On April 17, our first night on St. Martin, our first visit on-island, my husband and I were robbed in Orient Village, at gunpoint. We were coming out of a restaurant, crossed the street to pick up some groceries for the next day, and heading back to our rental jeep. My husband unlocked my passenger side door and was heading back to his side (still behind the jeep) when a black man in a hooded sweatshirt stepped out of the sparse vegetation on my side of the jeep, demanding:"Give me the money! Give me the money!" He had a gun. It was in his right hand, pointed (for the moment) at the ground. My husband, hearing the threatening tone, thought he was an aggessive panhandler. He yelled: "What, are you crazy? Get away from here!" The man leaned away from me, towards my husband, who was coming back to my side of the jeep and his gun lifted ever so slightly. A terrifying movie unrolled in my mind in a split second. It showed my husband, and me, or both shot, with blood spattering, and my body flying backward (I was still facing right, not even having had the time to swing my legs in the jeep). In my calmest voice, I said: "It's okay, take it, it's okay." A split second of hesitation from the man, then he grabbed my purse in his left hand and took off. By then my husband had reached my side, not knowing what in the world had gone on. I told him, "Honey, he had a gun, he had a gun." After that, our vacation was filled with police stations, tourist board, and long tedious phone calls to credit card companies etc.


The frustrations of the follow-up continues. WE just returned last Thursday, the 24th of April. The only thing my fellow travellers need to know is do not carry ID with you (the robber took everything, including my passport), only copies of ID, perhaps one credit card and a small amount of your cash. Crime is escalating on the island, and we've heard stories from the gendarme, frequent island visitors, and locals that you don't really glean from the travel sites. It was only 8pm at night, in a busy area, and we took no chances. I made the biggest mistake of carrying my handbag with me, with everything in it, only because we had a mini-discussion before leaving the hotel room we'd just checked into,deciding we were unsure of the island, and it would be better to take it with me. The room had a safe, but somehow the newness of our surroundings made us think we should take my bag with us.

With the huge disparity of income we viewed on the island, it will only get worse. The police on the French side are nearly all French-speaking, and my report of the robbery, and a declaration they gave me to help me leave the island without ID, was all in French. That's as it should be, but the gendarme cycle in for only a maximum of 5 years, then return home. One gets the feeling that the lid is only barely on what could quickly become another Jamaica. How sad, for such a place...

At first, I was terrified. The next day, tired and in a post-adrenlin fog. By Friday night I got angry, and decided I wasn't going to allow the mental robbery to continue. We managed to enjoy our vacation as much as we could. Still, I won't return to St. Martin. The development is incredible, the walled villas increasing, the traffic horrendous. The locals don't seem to be benefiting in any way by the increase of off-shore wealth. Some of what is taken in by the foreign tourists should be given back in the form of community, health, youth, athletic, centers. They are short-sightedly building a powder keg. We will be looking elsewhere for our next Carribean vacation...

Kat,

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to let us all know of your island experience.

I can't begin tell you how very sorry I am for you and your husband to have had such a terrible experience on an island we have loved so well and for so very long. It gives me great pain to hear of these things happening and you are correct in that we're hearing more and more of this kind of story and the problems are occurring on both sides of the island with more and more regularity.

I guess the good news is that neither you nor your husband were injured or physically harmed. I'm sure it will take a while for the emotional anguish to ease as such an experience had to put you in a tailspin. No one should experience this type of thing at any time, but surely not on the first day of a long anticipated and much planned for vacation.

Again, so very sorry all this happened but thank you for the clear and concise sharing of what transpired and for your assessment of some measures others placed in the same situation should take. The wisest thing you could have done was to give up the purse and let the guy be on his way.

The governments of both St. Martin and Sint Maarten have got to put forth more effort in bringing these types of crimes to an end and I hope, in that light, you forwarded a copy of this message to the various island agencies who really do need to be aware of how, more and more, visitors are now starting to view what once was "The Friendly Island".

