Greetings from warm and sunny St. Maarten! We’re here to start our month-long study of the islands of the Lesser Antilles, which are located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea. The islands we will be visiting are St. Maarten/St. Martin, Saba, St. Bartholemy, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts, Antigua, and Anguilla. We’ll be studying the health of the coral reefs and marine life, looking at the diversity of land animal and plant life, and learning about the history and culture of each island. We arrived after a long trip from our home in Irvine, California. Our flight lasted over 10 hours. It stopped in Dallas, Texas, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, before arriving on the island of St. Maarten at 10:30 p.m. We had a day to spend before boarding our ship. So we explored St. Maarten’s capital city, Philipsburg, to meet some of the people that live on the island. This island is actually two countries – one side owned by France (St. Martin) and the other owned by the Netherlands (St. Maarten). We’re on the Dutch side of the island. Saturday is market day in Philipsburg. Walking into the center of town, we found street sellers with tables covered with interesting things they’d made to sell to tourists. Beautiful woodcarvings, paintings with bold designs and bright splashes of color, and colorful cotton dresses, shirts and handbags were all for sale. Even the buildings in Philipsburg are brightly colored. Most of the buildings are made of cement blocks. These strong walls protect buildings from damage by the hurricanes that occasionally blow through the Caribbean islands. Hurricane winds can blow over 100 miles an hour! We discover that many people of Philipsburg are from other Caribbean islands – such as St. Lucia, Dominica, and Haiti. Many people from India live here, too. People who were born on the island are called St. Maarteners. We met some St. Maartener fishermen who were cleaning their day’s catch on the beach. With the fishermen was boy who had been out fishing with his father. Austin, a 12 year old, was cleaning a red snapper he had caught that day using a hook and line with squid as bait. He and his father sell their fish to the local restaurants. During our expedition, we’ll be looking at the coral reefs and trying to determine how healthy they are. Healthy coral reefs are important for fishermen like Austin and his father since coral reefs are where the fish live. Coral reefs are also important to others that live on these Caribbean islands, since they attract tourists. |
Wayne and Karen on a dock in the capital city of Philipsburg, ready to board the expedition ship, Caribbean Explorer.
Saturday is market day in Philipsburg. Street sellers have beautiful wooden carvings, colorful shirts, dresses, and paintings for sale to tourists.
Downtown Philipsburg. Many houses and buildings are painted in bright colors. Most of the cars are small imported cars from Japan.
Our expedition ship, Caribbean Explorer.
Austin shows us the red snapper he caught. His father caught all the other red snapper on the table.
At sunset our expedition ship, Caribbean Explorer, is tied up next to a St. Maarten Coast Guard ship.
Local fishing boats are anchored off the beach at Philipsburg. A group of fishermen are cleaning their day’s catch on the beach. |
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December 16, 2000
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