Sun, Sand and...AIrplanes? Oh my!

The day we stopped at St. Maarten we really just wanted some good, relaxing beach time, so Mont did a little google search and located "St. Maarten's best kept secret" Sunset Beach. That's pretty much all we had to go on but we thought, hey let's try it. We located a taxi driver who-after some discussion-figured out where we wanted to go, and we started off on our journey. After a looong, 45 minute drive through I think every town in St. Maarten we drive up to the beach greeted by this sign:

And then a big ole airplane flew right over us and landed. The beach is literally directly behind the airport landing strip. Dusty and Mont had huge grins and could hardly contain their excitement while Britt and I were like, "I don't think so(Z snap)" and asked our driver if there was another beach close by. Of course not! The next beach is another 45 minutes away. So, to the boys delight we stayed at Airport... oh, I mean, Sunset Beach. We set up our stuff in the only uncrowded part of the beach and started to soak up the sun. A very nice lady then came over and told us that we were directly in the line of fire when the planes take off (which would explain why no one else was set up there) and that we and all of our stuff would get blown down the beach into the water So we picked up and moved over to the side. A little while later we were all hanging out in the water when we heard a jet plane moving onto the runway getting ready to take off. We looked at the guys and told them to hurry and go move our stuff over some more just in case it might still be in the way. For some reason we were just concerned about what was on the beach, Britt and I weren't thinking of what happens in the water when the plane takes off... So, anyway, we are just hanging out in the water, waiting for the plane to take off, when a great big wave comes into the shore and just takes Brittany down. It rolled her around a bit and when she finally popped up we were so caught up in the hilarity of the moment that we completely forgot about the plane. Apparently Dusty and Mont were yelling at us to get out of the water but we couldn't hear them over our laughing and the plane's engine. So, while Britt and I are in the middle of giggling about the wave we are completely slammed, and I mean SLAMMED, with sand. I have to admit that I felt a little bit panicked. You couldn't see and you really couldn't move and it HURT! Britt just kept grabbing onto me which was making me more nervous because I was like, "Is she okay? Is she drowning?"(she really just didn't want us to get separated). We tried to swim out of the way but that was impossible. Britt definitely was thinking more than I was because she kept going under water so that the sand wasn't hitting her while I kept my head above the water the whole time... I had some really cute sunglasses that I didn't want to lose... When it was finally over and Britt surfaced she got a kick out of my sandblasted face. There was like an inch of sand covering all my hair and the side of my face. I really wish we would have taken a picture. Anyway, here is the video the guys took of the plane taking off and you get a little glimpse of Britt and I in the water getting pummeled by the sand. And just as a side note, I lost my glasses. Boo.