Hopefully, your future travels, wherever they may take you, will never be a repeat performance of this experience.

Respectfully,

pat

Hi Pat,

I appreciate the sympathy and kind response. Right now, my husband and I are fighting off some body aches, lassitude, headache and (he only), a lowgrade fever. Our son, who had joined us on-island, has been in his own home in bed for 2 days, with a worse case of the above symptoms. We definitely picked up some nasty microbe. If we can lick whatever is bothering us, we'll continue our dance of cancellation/notification/replacement on Monday. In the meantime, would you please forward me some of the agencies and their email addresses you mentioned in your response to me? I'd gladly forward a copy, or a separate communication, of our experience.

Thank you again for your kind reply...
Kat

Kat,

We've experienced what you're speaking of on a few different occasions after flights from Hawaii, Florida and the islands, too, so you definitely have my sympathies. If your symptoms don't pass in a day or so it's not a bad idea to see your doctor because Lord only knows what you can pick up from all that great recycled airplane 'air'?

Regarding the forwarding of your message, unfortunately I don't personally have the information you need, but Barbara, who is a moderator here and resides on the island will probably be able to provide you with some of the sources that would best receive this.

I also sent you a private message regarding the above.

I hope you can soon put this all behind you.

Respectfully,

pat
:-) :-)

Rec'd your reply. Again, thank you. I'll await some info from the moderator...

kat
I am so sorry to hear of your experience.
It saddens me that this sort of thing happens to our visitors.
I am not sure what sort of email information you want.
The crime happened on the french side so you need French side emails and addresses...none of which I really have.
I'm going to ask a friend if he can give you any information.

Hi Barbara,

Thank you for your sympathy. Pat suggested the traveltalk site - I've quickly visited it but my head is pretty achey right now and I'll postpone a posting there a for little while. I want to head out and check up on our son first.

I'm not sure either what sites would be most helpful to our fellow travelers, but any ones your own gobeach site suggests are fine with me. I've a friend who returned yesterday from her 5th visit to St. Martin (but this time she was in Sint Maarten) and she will also have suggestions. Gobeach was her first of a few I think she'll send to me.

Sincerely,
Kat

well, truthfully, I do not think posting this all over the internet is the way to go.
I understand the need to do so, but the problem with the internet is that when it is posted again and again on different sites, people think they are reading about 3 or 4 different events.. and people get hysterical.
IMHO, that is just flaming the fires and does not help. I think it helps the poster because I am sure you have a need to talk about it, but I don't think it helps the issue.
I think what you need and should get are the addresses of the tourist offices, newspapers, government officials, etc. and you should bombard them with letters and emails.
just MHO.
I hope you feel better.
as if it isn't bad enough that you were the victim of a crime, you also pick up some sort of bug.
that's a double whammy for sure.

Kat
I just sent you a PM with some information.

Hi Barbara,

My son seems slightly better, with a slight lowering of his fever, as does my husband, and I'm about the same. I'm going to take some time now to responds to your well-meant suggestions.

I will try to send something to the Herald, and will try to see if I can do that online first. I will send a copy to the on-island agencies you also suggested. Pat (the first person to respond to me) felt there were people who read the traveltalk site that don't look at the gobeach one, and vice versa, so I will use that one as well. My thinking on multiple site posting is the following: I'm not a chat room person, but I try to do my research. I visited a couple of sites before our travel to the island and appreciated the warnings from a few who had been victims of snatch and grabs from bikes, and the suggestion to not carry your bag on the street-side of the sidewalks. Instead have a husband or someone walk that side of the sidewalk, and women with handbags on the inside. I went on government sites to check out the safety of the water, any diseases etc. and state dept. advisories. What is aggravating about this is the gendarme had just rec'd 24 HOURS BEFORE WE CAME IN a flyer from the tourist board that listed guidelines that may have prevented the loss of my entire pocketbook. Prescription eyeglasses, prescription sunglasses, designer sunglasses, medications, multiple credit cards, wallet with check book and log, address book, travel journal, cell phone, drivers license, passport,keys, EVERY crumb of ID I owned, etc., etc. The thief only got between $6-$10 in cash. My husband had the cash...My friends joke I carry my life around in my bag, and so I do and the thief took it all. But he didn't get my LIFE, or that of my dear husband's.

