The Grove Adventures...: St Maarten

Showing posts with label St Maarten. Show all posts

18 September 2017

Hurricane Irma & St Maarten

Hi Everyone,

I don't know how many people still follow this blog, considering I've slacked and not updated it in a year. I intend to backlog the last year with picture highlights. However, I felt very strongly that I needed to do a special post regarding Hurricane Irma and our beloved St Maarten.

As I'm sure many of you know, through the news or seeing my constant posting on Facebook, our beloved island home has been completely devastated by Hurricane Irma. St Maarten took a direct hit from Irma, which had sustained winds of 185mph with gusts over 220mph! The pictures and videos of all the places we spent so much time are just heartbreaking. Fortunately, we have heard that our friends on the island are all safe, praise the Lord! Some sustained minimal damage, some tremendous damage, but all are alive! We know the island will rebuild and the reasons we love it will remain. The island is filled with great people and a great spirit of resilience, so please don't just believe that it is all bad based on the terrible actions of some. I will share some pictures here, but please look on my Facebook for more (all are borrowed off local island FB pages, so I will not take any credit). I will also include a list of reputable organizations to donate to, for the long recovery and rebuilding process that will take place.

Some people may be wondering why this has affected us (especially me) so profoundly. The first few days, it was all about getting word that friends were safe. Communication was incredibly limited and it took several days to hear about everyone. In addition to worrying about friends, it has been heartbreaking to see a place we lived for 2 years destroyed. We actually first visited St Maarten on our honeymoon cruise. I bought a ring there that I have worn everyday for 8 years. We moved to the island just before our first anniversary. We've celebrated anniversaries, birthdays, Thanksgivings, and many other events there. We had friends and family visit. I see pictures of where we spent our first anniversary dinner and it's gone. I see pictures of friends apartments, gone. Pictures of places we shopped, dined out weekly, watched movies, all gone or severely damaged. Our favorite dive company, destroyed (thankfully not the boats!). We made friends with many local people, many of whom I do not have contact with anymore but enjoyed seeing so much when we returned for graduation; we have no way of knowing if they are ok. We returned for 3+ weeks for Owen's medical school graduation, and it was just like coming home! I feel like we grew so much during these years, as individuals and a couple. This is where I did my first 5k, first triathlon, and gained a love of competing in races! This is where we learned to scuba dive and helped our friends occasionally with their dive company. This is where we were on the radio every Friday morning with our fellow Nutmeggar and good friend, Doctor Soc (whom we gave that honorary doctor of "radio-ology" to). This is where Owen began his calling to pursue medicine. This is where I was baptized, in the waters of our favorite beach/our backyard. The island was the inspiration for our puppy's name, Kona, meaning leeward wind in Hawaiian, St Maarten being a Leeward island. St Maarten is the place we've lived the longest in our entire marriage, and still feels like home. This is where we made new friends, both with other student couples and locals, as a couple, away from home and bonded over the challenges and beauties of living on a tiny Caribbean island.

This was our life, our home, and we loved it. To see it this way and especially to be here, not able to help, is just so hard. I hope to get down there when it is safe and they allow relief workers in, to help rebuild our beloved island. For now, I leave you with a request to keep the people of St Maarten in your prayers. This will be a very long and difficult recovery process, but we know the people of St Maarten are strong and will rebuild stronger and better than ever! Here are some ways to help:

Samaritan's Purse (call 828.262.1980, hopefully you'll be able to direct it specifically to St Maarten, not just Irma in general)

Team Golden Dog (helping local animals, shelters, and vets)

Rotary Club SXM (Shelter Box)

31 July 2015

Our Island Home

So you've seen a lot from St Maarten so far. There was graduation, time with family, and scuba diving. However, Owen and I spent extra time back "home" on island before and after everyone came to celebrate. It was such a special time to enjoy the island just us. It's a bit of a strange thing that a Caribbean island feels so much like home, even after a couple years away. Thank you everyone for welcoming us back and making it such a fun visit! We will cherish the time we had back on island, and we look forward to another trip in the future! More pictures from around the island here.

