The Catamaran Adventures of Noel and Ceu

In Sint Maarten – no wifi :-(

On Friday evening we finally got our prop shaft seal fixed, and so we sailed overnight to St. Maarten as we have a bunch of stuff to orgainize before we fly to Canada. And also Ben is arriving here on Saturday.

St. Maarten is hugely different from the other islands.

For one thing, it is low, which means dry. Not much rain, no rainforests, no rivers or waterfalls.

And secondly it is very developed. This is not some sleepy Caribbean island. It is a bustling, busy, almost-metropolis. No, no big skyscrapers, but lots of buildings, lots of stores of all descriptions, lots of traffic, lots of huge mega yachts (mostly power) and, of course, duty free shopping, which explains all the rest. It is for all these reasons that it is the best place to get stuff done on the boat.

But despite all that (or maybe because of it)  it is very difficult to find a wifi connection. Out in the bay where we are anchored there isn’t even one that we can buy. So right now we are literally sitting on a park bench outside a store next to a hotel where we do actually have a connection. But no power of course.

The other day we had a good connection in Burger King (and they have signs up saying free wifi), but the last two times it wasn’t working.

All very frustrating.

But, the good news is that Ben arrives on Saturday for a week’s holiday! Will be good to have him aboard. We will probably visit nearby St Barth’s and Anguilla.

Will update when I find a connection!

3 Responses to “In Sint Maarten – no wifi :-(”

  • Heidi and Elmer:

    Amazing how different these islands are. This one sounds like what I expected, but I’m glad that the ones we visited on the cruise were the lush, mountainous, sleepy ones.

  • Utrecht:

    Next time you visit St Maarten you have a look at http://www.sxmhotspots.com
    A lot of wifi hotspots for the sxm island are listed there.

    • Noel:

      Thanks.

      The issue was not so much that there is no internet available – there is plenty of that – it is that there was no internet available from the boat, which means one has to go ashore each time one wants to go online. This is mainly because of the huge amount of electrical interference.

      The rule seems to be that the more remote, and the smaller the place is, the better the wifi availability. Here in Flores, one of the Azores island, for example, the entire island population is less than 5,000 – yet there is excellent free wifi right here in Lajes harbour – provided by the government no less! Similarly we found great wifi in Bucamment Bay, St. Vincent, Bequia, Marina Cay, BVI, and a few other quiet places. But once we get to the more populated locations, nada.

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