St. Martin

Itinerary:
Day 1: Fly to Saint Martin (SYR → ATL → SXM), board the Saphir in Anse Marsel, French Saint Martin
Day 2-3: Sail from Anse Marsel to Grand Case, begin PADI open water certification

I’ve had this lifelong dream of making a friend on a plane. The dream scenario is that you put your bag in the overhead compartment, maneuver past someone to take your seat, and naturally strike up a vibrant conversation that occupies your attention for the entire flight. I still maintain that it would make a fantastic story, but I’ve had comically rotten luck. Up until a few years ago, most of the flights I’ve taken have been with my family; and besides a near catastrophic attempt by my Grandmother to set me up with the poor boy sitting next to her on our way back from my Aunt’s wedding, I haven’t come remotely close to speaking to anyone that isn’t related to me by blood. In 2016 I flew alone for the first time, and I was beyond excited to try anew to befriend a fellow passenger. The flight was to Ecuador, and there was the language barrier that prevented me from making any real conversation. On my flight to the Galapagos I was sure I would win over the heart of the little girl sitting next to me by pointing to the Islands out the window, but she was afraid of me. Then, by some mean trick of fate, on my flight back to the mainland, all the seats in my row and for three rows in front of me, were empty. Going to college for the first time, I thought I’d have another shot. But it turns out that on small commuter flights from Boston to Upstate New York around holidays, you already know the majority of passengers.
Flying to Saint Martin, I had another shot. But when my alarm rang at 3:00 am and I had to say a groggy goodbye to my dogs, making a friend on the plane was the last thing on my mind. The idea completely vanished when I had to frantically rush through security after nearly missing the checked baggage deadline while lugging an ungodly amount of camera gear and trying to wrangle sunglasses that wouldn’t stay put on my head. I made it to the gate just in time, but unable to grab a coffee before my group boarded, so still frazzled and half-asleep. Then against all odds, the man next to me asked me about my hat. All of a sudden I was awake, and excited to have a conversation. But we hadn’t even taxied to the runway by the time that my excitement had evolved into dread. He was a missionary, which is a wonderful profession, don’t get me wrong, but his beliefs were way out in left field. I’ll save you the torture, but highlights included me telling him that I was going to the Caribbean, and him responding with his belief that artificial reefs were against God’s will and that Science was the tool of the Devil, as well as him waking me up as the plane descended into Atlanta to give me a pocket-sized graphic-novel version of the Bible and to alert me that I was going to Hell. I left the plane a little shaken, and unsure if it had all been a weird dream. Some coffee and retelling the story to a few friends during my layover smoothed over my nerves, yet when I boarded my next flight amongst three different Christian mission groups, I was wondering if I was receiving some sort of divine sign
St. Martin itself was not at all what I had expected. My incredibly naïve preconception of the Caribbean was flat, touristy white-sand beached lined with palm trees. Instead, I was greeted by mountainous conglomerations of red volcanic rock jutting out from the water and an arid landscape similar to the Galapagos. In hindsight, that makes sense. Nevertheless, I was shocked.
What hit me the most in those first few moments on the ground in St. Martin was the impact of the hurricane. For months on the news I had heard about the disastrous hurricane Irmathat hit the Caribbean in the fall. In fact, I fancied myself to be relatively aware. The remnants ofIrma hit Boston, I knew a few people with family down in impacted areas, and I was aware that Puerto Rico was still without power. But I assumed since my trip was running, the damage couldn’t possibly be that bad. I was wrong. The airport terminal for a once grand airport was a tent. The majority of the houses lacked roofs. Entire towns had been demolished.
My eyes wide, still in shock, I stepped off the plane into the tent-terminal to the pile of bags next to a paper sign labeled “baggage claim.” I lugged my massive frame pack full of camera gear off to the side and located the Broadreach staff member that was sent to retrieve me from the airport. All of a sudden, I was embarrassed by the amount of stuffI had with me. I didn’t want to flaunt my position, but I was wildly self-conscious that people would criticize me for over-packing. My embarrassment became even more pronounced when the next girl got off the plane with a small backpack and a light duffel. I knew from my trip to Ecuador she had packed properly, and I nervously tugged at the straps of my bad to try and make it look smaller than it was. We waited for four more students to get off the plane. In total, there were three people from my program and two from Broadreach’s Divemaster Intern (DIP) Program that loaded into the taxi that transversed the Island from the Dutch side, to the French side, and into a small Marina town of Anse Marsel.
