Early Monday morning we departed Las Vegas for the Dutch and French Island. Our flight was a long one - it took almost six hours to get there. Although we left at 7am, we didn't arrive on the island until about 5pm due to the 4 hours time difference. We finally landed and checked into our hotel which was located right on the beach. Unfortunately I didn't have a direct view of the ocean from my room - but it wasn't too shabby either:
The coolest thing about the location of our hotel was that we could watch the planes landing over Maho Beach. It's famous for the very low flying aircraft over the beach before touching down in St Maarten. Here is a video of Air France's Airbus A340 that lands every day around 3:20pm.
You'll notice a bunch of people standing directly under the plane as it lands on the runway just a few hundred yards away from them. I had seen a few jets getting ready to take off and people were being blown onto the sand and into the water by the jets blasts. There are big DANGER signs next to the runway, but people didn't seem to care. The jet engines are so powerful on takeoff that it doesn't only blow sand, but large rocks as well. I couldn't believe people were actually standing there. I was a too chicken to go stand directly under the plane while it landed, but still a cool thing to see nonetheless!
We spent 4 days on the beach, relaxing mostly and enjoying the warm weather and water. We enjoyed a few good dinners downtown of steak and seafood.
The water was so blue and inviting:
There were a lot of private yachts around the island as well:
and a view of our hotel from Maho Beach:
It was a great trip, but was happy to get home to celebrate Eric's birthday one day late!
