As it happened, there was no need for worry at all - we just got a lift down to gangplank level, followed by an escalator through the purpose built arrival area, and there we were. No queues, no delays. Brilliant organisation!
Today's tour was "Butterfly Farm and Marigot" and it turned out to be one of the best "shore excursion" type tours we have done so far, even including all the little mini-tours on our two coach tours.
The tour guide (Jose) is an American and he barely stopped talking through the whole trip - some jokes, some stuff about himself, but the vast majority of his talk was about the island - both historical and current information. He did a really superb job, and completely destroyed my theory from yesterday that Americans aren't interested in history, as everyone seemed to really enjoy the tour.
The butterfly farm is a small tourist attraction run by an ex-patriot Englishman and his family. They have a large enclosed area where they raise butterflies (obviously) and they run a short tour for each group, explaining a little about the butterflies and moths and how they grow and live. You can then wander around and try to get a butterfly to sit on you (if you like) or just take photos or simply look at them. We also got a free (quite small) rum punch part-way through the tour - apparently the smell can attract the butterflies :-)
The island itself - well, let's just say, of the three Caribbean islands I've seen so far, if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to pick one to return to, it would be Sant Maarten. It's two completely separate countries on the one island - part French (who call it St Martin) and part Dutch (who call it Sant Maarten). Today the ship is moored at Phillisburg which is the capital of the Dutch side, but the tour today took us to both parts of the island, including Marigot which is the capital of the French side.
You'd think that on an island this small - it's apparently the smallest island in the world that's shared between two countries - that they'd share infrastructure, but they don't. They have:
* separate power and water plants (not even the same sort of power - the French side is 220volts, the Dutch is 120)
* separate money - the Dutch here decided to stick with their florin and not start using the Euro, the French went over to the Euro - but actually on both sides they'll accept $US, just a lot less graciously on the French side
* separate schools
* separate fire and emergency services, etc etc etc.
They're also quite different in other ways - for example the French - as they do everywhere - are trying to keep their part of the island very French. On the other hand the Dutch - knowing that their only real source of income is tourism and that most of the tourists will be American - have embraced the American way of life. For example, the only American food chain you'll find on the French side is a Subway, but on the Dutch side there are apparently multiple occurrences of McDonalds, KFC, Quizno, Wendy's etc etc etc.
Apparently there's a waiting list a mile long in France in the Gendarmerie for posting to St Martin. They get a 6 month posting, they can bring their immediate family, and they get a 40% wage increase while they're here (because everything is so much dearer). Regardless of the money, to most people this seems like a holiday, not a posting - there's very little crime on the island.
Once we got back to the ship, we had lunch, and I ate far too much. The on-screen display was saying that the Windjammer Buffet was full, so we decided to go to the Seafood Shack. I had three of what they call 'jumbo shrimp' - actually each of them contains two halves, each of which is as big as a huge prawn. This was served with garlic butter and a HUGE salad. That's not so bad really, but then I topped it off with a Banana Split. That was seriously wrong of me. Nice though :-)
We were all supposed to be on board at 4:30pm for a 5:30 sail-away. We shared the dock with the Carnival Dream, and I believe their sail-away was scheduled for 30 minutes before ours. However, passengers for both ships arrived back quite late. Both ships eventually got underway - the Dream went first and there was lots of shouting and waving good-bye between the ships.
For dinner we went to the dining room and had a three course meal. Tomorrow's breakfast and lunch has to be fruit and salad and lots of walking around the deck - because we're going to Chops Grille for dinner - for Paul's birthday - and we know that we'll eat far to much there :-)
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