day seven: st. maarten

our last day was spent on the island of st. maarten...or st. martin depending on what side you were on. it was split down the middle, one side was the dutch side and the other was the french side. it was a beautiful island. we kept it pretty low key on this island and went to a couple different beaches, snorkeled, laid out, and enjoyed the beautiful blue waters.

we first took a ferry over to pinel island and snorkeled around for a bit. the sand on this island was unbelievable. the snorkeling was alright. after the sea trek on st. thomas, nothing was as great! it was still a lot of fun though. after we took the ferry back to the main island, we decided to walk over the the most popular beach called orient beach. we were too cheap to pay for another taxi so we decided to walk along the edge of the water to get there. it wasn't all sandy pretty water edge. it was rocky trudging sort of water edge. it was fun though. it was a little adventurous trying to get to the other beach. way better than paying lots of money for a five minute taxi ride! the taxi's were the most expensive thing over there. they definitely overcharged!

waiting on the dock for the ferry

pinel island 

where we went snorkeling 

on the ferry 

once we got to orient beach, we claimed our spot on the beach along with a lot of nude people and enjoyed the sunshine. i've been to beaches in miami and stuff with topless people but NEVER nude men! all the way buck naked....or is it butt naked?? we diverted our eyes and kept walking past those winners. we found the best nudeless part of the beach we could find. it was great until some of them walked by. dang nudes. anyways, that's about all we did on this island! it was our last one and i think we all were slightly money conscious by then and decided just to take it easy. it was such a beautiful day and it turned out to be really fun.

hiking across the edge

we encountered a bunch of horses! 

finally it's in our sights! 

after orient bay we made a last stop at a beach called maho beach. it's a way cool beach that planes fly right over the top! i know it sounds lame but it was acutally pretty cool. my camera died right when i was about to take a picture of a huge plane coming across so i didn't get any! thanks to google and youtube, though, you can experience somewhat of what we saw! it was pretty neat (click on the link to watch a way cool video of it).

after maho beach, we were running short on time and got back to the boat in the nick of time! we were late for the "be back at the boat at this time" time but they hadn't closed the doors yet so we made it with no worries. how horrible would that be if we would have missed the ship?! the even funnier part is that our taxi driver had to stop for gas on our way back to the ship! of course that would happen. at that time we were already five minutes late and then our taxi driver pulled over to the gas station and told us that he wasn't going to make it so he had to stop! we were in a slight panic but it all turned out okay. his name was jerry. good ole taxi driver jerry. good times.

our last night was a joyful slash sad night! we didn't want to say goodbye to our waiters. they seriously were the greatest. kamong danced with a cup on his head everynight and gede loved us so much that he would purposely serve us last so that we were the last ones in the dining room. no joke. he even told us that! he showed us pictures of his cute little baby. it was almost sad because he had to be on the ship serving us while his family was back in bali! we told him we would come visit them both there. they were both from bali and that is a place i really want to go to someday. now we know people from there :) anyways, they were awesome and we miss them still. oh and this next picture was frog legs! quin's lovely choice of an appetizer. why not right?

well this concludes the most wonderful cruise ever!!! it was definitely an awesome vacation and we enjoyed it oh so very much. i would go back in a heart beat. i'm almost done posting about our spring break. i think i only have one more post! we spent another day and night in puerto rico before flying home. i promise it will be done. but can you see why i couldn't do it all in one post? it would have been the longest post in the history of blogging i'm sure! bear with me friends :)