Seven St. Maarten Beaches To Read A Book (And Reading Suggestions That Go Well With Them)
St. Maarten beaches come in many shapes and forms, from the Atlantic to the Caribbean, from the well known to the ones off the beaten track and from the lively to the tranquil. During your stay, you might be looking for a moment to leave things as they are and find yourself a secluded beach retreat to read that book that was on your list for years. Or even better, choose a book that goes well with your Caribbean beach day as part of a full immersion into your destination of choice. Here are some great sandy shores on St. Maarten / St. Martin offering a Caribbean refuge for bookworms, and some suggestions for books that go well with them.
1. Friars Bay + “37 Poems” and other works by Lasana Sekou
Friars Bay is one of St. Maarten / St. Martins most “in the know”, but beautiful beaches. A tranquil beach unfolds amongst lush green backgrounds with some relaxing beach bars and plenty of spots to unfold your towel on this sunny vacation spot.
So Friars Bay Beach is a picture of the Caribbean as you want it to be. Further immersion into your Caribbean retreat is helped by finding great reads from the island soil. Lasana Sekou is St. Maartens best known poem and writer, winning accolades worldwide and writes poetry pertaining to wider Caribbean perspectives, themes, heritage and history than just the island alone. “37 Poems” from the House of Nehesi Publishers founded by the author himself is a great start – do continue with his “National Symbols of St. Martin – a Primer” to get a deeper understanding of island culture and traditions. This should provide plenty of reading until the sun sets on this pristine beach. The fact you would read works of this St. Maarten writer on a St. Martin beach would befit the author, as unification of the two sides is a recurring theme in his work.
2. Orient Bay Beach + “Romare Bearden- the Caribbean Dimension” by Sally Price
The colorful and diverse Caribbean hosted many famous artists looking for inspiration. On St. Maarten / St. Martin, the best known visiting creative was Romare Bearden, one of the most celebrated African-American painters of all time. In the 1970s and 1980s, he used his favorite Caribbean retreat, its people and culture as themes in many of his works. That also counts for the many island beaches he painted, amongst which was famous Orient Beach. At this point, the beach was still void of development. To catch a glimpse of the way it was when Bearden frequented St. Maarten / St. Martin, go to the quieter far north and far south sides of the beach.
Sally Price’s “Romare Bearden- the Caribbean Dimension” is a great book to take with you, as a summary of Beardens life in the Caribbean. If you are more into poetry, consider books from nobel prize winner Derek Walcott- a close friend of Bearden, and partially from St. Maarten / St. Martin descent.
3. Little Bay Beach – “The Forts of Sint Maarten and Saint Martin”
Little Bay Beach is not just a beautiful and picturesque Caribbean beach on its own merit. History buffs will be dazzled learning about the role this beach played in St. Maartens earliest history. With strategic Fort Amsterdam overlooking the beach, it was not just the location of the first Dutch settlement on St. Maarten, the place where “Pegleg Pete” Stuyvesant lost his leg, but also the scene of a fierce siege.
“The forts of Sint Maarten and Saint Martin“, available in both English and Dutch by Aruban librarian Dr Hartog is known as the best source to learn on your lazy beach day about what occurred here.
4. Le Galion Beach – Any book by Mark Yokoyama
Le Galion Beach is the most quaint of all larger Atlantic St. Maarten / St. Martin beaches. With the exception of occasional kitesurfer passing by and families spending their island beach day, there is always a good place in this lush beach paradise for a picknick basket and some good reads to go with it.
Given the fact that this sandy shore is a quiet nature reserve, consider to purchase any of the books by Mark Yokoyama as a sunny afternoon read. This newest generation from a famous family of nature photographers has produced a wealth of books with fun facts about St. Maarten / St. Martin nature. The same goes for his interview books with islanders telling about life and culture in the olden days. Before (or after) your Le Galion beach stay, consider the Amuseum Naturalis close by, where exhibitions by the author are freely accessible 24/7. It also has a poetry exhibition with Lasana Sekou poems in its garden.
5. Great Bay Beach -“Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten Vintage Photography”
Great Bay Beach seems busy at first glance, with the many things to do for cruise visitors on its east end. The further west you go towards “open air architecture museum” Walter Plantz square, the more tranquility you will find for a sunny spot for reading.
Though the book covers beautiful old pictures of the entire island, many historical pictures of your beach of choice are in there. You will find pictures of the old Captain Hodge pier, the Great Salt Pond close by and the development of tourism around the bay. Pictures also show how shoppers delight Front Street came to be. If tempted, this main street is right off the beach – as is the St. Maarten Heritage Museum where you can purchase this beautiful coffee table book and others. The series of historical pictures is selected by a local collective of photographers.
