saw Cuba off to the west… So wish I would have had this map to kinda get the idea of where we were sailing.  These tiny islands with people and industry and beautiful blue water and sandy beaches – so far from our lives in Spokane…

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Love having a balcony in our room.  There’s nothing like lounging in your jammies and enjoying the morning sun (82 degrees!)  We pulled into port and we were able to see the island and the pier where we were to join other huge cruise ships.  (Celebrity and Norwegian beat us there….)  I woke the kids up early (7:10) so they could see us approaching the island.  After 2 days on the open sea, it was nice to see land…

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There is no way to describe the beauty of this color of blue in the water.  OH. MY. GOODNESS. Love the Caribbean.

We are able to get up when the stakes are high.  We were down to breakfast by 9 am and ready to leave the ship and go enjoy St. Maarten (on the Dutch side and St. Martin on the French side.)  Katie kept saying, “We’re in a foreign country Mom,  I can’t believe it!”  We shopped around the pier for purses, bracelets, a cigar for Andrew’s friend, a beautiful necklace for Carol (Thank you so much for taking Annie for us!)  I got some cute cute t-shirts for the boys.  It was fun to see a little bit of the town. 

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We took a water taxi to get over to the beaches and to walk thru a few streets of St. Phillipsburg.  Lots of poverty.  Run down buildings even along the beach front.  So cute to see the local kids in their school uniforms attending school. 

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Then it’s back on the boat to grab lunch and change for the beach…

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