After another good night’s rest and a semi-constrained assault on the breakfast buffet, we decided to relax on some loungers on the beach until we had to get ready to go. The guy setting up the lounge chairs and umbrellas was a chatty sort who found out it was our last day. “Why not stay longer? You could miss the plane if you wanted…” We couldn’t even get in to our whole situation. Missing the plane comes naturally to us, whether we are choosing that outcome or not.
It seemed much warmer today. The sun seemed uninhibited by clouds. As it approached 11am, we returned to the room to pack up all our stuff and put on our last clean outfit. I had saved my cookie from the previous night to snack on. It was not chocolate chip. It was definitely time to leave. We got in the car and drove back to the airport. The airport is quite small, just one small building that is poorly air-conditioned. We had to pay a departure tax that I made sure we wouldn’t have to pay twice if we didn’t get on the plane. We checked in with American and then waited for the security line to die down. As we did this, an airport employee approached us to tell us that the plane had reached its max weight and could not accommodate any standbys.
Should we tell the guy at the LXR that we missed the plane? We then went out to the taxi dispatcher to take us to the public ferry dock. It was a fairly short drive there. Having just spent the remainder of our cash for the taxi, we didn’t have any for the cash-only ferry and the nearest ATM was a more than 10 minute drive away according to the lady doing tickets. Luckily she let us board on a sort of honor system that we would pay upon reaching St Martin, which supposedly had ATMs that were closer.
As a regularly scheduled ferry service, I think we were perhaps expecting a larger vessel and not the craft you see above. Somehow, 40 or so of us piled into the small boat that Nicole felt was barely seaworthy. We rocked and rolled our way for about thirty minutes over to Marigot on the French side of St Martin. One gentleman upon exiting said to his wife, “I thought I was going to [expletive] die.” We had to wait in a line to go through customs (of which we were last). We had our passports stamped and then attempted to find an ATM. Google maps failed us and we had to walk the opposite direction to get to an ATM. By the time we got money from an ATM and returned to the ferry dock, the boat had departed, so I’m not sure where that leaves us. We asked an information booth near the port about where to pay. That area was fenced off because the boat had already left and they weren’t selling tickets. So that’s that? We legitimately tried, but perhaps the ferries should take credit card.
Caked in an uncanny amount of sweat (we had been wearing pants this whole time), we found a taxi rank in Marigot and headed to the Hilton Vacation Club — Royal Palm. It is located on the Dutch side of St Martin . . .or shall I say Sint Maarten, in that case. I guess it’s almost designed like a timeshare type of place. Our room has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a full kitchen, and large balcony. It is, in fact, larger than our old apartment in Los Angeles. It is on Simpson Bay, and a very different vibe from where we just found ourselves.
We went across the street to the Sint Maarten Yacht Club for dinner. We were there during happy hour. Their special was any three appetizers for $30. We got some coconut shrimp, a pizza, and chicken fingers. It was more than ample. It was clear we were on the Dutch side because all the beers were mediocre Dutch brands like Amstel or Heineken. I suppose anything tasted fine after sweating through all of our clothes on this rather hectic day. It was a decidedly older crowd of what appeared to be locals and expats. Everyone seemed to know each other.
It is odd in a way to think of all this as a failure. People obviously come to St Martin and create a vacation out of that alone. Yet here we are as mere transients — biding our time until the next flight back to the United States. At least from here, we don’t have to worry about runway lengths and weight restrictions, so we should be able to get out tomorrow, but it will still make for a long day.
passports & pepto bismol 