St. Martin Island – the Finale

We are experiencing a blizzard right now in Minnesota. This seems like a good time to wrap up my posts about our wonderful, warm St. Martin Island trip. (To see previous ones about Loterie Farm, Fort Amsterdam, or Topper’s Rhum Distillery, please click on the embedded links.)

Cooling off in the ocean at the end of a trail ride at Seaside Nature Park in St. Martin.

Another memorable outing we did was a visit to the Seaside Nature Park for a horseback ride. Although this former plantation is a nature park, ironically, you have to pass through one of the islands power plants to get there — a rather disconcerting experience. Plus, Google Maps will misdirect you to a road that is not finished yet. We found our way by asking a guy along the road who happened to know. I would suggest calling the park for directions beforehand.

Once we arrived at the rustic reserve, we were introduced to our horses, who were all named after musicians. My horse was named Prince, then there was Electra, Madonna, and Freddie (Mercury). The park offers sunset champagne rides (2 hours) and just regular daytime trail rides (1 hour). After a butt-wrenching experience years ago in Puerto Rico riding a horse for two hours, I decided it was wiser for us to just do the one-hour ride for our inexperienced butts. It was just the right amount of time.

Our horses plodded along steep cliff faces with spectacular ocean views. Some of the horses were not too fond of each other, but we quickly learned which ones needed to avoid each other. A highlight was the end, where we rode our horses into the ocean to cool off after the ride. They enjoyed the saltwater dip so much, they groaned with each step! That was something to hear.

The water rose higher than we were expecting during this part of the ride. I thought maybe our calves would get wet, but we went deep enough that our butts (and saddles) got wet. I almost floated off my horse at one point, so a tip would be to bring towels along in the car so that you can use them to sit on for your car ride back to wherever you are staying.

Our guide took photos of us with my phone. I was glad my phone did not fall into the ocean! It was a memorable experience. We all walked sort of funny for a few steps after we got off our horses, but no lasting damage was done to our physiques.

I’ll share the last of my “good” images below and some other tips to help you navigate St. Martin that we learned along the way.

Pro Tips:

• If you’re driving and someone blinks their headlights at you, that means “go ahead.” They are either letting you turn in front of them or some other friendly move.
• If you happen to stay at the Divi Resort in Little Bay, a great place to snorkel is near the pelican nesting area. Currently, there’s a houseboat there and some buoys that mark a place where people (used to? Currently?) do those Sea Trek dive helmet excursions. The fish there are used to getting fed and will swarm around you near that site, even if you have nothing to feed them. We also saw a sea turtle and an octopus on our way from the resort to the buoys.
• Iguanas will bite if they think your toe is food. Beware!
  
  

An ignuana at Great Bay. Or is it Godzilla’s baby?

The infinity pool at Divi Little Bay Resort

Marie makes a rare appearance (twice) in her own blog. This is at Fort Amsterdam.

Sunset on Little Bay. Image by Garrett Maron.