Highlights from our vacations

Visiting island friends
Time on our favorite beaches
Scuba Diving
Being on the radio again at Island92
Hiking
Exploring Belle Creole
Watching the planes
Fishing from the beach
Several runs together
Explored all the new development and changes around the island
Updated pictures of us at Mullet Beach (thanks Melissa!)
and new around the island pictures, that now I can look at and like
Ate at our favorite restaurants
Lots of trips to Carousel for Gelato
Cheap movies
Bonfires
Feeling right at home

New causeway bridge in the lagoon

Our view for a few weeks

Pic Paradis

Fishing with the security guard (he later cooked one of the little fish we caught)

We took a picture here 6 years ago on our honeymoon, with the same boat!

Great place to stay

Island 92 with Doctor Soc

Dinner with Chris and Sally (Octopus Diving)

Our favorite sports store and owners/race friends, Susy and Juan Pablo

Dinner at So French, Tony's new restaurant (neighbor, used to work at our favorite Thai restaurant)

Papa Dan, local pizza guy and favorite frenchie to harass

My Carousel ladies!! They even remembered me (and got me some coconut gelato!)

Laurent, owner of Thai Savanh' (we were regulars)

Our "backyard"

15 July 2015

Diving St Maarten

After way too long without being able to scuba dive, we jumped right back underwater as soon as we were back on island! We were able to do several dives over the few weeks we were on island, all with the great team at Octopus Diving :) We did the family discover dives I posted about in the previous post, we did some exploration dives, and some wreck dives. I also was able to get Nitrox Certified!

By far the best moment on any dive (ever, not just this trip) was 5 minutes into the first dive at the Fuh Sheng wreck, a dolphin showed up!!! It did some circles around our group, played around a bit, left and then came back again for me to get the perfect picture with it!! I tried so many times to see a dolphin on a dive when we lived on island, going whenever dolphins had been spotted frequently, even once people on the boat saw them but we didn't underwater. So it was such a highlight to see a dolphin 5 minutes in on the first dive back at our island home!

That same dive, between dolphin appearances, a black tip reef shark came to check us out. On the Porpoise wreck, we saw tons of huge lobsters, barracuda, a sting ray, a turtle, lion fish, puffer fish, and trunk fish. On the exploration dives, also our first drift dives, there were so many corals and fans, a couple of swim throughs, lobsters, schools of fish, and we saw a few cuttlefish! Owen enjoyed the exploration dives the most.

It was great to be back underwater, one of my favorite places to be :) I miss living on a tropical island, being able to scuba dive with friends whenever we want. Thanks Chris and Sally for always providing a great dive experience! Wish we were on island still! As always, I've included a few pictures and posted more at SXM Diving. Enjoy!

Favorite diving moment/picture ever!

Black Tip Reef Shark

Owen with the shark in the back

Pufferfish

Stingray

Trunk Fish

Hawksbill Sea Turtle

Barracuda

Flamingo Tongue Snail

Lion Fish

So many lobsters hiding out together

Cuttlefish

12 July 2015

Family Graduation Vacation!!

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were blessed to have so many family members from both sides make the trip to St Maarten to celebrate Owen's graduation. We had a great time sharing our island life with family, some of whom had been before and others this was their first visit. While my parents were there for 2 weeks, everyone else was there for a long weekend. We fit a lot of fun into just a few short days!! We were able to do lots of things all together, as well as some individual vacation/down time. It seemed that everyone had a great time and we were so thankful to have everyone there!

Highlights

Private Scuba Diving trip (thanks Octopus!)
Hikes up to the top of Pic Paradis
Watching planes
Jet blasted by KLM's 747
Exploring Belle Creole (abandoned resort)
Mountain biking (thanks TriSport!)
Beach time & boat drinks
Several family dinners (Thai Savanh, Lolo's, Boat House, Karakters)
Plenty of Carousel (gelato!!)

A huge thank you to David, Charlotte, Jared, Mark, Lydia, Christian, Tony, and Becky for making the trip to our island home and celebrating with us!!! Plenty more photos from your visit and dive trip!!! Look for more generic island pictures from our vacation soon! Enjoy!

We also want to say a very special CONGRATULATIONS to Lydia and Christian on your engagement in St Maarten!!! We are so happy for you both! How exciting that St Maarten will now always hold a special place in your hearts as well. Can't wait for the wedding!