Here are some random fun facts about St. Maarten, and the island lifestyle!
About the island:
- St. Maarten is a 37 square mile island in the Caribbean:
- It’s known as “The Friendly Island”
- St. Maarten is also known as SXM, or SM for short, although SXM is more common.
- St. Maarten officially became its own country on October 10th of 2010! Bye-bye Netherlands Antilles, helloooo Country St. Maarten!
- There are two sides on the island; The Dutch Side, and The French Side.
Border between the Dutch and French side of SXM
- There are two different ways to spell the island’s name; St. Maarten for The Dutch Side, and St. Martin for The French Side.
- There’s a story about how SXM’s land was divided between the Dutch and French, and it goes something like this:
- To establish a border in a fair way, two men, a Dutch man and a French man were put back to back to one another at one side of the island. They then had to walk in opposite directions from one another around the island, and the border would be drawn across the island from where they started to where they met. Before the walk started, the French man drank wine, and the Dutch man had Dutch Gin. It’s said that the reason the French side is so much bigger than the Dutch (54 Km2 vs 32 Km2) because the Dutch man got tired of walking and decided to stop at a bar for a few beers, and some more gin. He ended up getting drunk and passing out, only to wake up a few hours later and finish the walk, covering much less ground than the french man.
Island life:
- We don’t have Walmart, Target, Tim Hortons, Starbucks, or any “big name” places like that.
- Seasons? Yeah they aren’t really a thing for us…
- We measure the temperature based on the type of heat; “It’s nice out” “It’s realllllly hot out” “It’s so fucking hot out, stay inside” and things like that
- You ALWAYS greet everyone when you enter a business or home, even if you don’t know them.
- “Good Afternoon” is apart of everyone’s daily vocabulary!
- Sunday’s are made for going to the beach, hanging out with friends, and sometimes meeting Americans with guitars…
- Sometimes when we’re bored at the beach, we flip off of cliffs…
- And sometimes we dive off them…
- Our sunsets are always colourful, and always magical..
p.s. I took these from my balcony!
- Our airport, is kiiiiind of famous for being ridiculously dangerous…
- Even with signs that try to warn people how dangerous being jet blasted can be, like this one:
- There are still hundreds of people who decide it’s a good idea, and end up like this:
- aaaaaand even worse… like this:
- Although sometimes the weather has a hard time deciding whether or not it wants to be good or bad:
- But for most of the year, the weather is like this:
Feel free to ask me about anything else you want to know about St. Maarten or the island lifestyle in the comment section below! 🙂
I'm Still On My Island Vibes... 