Legend has it that Anse Marsel was once a flourishing, wildly wealthy town with restaurants and some of the most elaborate houses on the Island. But you never would have known the summer after Irma. All that was left of Anse Marsel was a few abandoned and collapsing buildings, a marina full of debris, and Broadreach’s welcoming but modest rebuild of The Pad—the company’s Caribbean headquarters. Still overwrought with nerves about my bags, I sat myself a bit off to the side and started assembling my camera gear as a means of justifying my apparent over-packing while everyone from our airport group mingled with the others in our respective programs. Each program had four students—intimate groups that allowed for one-on-one instruction in many cases. That evening, we mingled on shore over a delicious pasta dinner before boarding the dinghies with our bags and motoring out into the bay to our floating home for the next 21 days: Saphir. Saphirwas a 40-foot catamaran with four cabins, two heads, a spacious galley, an air compressor for SCUBA tanks, and was complete with a trampoline between the two hulls in the bow. She was spacious and clean, but as we stepped on, we were all hit with the fact that we were essentially trapped here, with no privacy, for the next three weeks of our lives. As we settled in, unpacked, and got oriented, I was hit with an overwhelming wave of heat and nausea. Prior to the trip, I was rather pompous about the fact that I was immune to sea-sickness. After all, I had been on boats all my life and I’d never had any problem. The welcoming waves of the Caribbean quickly put me in my place. At 22:00, I popped a sea-sickness pill, and retreated to the deck out of the sweltering heat of the cabins. My plan was to sit there until the medication kicked in, and then go below decks to sleep, but when we were alerted that our wakeup call for the next day would be at 5:00, we all rushed to sleep. The heat still unbearable, I pulled my sleeping bag outside with me, and slept on the tramp.
Another funny thing about the Caribbean is that it is windy. All the time. I had assumed that since we were on the leeward, as opposed to the windward, islands, that any wind would be a light tropical breeze. Instead, I was woken multiple times on the first night by gusts of wind that twirled the boat and nearly blew me away. Be it pure exhaustion, or the medication, I somehow woke up the next morning—at 5:00—oddly refreshed. I quickly threw my contacts in and a swimsuit on and rushed back on deck where we were being scolded for being late (already). Our task was to swim to shore, as a swim test, where we would go over rules and introductions and play team bonding games before swimming back for breakfast. Everything went seamlessly, and we played leapfrog and did cartwheels across the empty Anse Marsel beach as the Sun rose over the mountains. It was stunning. And the breakfast that followed was equally as rewarding. We had a crash course on how to sail and how to anchor, and then we pulled the anchor out of the water, and set off on our first of many sails. It was a perfect introduction to the world of sailing, just half an hour in calm waters one bay over. By the time we anchored in Grand Case, we thought we ruled the World.
That feeling didn’t last long. Almost instantaneously, we were thrown back into the water for the first of many dives. Coming in to the trip, two people already were SCUBA certified, and two were not. I was one of the two that had never been diving before, and though I was excited, I was also terrified. We separated into our groups, and the two certified divers went off to do a real dive while my group practiced setting up our equipment. I thought for certain that was as far as we’d go on the first day, and then before I knew it we were in a dinghy motoring over to a protected cove to be used for our first training dive. I was petrified, and spent all my energy controlling my breathing and trying to convince my fellow student and our instructor that I was calm, and ready for this. After all, what Marine Science student is afraid to dive?
As luck would have it, I was scared out of my wits for the first few dives. The first dive in particular, I spent frantically paddling and consuming air like the mischief at 10 ft. After 20 minutes total below water, I was beyond relieved to be back in the dinghy, and thanking my lucky stars that no one could see that I had been crying, since I was already covered in salt water. That evening, I worried I had made a huge mistake, and was questioning every life decision I had made in the past two years. Why Marine Science? What on Earth had possessed me to think that was a good idea? Here I was, panicking underwater and seasick the first night, and I was supposed to be essentially advertising for Broadreach?
For all you concerned readers, I quickly got over myself, don’t worry. By the end of that day, I was comfortable on the boat, and a good night’s sleep, inside this time, prepared me for the next day. Two more training dives in the cove made me exponentially more comfortable (though still terrified) underwater, and a midday snorkel at our next dive site, Creole Rock, made me remember what I had gone into Marine Science.
I remember thinking the reef was vibrant and beautiful. Little did I know, the rest of the trip would have infinitely more life, and color. I paddled around, following some fish on the surface and freediving, for the first time without any inhibitions. Then the impact of Irma once again showed its ugly face. The majority of the reef at Creole Rock was rubble and bleaching, a phenomenon I knew to be true, but also had half hoped was all some sort of cruel joke. As if the threat of Climate Change wasn’t enough, the stress from hurricanes causes coral that isn’t reduced to rubble by the tumult to bleach.
