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  St Maartin, Netherlands Antilles
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

After nearly three straight days at sea, we made our first port of call. We were the 2nd of four ships to arrive in St. Maartin. The other three ships were Royal Caribbean's "Explorer of the Sea's, on a nine night Eastern Caribbean cruise out of New Jersey, Disney's "Magic" on a seven day Eastern Caribbean cruise out of Florida and Royal Caribbean's, "Liberty of the Sea's" also doing a seven day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean cruise out of Florida as well.
 
Now I have seen a lot of Islands in the Caribbean and St Maartin has always ranked up at the top for me. It is less crowded then St Thomas, a lot cleaner then Puerto Rico and a whole lot safer than most of the islands you can visit. In fact, the people here are some of the friendliest in the Caribbean and they want you to leave their tiny island knowing just that. St Maartin is the only island in the Caribbean that is a territory for two separate countries. The port side of the island falls under Dutch control while the other end of the island is a French territory and there is no need for a border because everyone gets along just fine :)
 
There was some talk about there being a chance for rain but I am glad to report that the entire day was sunny and around 85 degrees. We also have arrived on the island's holiday, it was Carnival time and parades were going on all day today in town.
 
Now, earlier in the week, we had met this wonderful couple from Toronto, Ontario Canada named Richard and Marilyn Burr. They had set up a booze cruise in St Maartin and invited us to join them and of course, we did :)
 
We sailed out on a ship called the Lord Sheffield for a four hour cruise that included all the rum punch, beer and soda you could drink and they served BBQ chicken, salad, rice, cheese as well. While I was holding a rum punch in one hand while eating a piece of chicken with the other and hearing some reggae play out on the radio as we sailed through these turquoise waters, I had come to realize that this day could not get any more perfect.
 
After the sailing, we laid on the beach for a while and then we finished our perfect day with a little shopping in town. Before we knew it, we boarded back on the Freedom and we were officially on our way across the Atlantic and it would be 6 more days until we actually see land again.
 
That evening, I had the crab legs for an appetizer and the glazed pork loin for dinner and for dessert, a chocolate melting cake. Afterwards, we burned off the calories by dancing under the stars on the lido deck by the pool where we formed the largest conga line I have ever seen. It had to be about two thousand of us singing Hot, Hot, Hot ! 'til two in the morning..
 
That is it for now but I have added some new pictures for you to see how our trip is going.

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Robert and Dora	Freedom's Atrium	Captain's Gala	Waiters putting on a show
The waiters show	Our friends from India	Our waiters Darko & Brojan from Croatia	The Lord Sheffield
Freedom in St Maartin	Kevin in Open Waters	The Booze Cruise	St Maartin
Party time	We were in a race	Our friends on the booze cruise	Come on in, the water is warm
Our Cabin	small details make all the difference	The Bar s full	Our Anniversary
Chinese Auction with friends	Bathroom	The head

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