Once again, Kristina managed to hook us up with free accommodation in swanky resorts. Lovely :) This one is the Riu Palace located on the northern tip of the island.

And this is the resort's beach - damn! In the distance there is the island of Anguilla. Saint Martin is a fairly small island; you can drive a full lap of it in about an hour (even with traffic). The northern 60% of the island (officially Saint-Martin) is an "overseas collectivity" of France, and the southern 40% (officially Sint Maarten) is a "constituent country" of the Netherlands. Confused? Basically there is a French side and a Dutch side, and travel between the two is unrestricted. We would be spending two nights on each side, starting in the French side here. The whole island has a population of about 80,000 which is split fairly evenly between the two sides. The French/Dutch division of the island dates back to 1648, but frankly the history of the island is completely ridiculous, even by Caribbean standards. Ownership and occupation has gone back and forth more than a dozen times between the Spanish, French, Dutch, and British over the last 500 years.

We hired a car for the trip, and this is the little shitbox we received - a Hyundai i10 that could barely fit our luggage, with 50,000kms (30,000 miles) on the clock and a meager 1.2 litres under the hood hehe. You could ask why one would need much more than that on a small island such as this, but while it may be small it's also full of some very steep hills. More on that later!

The view looking north over our resort and beach from the (steep) road leading into it. Nice! And look at the colour of that water!

We spent the day driving around the island, checking out the beaches, and basically just seeing what we could see.

Nudity is permitted on many of Saint Martin's beaches, and I thought I was in luck when I saw this approaching me from a distance, but no ;)

Many of the towns scattered around the island are fairly run down and nothing to write home about, but a few of them such as this one are no doubt bank breakers.

We were told this joint part way up the hill is owned by Sylvester Stallone. I've found other sources confirming he does indeed own property somewhere on the island (as do other celebs) but I can't confirm whether this is it. Either way there was nobody home.

One of many awesome scenic bays along the coast of the island. If anyone is interested, this is Baie de L'embouchure (Bay of the Mouth) on the east coast of the French side.

We eventually found ourselves in the main town and capital of the Dutch side - Philipsburg, plonked on the southern coast. It's only a small town (and is home to less than 1,500 people) but functions as the commercial centre of the island and is apparently one of the best shopping spots in the Caribbean. Its colourful buildings and narrow streets reminded us of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico where we had just come from a couple days earlier. Very cool spot, but very littered with tourists who swarm into town from the cruise ships that dock nearby.

The Philipsburg Boardwalk here follows the coastline and has a fantastic beach front. I'd have liked to stay longer but we were keen to get back to our own awesome beach!

We hit the road again and crossed back into the French side. Incidentally, unless you're paying attention, there is very little to indicate that you've crossed from one side to the other. Both sides appear identical but one speaks French, the other speaks Dutch, and they both speak English (thank goodness).

And this is how we spent the rest of the day :)

The following day we relocated from our French-side accommodation to our Dutch-side accommodation, but not before screwing our little hire car up the side of Saint Martin's highest hill, Pic Paradis which tops out at 424 metres (1,391 feet). The road to get up there is very steep and not recommended for non-four-wheel-drive vehicles. So we tackled it in our little 1.2-litre front-wheel-drive Hyundai hahaha! Video here.

And this is the view from the top after a short but steep hike from the road. Lovely.

Robberies are apparently not unheard of up here and we were the only two people around, so we got our photos and got out of there, just in case.

In the distance there is the main town and capital of the French side - Marigot, plonked on the west coast. We drove through the town and it seemed like a nice enough spot but we didn't bother stopping; it was just more of what we'd seen already.

After checking out a couple more nearby beaches we arrived at our next swanky (and free) resort in time for sunset. This one is the Sonesta Ocean Point if anyone cares, and is adjacent to the beach I've spent over ten years thinking about :) We spent the evening drinking, eating, and watching planes roar past us.

A couple shots of the resort by night. Once again, Kristina had managed to get us upgraded, and scored us one of these swim out suites (the shot on the right is the view from our deck). Very cool!

The following day was our last full day in Saint Martin and my ten-year anniversary of leaving New Zealand. Very appropriate then that I should be spending it here on Maho Beach, or better known by many as simply that beach the planes fly over :)

Excellent! ;)

Daily arrivals and departures are displayed on a board in most bars and restaurants on the beach, such as this one here at the Sunset Bar.

We didn't have to wait long before they started piling in! Arriving aircraft must touch down as close as possible to the start of the runway due to its short length of 2,300 metres (7,500 feet), resulting in aircraft on their final approach flying over the beach at minimal altitude. Some came in lower than others but all were incredibly loud, and incredibly awesome :) Video here.

Throughout the day we just chilled on the beach as the planes kept on coming. Everything from little planes...

To big planes...

And even bigger planes! This is an Air France Airbus A340 from Paris and was the largest plane of the day. There is also a regularly scheduled flight operated by KLM from Amsterdam which is a Boeing 747. That big thing needs every inch of runway it can get and therefore lands extremely low over the beach, but unfortunately it wasn't scheduled for today.

Arriving planes are not the only attraction however; departing planes are even more fun!

As the planes taxi down to this end of the runway, the idiots among us gather along the fence and along the beach directly behind the plane.

Because of the short runway again, the engines are throttled up to 100% power with the brakes applied to ensure a rapid take off.

The result is an intense rush of hot jet blast that literally knocks you off your feet if you're not holding on tightly to something (like the fence), and sends your belongings into the sea if they happen to be in the wrong place hehe. In a word, it's phenomenal! Video of it here that I shot while holding onto the fence with one hand and the camera with the other. The blast actually forced my lens to zoom out and subsequently blew me off the fence hehe. I managed to grab back on and keep filming though :) And another video here, this one shot from the beach showing everybody getting sand blasted (including me) and blown into the sea hahaha!

Not a bad way to spend a day :)

And that was that for Saint Martin. From a beautiful warm beach sunset back to the sub-zero temperatures of the New York winter.

One more video here for good measure, of a plane taking off in the opposite direction and over our heads.