Tuesday, January 24th, 2023 Queen Victoria, Phillipsburg, St. Martin
Updated: Jun 20, 2023
I awoke early and ventured out on to the balcony to watch the ship coming alongside the berth in St. Martin; it always amazes me how such a large structure can be every so gently maneuvered slowly and with such precision. The usual smattering of super yachts could be seen docked or anchored in the bay; I always like to look up who owns these incredible boats – mostly it’s a billionaire I’ve never heard of, though today I did find out that the “Lady Jorgia” could be chartered for $800,000 per week, really who can afford this? We’ve been to St. Martin a couple of time before, and to be honest we’ve not been too impressed. So today we did not have any set plans for our visit. We disembarked mid-morning and strolled through the concourse of the cruise port; a typical Caribbean Island port – steel drums blaring away, a central open-air bar, lots of duty-free shops and blistering heat reflecting off the concrete surface. We had a rough idea to take a taxi to a pastry shop we’d visited last year, but I saw a sign for rental cars the germ of an idea formed – rent a car and circumnavigate the island! We found our way to the car rental huts, and of course on route I was intercepted by a guy trying to direct me to one of the three options; I’m always immediately suspicious when this happens, and it almost always makes me want to choose one of the other options. There was a Hertz hut, the other two were local companies, I got all excited as I negotiated the deal but then could not produce my drivers’ license – so back to the ship I went. Setting off from the cruise port in Phillipsburg we had a rough plan to go to the western tip of the island, and then circle around to the Dutch side of the island. St. Martin has a very strange government system; one half of the island is a French and the other is Dutch – and they have separate “everything”; money, telecoms, laws… yet there is no formal border between the two halves. Immediately we began to get a different appreciation of the island than we had from previous visits; the independence gained from driving ourselves allowed us to slow down, take in the sights and get into places you just don’t see on a ship’s tour. We passed close by the famous Maho beach; this is the beach that runs right across one end of the main airport’s runway and tourists love to stand underneath landing or departing aircraft. Access was very limited, we waited for a bit but could not get close, and there were no aircraft approaching. (Note the image included below is not mine). Marigot is a small town on the French side of St. Martin; it may be small, but it still has a one-way road system! We eventually found a parking spot, last year when we came here it was very quiet as the covid recovery was just in its early stages. Now the town was bustling, kids out of school for their lunch break filled the sidewalks, locals out shopping and of course tourists everywhere. We found the bakery that we visited last year and enjoyed a nice lunch.
Sandra had spotted a fort high up on the hill overlooking Marigot, so with the help of Google Maps (Apple Maps does not work on the island) I navigated some very narrow back streets to drive up the hill to the fort. Fort Louis was built by the French in 1789 on a very commanding position above Marigot and offers excellent views of the marina, Simpson Bay, Nettle Bay and over to Anguilla. There is a bit of a climb to get to the ruined fort from the parking lot, but the views were worth it. Next, we made our way over to the east side of the island – trying not to get involved in a car crash along the way. St. Martin’s motto is “The Friendly Island” but some of the drivers are very impatient; the roads are quite narrow in places and tourists (like us) like to driver slowly to take in the sights. Several times I was forced to pull over to allow an angry local (I assume) screech past me, honking and waving all the time. A nice guy at the petrol station went some way to restoring the island’s reputation by kindly helping me to figure out their petrol-pumping system and allowing me to return the rental car with a full tank, as instructed. There were four ships in port at St. Martin and the Queen Victoria was the first to leave. We found a nice spot up on deck 10, order drinks and snacks and sat back to enjoy the sail away. The P&O ship had a great DJ playing excellent music with a good party going on their deck. The party atmosphere spread to the adjacent TUI ship and then over to us – well to the extent that Cunard passengers party. As the sun set our ship pulled out from her berth, swung around and headed south-west for Aruba.
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