6. Baie Rouge + “Gone Bamboo” – Anthony Bourdain
Mostly, tranquil beaches on St. Maarten / St. Martin are somewhat off the beaten track. One of the most remote, large beaches to spend a day on St. Maarten / St. Martin is “Baie Rouge” or Red Bay. You are not alone when marveling about this Caribbean dream beach unfolding as you enter, as the global jetset is well represented in the lush villas surrounding it. As no amenities are nearby, ensure you arrive with a well stocked bag of drinks and snacks.
Should this be your beach of choice, consider “Gone Bamboo” as an interesting St. Maarten based novel. It could have been one of the French side beaches main characters Henry and Frances Denard would have found a literal Caribbean getaway as they deal with a notorious American mafioso. Possibly more interesting even than the book is its author, Anthony Bourdain. Yes, the same Anthony Bourdain that had the world mesmerize about the tastes and intricacies of global food cultures. At the point St. Martin became a decor for his fiction novel, Bourdain had been visiting the island for well over a decade. If you want to finish your day in style, dine at Ras Bushmans Ital Shack, where Bourdain dined too and made recordings. Do give them a heads up you are coming- with the exception of Redemption Saturdays, Ital Shack opens in the evening only at request. It was selected by USA Today readers as 4th best restaurant of the Caribbean – so you can not go wrong here.
Why reading this book on Baie Rouge? Gus’s beach bar, that was here until 2019, was Bourdains favorite beach bar. It inspired the name “Food Tastes Better With Sand Between Your Toes” of the sole culinary television episode that Bourdain made on his beloved holiday island. Baie Rouge can very well have been Bourdains subconscious backdrop when writing “Gone Bamboo”.
7. Tintamarre – “Kidnapping Mr. Heineken” by Peter R. De Vries
Tintamarre is an uninhabited Caribbean island off the St. Martin coast on its Atlantic side. With a gorgeous beach on its west end and spectacular cliffs on its east end makes this a highly inviting spot to read a book from A to Z. You will only interrupted by waves, catamarans passing by and your own occasional beachside strawls. It is hard to imagine how this peaceful island with views to Anguilla, Pinel, St. Barths and the Dutch and French side of this dual nation island was once the decor of the closing chapter of a worldwide media frenzy.
After famous beer brewer Alfred “Freddy” Heineken was kidnapped in front of the multinational company’s offices in 1983, a global hunt for the perpetrators started. Ransom money was asked and received in spectacular fashion, after which the mogul and his driver were found by the police. By now, main culprits Willem Holleeder and Cor van Hout had made their way into France with the ransom money. By lack of a treaty for extraditing kidnappers, Holleeder and Van Hout received “house arrest” in France, where global media laid siege to their apartment. While the French and Dutch governments worked on a treaty, the kidnappers were to remain in France, more specifically their Paris condominium, for a long while.
Allegedly, to speed things up a scheme was concocted using the binational character of St. Maarten / St. Martin and the St. Maarten airport as a trap to get them into Dutch Kingdom jurisdiction. The crooks were promised a holiday on French St. Martin to avoid the media attention, but for that they would have to pass by the Dutch side St. Maarten Airport. In that short window Kingdom police could arrest the two. Van Hout however saw the plot coming on time and demanded a deviation to French St. Martin via Guadeloupe.
In the meanwhile, global media had gotten hold of the “holiday plans” for the criminals. Young Dutch reporter Peter R. De Vries made the trip himself in order to make contact with the kidnappers. Finding them succeeded easily as he turned out to have booked a hotel room opposite to theirs. De Vries, eager to learn about the still unknown backgrounds of the crime, grew to become friends with van Hout especially. This friendship soon led to De Vries obtaining the rights to their inside story.
At the point public riots to chase the two off island got out off hand, the journalist also accompanied the two gangsters and their police escort in a nightly speedboat escape to Tintamarre. It was around this time that the kidnappers realized they would not find peace anywhere within France, and needed to turn themselves in to the Dutch justice system. This happened shortly after. Their part of the ransom was never found, but allegedly buried and later dug up in the Bois de Boulogne.
Van Houts story was written down by Peter R. de Vries in the book “Kidnapping mr Heineken”, and became an international bestseller. Two movies were made, starring Rutger Hauer and Anthony Hopkins as Heineken. A disappointing fact for island fans is that none of the two Heineken Kidnap movies were shot on St. Maarten / St. Martin or Tintamarre. Regardless, we highly recommend the book of this crazy chase as a thriller to read on the quiet island of its grand finale, Tintamarre.
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