Coral is a fickle creature. Like jellies and hydras, corals are cnidarians. Cnidarians have two primary life phases, the medusa phase, which is free floating like jellies, and the polyp phase, which is attached to one place, like corals. Corals as we know them are actually colonies of the individual organisms that function as one unit; and corals as a whole have a symbiotic relationship with an algae, zooxanthellae, which photosynthesizes nutrients for the coral. For reasons that scientists have yet to understand, when corals become environmentally stressed, usually by increases in temperature, but sometimes by changes in other environmental factors, the coral overreacts, expels their zooxanthellae, and starves to death. The increase in surface sea temperatures that has resulted from Climate Change has caused corals globally to bleach—most notably in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef where over 50% of the coral has died. The result is that reef ecosystems, the rainforest of the sea, have been dramatically reduced, which is a huge blow on the Ocean’s biodiversity. Unfortunately, all of this is observable at Creole Rock.
After the snorkel, we assembled our dive gear and headed right back out to Creole Rock. That first dive made me begin to understand the appeal of diving. Being able to stay underwater with the fish, and go deeper without worrying about air made the fear of breathing through an air tank worth it.
As the days progressed, the diving would only get better, and the fear would fade to enthusiasm and passion. St. Martin, though initially rocky, was a beautiful island and a fantastic start to the wild adventure that was Broadreach’s Tropical Marine Biology College program.

Itinerary:
Day 20: Sail to Tintamarre, explore the island and dive
Day 21: Sail to Grand Case, hike and explore the island
Day 22: Fly home (SXM → ATL → SYR)

The last few days of the trip were both a blur, and seemed to take forever. On one hand, all of us wanted to savor every second in the Caribbean with our newfound friends. On the other hand, we were anxious to return home to our families, jobs, and in my case my dogs. The sail from Statia to St. Martin was long, but we made decent time, and decided to spend the evening on the island of Tintamarre, a tiny rock extruding from the water off of St. Martin lined with stunning beaches and sparkling turquoise waters. When we moored, we decided to make a quick meal, and then swim to the beach. For the first time all trip, it felt wonderful to relax, and have no plans.
For those of us who had gotten certified on this trip, we all wanted to complete our 25thdive, so we assembled our gear, and dinghied over to a small steam boat wreck just off of Tintamarre. Compared to the dives we’d been spoiled with in Saba and Statia, there wasn’t much to see at the wreck. But we did see Sargent Major eggs, which are a gorgeous purple color, and each of us got a chance to practice leading a dive, which was a fun twist to what we’d been practicing for the last three weeks.
That evening, we stargazed on the coach roof and then all decided to sleep on deck for our final evening on the boat before our gear was packed. Being able to sleep in the breeze, and wake up to the gorgeous panoramic views of Tintamarre was the perfect ending to a memorable trip. The next morning, we ate the remnants of whatever breakfast supplies we had left, took inventory, packed, and cleaned the boat. Once everything was in order, we made the short trip around the corner of St. Martin back to Anse Marcel where we unloaded everything at The Pad. It was weird being back after so long, and with no one else there. Overwhelmed with an odd sense of déjà-vu, we cleaned our SCUBA gear, and restocked the boat. With time to kill, our skipper led us on a hike to a secluded beach, where we swam and marveled at the island’s beauty before heading back and getting back on Saphir. With larger groups, there is undoubtedly more cleaning, restocking, and herding to be done. But our group was organized and small, so we sailed back to Grand Case, our first location of the trip, and dinghied ashore for dinner, gourmet ice cream, drinks, and a night of reflection on a wonderful trip.
The next morning, we sailed back to Anse Marcel, gathered our gear, and taxied back to the Dutch side of St. Martin to catch our flights. Though the airport was significantly damaged by Irma, their security process was efficient and thorough, and we all made it to our flights on time. By coincidence, a girl from my trip and I ended up on the same flight back to The States, and in seats next to each other. We spent the whole flight chatting and laughing about the amazing memories we made together, and then navigated customs and baggage claim together in Atlanta.
My final leg of the trip was delayed on the tarmac for a while, but I am eternally grateful for the delay. It was the fourth of July, and as we sat there waiting to take off, night fell, and the flight home was the most stunning travel experience of my life. The entire flight, we could see fireworks shows erupt across the nation—including the Atlanta City Fireworks. Sometimes, you could see 20-30 different displays at one time—all from the tiny airplane window. The marvelous beauty of aerial fireworks was the perfect summation for the trip of a lifetime. Not only did I learn useful skills for my intended field, but I met a diverse group of incredible people and my own confidence in regards to leadership, and technical skills blossomed. Though it was a very different experience than my previous trip with Broadreach, the Tropical Marine Biology program was an incredible way to spend 22 days, and I would recommend it to anyone.