St. Maarten: Day 11

Well, that's it for my trip. I decided to end it early and book the next flight off the island after almost being murdered last night.

I finally ran out of couchsurfing hosts to stay with and had to fork over some money to stay at The Crew House hostel ($40/night). This was a reasonable price and something I could afford until my flight out on the 12th of December.

However, my first night there, I was woken to the sound of a car window being smashed and then its alarm going off. About 5 minutes after that, I hear a raging drugged-out Jamaican man yelling and smashing things. He ended up breaking into our common area with a knife yelling out racial slurs, looking for some white guy and a girl that he was going to kill. He tried breaking into the girls bedroom and they had to barricade/hold the locked door to stop him from getting in. Our bedroom door was not locked, and to our luck he didn't try opening ours when he walked up to our door. He turned and walked back to the girl's bedroom door, they had to barricade the door again as he tried to smash his way in. He kept yelling the word "bloodclot", which I know from the movie Shottas, is a Jamaican curse word for mother******.

He stormed out of our area of the hostel after unsuccessfully trying to get into a bedroom and we heard smashing/beating sounds on the other side of the complex followed by people screaming. We thought he had murdered someone, but no bodies were found in the morning.

Oh, and the funniest part, this psycho turned out to be the hired security guard of the complex. The one hired to protect us ended up trying to kill us.

The cops ended up coming and taking him to jail, but they said they could only hold him until morning. However, we later found out that they were deporting him. The hostel owners installed all new heavy-duty locks all over the complex, but who's to say this guy doesn't phone up some of his buddies to come back to the hostel and kill us all for getting him deported?

I could have just moved to another hotel or something, but the next cheapest place was $100/night. Even though my original flight was non-refundable, I figured it best to just buy another ticket and fly home.

So I am on a plane right now flying home. There are a few things I would have liked to do in St. Maarten before leaving (hiking and ziplining at Pic Paradis, Saba & Pinel Islands, seeing the French side, etc.), but it wasn't worth risking my life. Especially after Milap told me the story of how he was mugged by two guys and a machete a few years ago. They ended up swinging it at his head, and he luckily blocked it with his forearm (he showed me the huge scar).

I also found out a couple was murdered a few months ago, by another Jamaican security guard none-the-less, with a knife.

Thanks for the hospitality St. Maarten, but it's about time I hit the old dusty trail...

St. Maarten: Day 9 - Shark Dive!

I went on a Shark Dive today with the Ocean Explorers Dive Center. It was surreal.

After diving into the water, you look down into the abyss and see nothing. After descending a few meters though, the feeding area starts coming into view. I saw about 10 Caribbean Reef Sharks circling around waiting for their dinner (ie. me). They had us descend using a rope dangling from the boat which connected to a horizontal rope that brought you over to the feeding area.

Once on the bottom, they had a row of cinder blocks circling the feeding area that we held onto during the feeding so that we weren't floating around. The sharks were swimming above, behind, in front and even right beside us. I got tail-whipped a few times and body-checked once by a bigger guy. At one point, a bigger shark stole the feeding rod from the feeder and we all cringed as we heard him chew and mangle it as if it were made of paper. When they look at you up close, their eyes pierce into your very soul.

I had a little fish taking cover underneath me the whole time. I was like 'Don't worry buddy, I got ya covered'. He even looked at me dead in the eyes at one point with his googly fish-eyes and was like "WTF are we doing here?" (I have video footage of this moment)

After the feeding, we were allowed to roam around freely with the sharks, and by this point any fear you had was gone. They are a truly beautiful and graceful creature and one that I now have a completely different perspective on.