Airport musings

Sad day, the 29th. Hannah, Esther and Sophie,and Seth have flown away. Our Christmas visit is over. Hundreds of travelers were stranded at even the Princess Julianna Airport but our birds got out on time and really left. We’ll see how they fare in Newark.

Once they were through passports, Paul and I drove to the next village to get shwarma wraps then parked back at home and walked down to the Maho beach to watch the plane take off. Great excitements there as wave swells had dumped dunes of sand on the beach head and onto the road. (Earlier this morning, after droping Seth off, Paul helped a van get out of the sand (like being caught on snow and ice). I was just walking up with some big palm branches when the driver finally gained traction.

Actually, there is a lot to say about this….

1. The road curves around the end of the airport and the runway (it’s fenced)
a. This is the only road connecting two popular areas, Beacon Hill and Maho.
b. There is a lane in each direction separated by a low wall.
c. The beach is on the far side of the road from the airport.
d. There is congestion at both ends of this short passage – people congregating, open air bars, parking, hotel entrances, taxi stands.

2. This passage presents an issue that sometimes requires a host of Police, roadwork crews, sand movers, convoys of huge dump trucks, extra men to try to direct traffic and forbid parking by clueless tourists
a. Large sand moving equipment brought in to transfer sand to dump trucks takes up one of the lanes.
b. The expansion of the airport runway (in accordance with the development model the country is pursuing) has successfully lured larger jets which, upon takeoff, cause blasts of said sand to spew back on the road and the crowds, which have gathered to experience exactly this.
c. When these conditions prevail, the sea is high and dangerous and spewing water over the retaining wall and onto the sandy road. People will try to swim anyway, and tourists will continue to double park in the road, they will also hang onto the airport’s wire fence in hopes of being lifted like a windsock despite signs depicting exactly this behavior and warning them against it.
d. Nevertheless, all goes fairly well until the arrival of the next giant dump truck which may require a whole line of cars, vans and taxis to exit the only open lane in reverse.

All this was occurring while we waited for the plane to leave. It was delayed about 40 minutes but finally took off, cleared the mountain it was headed for and rose into the clouds and was really, really gone.

Everyones’ attention soon turned to the water where five men on Jet skis had appeared and seemed to be moving in and out of a formation. They broke apart and variously tackled the mighty waves. They rode them like surfers or rode against them, doing handstands on the handlebars as the large wave tossed them into the air.