St. Maarten/St. Martin Day-4

It is so fun to be in a new place when you wake up in the morning.

St. Maarten/St. Martin is a small country, the island is 37 square miles and is split between France and Holland.  It's the smallest island in the world divided between two ruling powers.  The Dutch capital is Phillipsburg and the French capital is Marigot.

The ship docks in Holland, and we boarded a bus to travel to the French side.

The view from this hill, is the one on the cover of the travel brochure we looked at when we chose to come on this vacation.

We are excited to be here, and yes--it is about 75 degrees!

I was surprised to see cactus on the island, but it flourishes here, like so many other plants.

This is Marigot, the French side of the island.

We had fun shopping in the open air market, I got some beautiful hand carved shell earrings and a brightly colored shirt here.

It is such a pretty little place where the tourist go, and like most places, not so pretty off where people actually live.

I wish one of these yachts belonged to me, then I would take you all there.

I love the bright colors that are everywhere.

Even on the vans!!

This is Orient Beach on the French side still.

We didn't bring our swimming suits this time, but opted to relax, we rented these two lounges and the umbrella and kicked back to relax.  I read and listened to the waves and Brian took a little nap.  It was such a relaxing couple of hours.

I kept looking up from my book and maveling at how beautiful it is here.

We took a walk along the beach.

This is Phillipsburg, on the Dutch side of the island

Here, I bought a necklace and earring set, it looks like touquoise and silver, but who knows.  It was funny, I was haggling with a man, his wife came over and tried to raise the price on me, but when I walked away, he sold it to me for the price I was offering.  (probably still paid too much, but I felt good about it.)

We had such a fun afternoon, only about 6 of us went shopping, the others all went back to the ship.  We like to explore, and I'm glad we did.

Cute dolls, handmade by a lady on a neighboring island.  Others on the same rack were made in India, the salesman told me I had a good eye for quality.

The marketplace was not far from the ship.  You can see the ships in the background.

Brian whistling at a little bird while waiting for me.

Brian found his retirement job, he plans to smoke ribs and fish on this smoker!

And rent boats out of this little shack, I plan to spend my days reading on the beach and watching people!

It was a nice walk back to the ship--another wonderful day in paradise!

Back on board, it was formal night at the dining room.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal, show and then relaxing on our balcony in the moonlight.