January 27, 2018 – Philipsburg, St. Maarten – Netherland Antilles – Partly Cloudy – 79F

Distance from Port Everglades to Philipsburg: 1069 Nautical Miles – average speed 18.4 knots

Not a lot of sleep for me.

Breakfast shakeup in the Horizon Court – all out of cottage cheese. I instead had a scrambled omelet with tomatoes, onions, and cheese along with two chocolate chip pancakes. Pretty good.

View From 5714

We are the only ship here today – in a port that sometimes has eight ships docked (including the super ships of RCL).

It’s Just Us Today

The Island Princess seems a little lonely out there all by herself. She is not totally alone because alongside is the Eclipse, the second most expensive private yacht – owned by a Russian Oligarch carrying a price tag of about $8 Billion dollars (or so we were told).

No tour today – we are going to walk around Philipsburg to see what the two hurricanes, Maria and Irma did to this island in September.

The pier area looks pretty much the same – there are a few vendors out.  One of the buildings is gone (now an empty lot).  St. Maarten, like a lot of places in Mexico and the Caribbean, now has a colorful sign to remind you where you are.

 

We walked through the pier complex where I was able to get some very nice pictures of the ship (the super yacht is in the background)

and out to the back, where we are going to take a cab to town. 

The fair was $5 for the two of us.  Along the way, we could see debris and items strewn about – no doubt from the storms.  Front Street, which is the main street, had some shops open – mostly the Diamonds International type of stores, although some clothing stores were also open.

Front Street

While the streets were mostly deserted – people and cars, there was also some repair work underway. The EFFY sign was being repainted to put that store back in shape.

There were just a few people on the beach – from the beach I could see the hills on both sides of the city. The hurricane had defoliated these hills but a lot of the greenery had started growing back.

The local markets and shops behind Front Street had a lot of activity so the locals are trying to bring some normalcy back to St. Maarten.

We were back on the ship for a late lunch, which is turning out to be a salad from the buffet and a slice of pizza from the pizzeria.

We had dinner up in the buffet as well – tonight the salmon and mushroom quiche were very good.

We went to the theater early to get seats for Lovena’s Second Show – “Eyes of Broadway”. We’ve seen this show before but I was hoping for a song from “Ragtime”. She did add some new songs at the end from “On on Your Feet”. She was good but had trouble being heard over the band.

We have tours tomorrow in Martinique so we need some sleep.