St. Maarten

It was an accident that we had to spend a night on St Maarten on our way home – something to do with buying our second+ legs of the journey before buying the first, which is not recommended. But we decided to make the most of it and flew over in the morning for a day filled with beachtastic adventures.

We stayed at the Maho resort, a first for us. The resort’s beach lies at the end of the airport runway, and I’ve wanted to go ever since I originally found out that there was such a thing.




Incoming! This first one sort of freaked me out to be honest. I actually ducked – it felt like it was going to take my head off. And this is just a little guy – big commercial airlines land on the same runway. I moved aside for those.












We noticed too late when a large plane lined up for takeoff. I realized what was about to happen at the very last moment and took off running. Poor Jon, on the other hand. He was directly behind the thrusters. Once the resulting sandstorm died down enough for me to turn around and look for him, all I saw was his body curled into a little ball, facedown. Turtled, if you will.

This picture is not mine, but illustrates my point nicely:


(source)

Suddenly the sign made a lot more sense:

We survived, as did the stupid white trash guys hanging onto the fence for dear life (subsequent research taught me this is called “surfing the fence”). And as it turns out, no one’s died on Maho Beach from jet blast, just from being stabbed.

Additional viewing (of jet blast, not of stabbings) HERE.


The rest of our day:

Jon floating

A different view of Saba than I'm used to.

Waiting for the dinner buffet.

Drool.

Between courses.

The view from our balcony.

Over too soon. The next day it was a flight to Miami, a flight to LA, a night on the floor in LAX, and a flight to Salt Lake leading directly into a shuttle trip up to St Anthony. 26 solid hours of travel time all in all.

I’m still recovering.