Our flight to St. Martin was disastrous. We were to fly a redeye from Denver to Ft. Lauderdale, then on to the island, arriving in midday. A half hour out from our Florida landing, we were circling - the entire coast of Florida was socked in.

We were redirected to Orlando, and were the last flight to land. They had nowhere to put us, so we sat on the tarmac. With 5 hours to get back in the air and make our connecting flight in Ft. Lauderdale, we were feeling ok. For the first 3 hours. As the clock ticked along, we sat there for almost 6 hours.

They deplaned us in Orlando, and basically left us. No flight out of Orlando, no ticket refund, nothing. A 4-hour busride to Ft. Lauderdale to catch a flight that left hours before. The next flight out was in a week. LOLz. Us and 300 other people were left scrambling, since most of us were headed to one of the Carribbean islands with limited flights in. We ended up booking a flight out of Orlando on another airline at double the airfare, catching a flight that put us into St. Martin at 1am, 13 hours later than our original flight out. The St. Martin airport closes at like 11pm, luckily they held it open for our flight. 

Fortunately, once we arrived, it was smooth sailing. St. Martin is divided into two cultural halves, as a byproduct of colonization. The southern half of the island is Dutch, bustling and busy. The northern half is French, with a French Creole vibe and slower pace of life. Our accommodations were a Carribbean-style townhouse surrounded by secluded gardens and a pool. We were situated about three blocks from the beach, just a couple minutes walk from the small village square on the edge of the bay. The street between our house and the beach was full of small shops, a french market, restaurants and bars, all in French-Carribbean architecture. The beach was 3 miles of beautiful white sand and turquoise water

Time to unwind.