Wednesday 2/13 – Day Three of our Cruise, St Maarten Island,
Dutch Territory
I was up at 7:15am to go get coffee and watch the ship pull
into port and dock. Getting back to the cabin with coffee, Tina was getting
dressed and putting on her makeup. We were ready to go by 8:30 and called
Denise. Leaving our room we met at the elevator and went up to deck 15 to have
breakfast in the buffet. Our land tour said to meet on the pier at 10:30 so we
had plenty of time to have a leisurely breakfast before joining the line of
passengers departing the ship. Reaching the dock we found our tour guide and
waited another twenty minutes for the rest of our group to arrive.
 |
| Getting ready for our tour of the St Maarten Zoo |
Located at the
northern end of the Lesser Antilles, approximately 150 miles southeast of
Puerto Rico, St Maarten Island is often
referred to as the crossroads of the Caribbean, first settled by the Arawaks
and was discovered by Christopher Columbus on behalf of Spain in 1493. Columbus
sighted the island on November 11th, the holy day of St. Martin of Tours, and
so named the island after him. For the next 150 years the island was passed
between Holland, England, France and Spain. The old stone forts that guard many
of the island's inlets are proof of the island's turbulent past. In 1648 St.
Maarten was peacefully divided between Holland and France, and today is the
smallest landmass in the world to be shared by two sovereign nations.
When everyone was gathered together our guide marched us
over to the bus for our ride to the St Maarten Zoo. Leaving the harbor, we
traveled through an industrial area which appeared to be in need of
rejuvination. Traveling around the perimeter of the inner harbor we pulled off
into a small driveway next to a cement plant and parked. This didn't look very
promising... but sure enough, there was a sign over the the entrance to a
fenced in area that said, “St Maartin Zoo”, so in we went and met the Zoo
guide.
 |
| St Maarten Zoo |
It turns out that the Zoo has been sadly neglected for the
past six or seven years, with little maintenance or investment in new
facilities and certainly did not match up to the description given in the
brochure. However, our guide and the new Zoo director were very passionate
about the animals they had there and the plans being put in place to make major
changes as soon as ownership passes from the local government to a certified
Zoo trust.
There were a large variety Parrots, Macaws, Cockatoo's,
Tortoises, several types of Monkey, lemurs, Peacocks, a Coatimundi, Capibara,
an aging Baboon and several species of snakes and lizards.
 |
| Holding an Albino Python! |
At the end of the
tour, we had an opportunity to have our pictures taken with a large parrot on
our shoulder and a small albino (yellow) python draped around our upper body.
Though the zoo itself was somewhat of a bust, our guide was very informative
and shared her knowledge well.
The bus returned us to the dock where we caught a water taxi
into town proper and explored some of the shops along Front Street. Lots of
jewelry shops, clothing and restaurants. We walked around for a while finally
winding our way back to the beachfront for an ice cream. While we got our
treat, the sky darkened and a quick rain squall passed overhead. Five minutes
later the sun came out and we resumed our stroll along the 'boardwalk' to the water
taxi pier where we caught a ride back to the ship.
 |
| AA great looking couple! |
By now it was 3:30pm and time to take a break. We all headed
to our rooms to change then went to the pool to read and relax before dinner.
Around 4:30 the ship left port and headed to sea for a slow cruise to our next
destination, St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.
Since we had dinner
reservations for 6pm at the Michaelangelo Restaurant, we returned to our cabins
and dressed for dinner.
Arriving at the restaurant on deck five we were seated with
several other couples. We had an excellent meal with good conversation in a
very nice setting and vowed to do dinner at the restaurants rather than the
buffet from here on out. After dinner we made our way to the theater and got
seats for that evenings show, a musical review. Along with the ships band,
there were two principal vocalists with
four other singers plus about a dozen dancers. They performed a number of show tunes and the hour went past quickly.
That pretty much wrapped up the day so we retired to our cabins for the night.
http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski
To see all our photos go to:
No comments:
Post a Comment