So, I would rather err on the side of too much information, than too little. As I said, I'm not a chat room person (don't even know what your abbreviations of IMHO and another meant) so many places won't be hearing from me. However, if I get the impression that island businesses or officials attempt to minimize or squash stories such as mine, I will focus more on frequency and multiplicity of postings. We were a family group of 6 people, one an executive in a PR firm, and we don't want what happened to us happen to others.

It's obvious you love your island and I fervently hope no one will make you feel any differently. Thank you for providing this site for what appears to be solid advice for visitors.

Sincerely,
Kat

kat
thanks for the reply. My friend is going to get you the names of some others to contact on the French side as well. As I said, I do believe you should contact any on-island sources and officials that you can get a hold of and also the newspapers.

IMHO means In MY Humble Opinion... sorry..
I am glad you all are starting to feel better. ask your doctor to check for dengue if he/she can.
and, yes, the bottom line is that you all are fine.
and, yes, I do love my island but I don't love what is happening here.

oh by the way, I wouldn't bother to post something on The Daily Herald message board.. if that's what you meant by online...almost no one reads it.. use the email addresses I gave you and write a letter to the editor. I am sure it will be published, and, believe me, everyone reads that paper.
I woudl put something on the TTOL board though. there are a lot of people who hang out there who stay in the Orient area.
Barbara

So sorry about your experience. Spent many a night at Bikini beach bar over the past 15 years. We used to walk the beach back to Cap Caraibe, but heard about the crime on the beach at night. Now we walk back thru Orient village, and really don't feel that safe there. Love St. Martin, but don't go out of our hotel that much anymore late at night. We also hope that something will be done about the crime on St. Martin. It's been are home away from home for so many years.
Don and Danna

So sorry about your experience. Spent many a night at Bikini beach bar over the past 15 years. We used to walk the beach back to Cap Caraibe, but heard about the crime on the beach at night. Now we walk back thru Orient village, and really don't feel that safe there. Love St. Martin, but don't go out of our hotel that much anymore late at night. We also hope that something will be done about the crime on St. Martin. It's been our home away from home for so many years.
Don and Danna

Hi Barbara,

Well, I checked out the symptoms online of dengue fever and they were exactly what my husband and son have been experiencing, right down to the rash showing up on the legs on day 3-4 after fever onset. I found out there have been some cases on-island - thanks to you. All of us were in a hospital Tuesday, and they admitted my son and husband, who were terribly ill by then. I've had a milder version of it. When I told the docs I thought we had dengue, they did the blood work, which is rather unusual for our New England area, and it will be back shortly. However, they said they were classic textbook as far as symptoms were concerned, and that is the working diagnosis right now. I just got back from spending the day with them, and we hope that at least one of them may be able to go home tomorrow. Thank you for the heads up, Barbara. There should be a major warning about this on your gobeach site...

OMG, I am so sorry to ehar you all got dengue.
That is just horrible.
and all 3 of you? amazing!
SXM definitely did not do good by you.

There have been continuing warnings about dengue for months now and much discussion abotu dengue both here and over on Traveltalk(TTOL). A heath officer from BVI did some length posting on TTOL a few months ago.
It is a problem all over the Caribbean this year.
There have been warnings in the newspapers and at the hotels also.
I am surprised your hotel did not give you a warning.
I know a few months back the french side indicated that dengue cases were near epidemic proportions and I thought they were putting warnings up all over the place. I guess then the Dutch side isn't doing it either.
you know..they do things for awhile here and then stop..unfortunately.

I hope both your husband and son are doing better now.
I hope you all will be OK.