Jeff Billimek’s Journal

I had my iPAQ PDA set to wake me up at 6:30am. I didn’t know what time the sunrise was, but I figured if it was around 6:30, I could snap a few photos from the balcony. When I looked to the window I could see that it was already very light outside. Since I missed the sunrise, I went back to sleep for about an hour.

At 7:30 I quietly got out of bed and dressed. I went out onto the balcony and enjoyed the view for a while. James eventually woke up and got a shower. When he was finally dressed I called Casey and Tony to see if they wanted to get breakfast. They were just waking up so I asked them to call us when they are ready. While James and I waited around I got a shower and applied sunscreen. When we got tired of waiting, I called Casey back and there was no answer. I guess they changed their minds about breakfast. James and I went down to the hotel patio restaurant place and each had a $11 breakfast which included two eggs, bacon, a small hash brown, toast, and a shot-glass size of orange juice.

After breakfast we walked around for a while looking for a place to buy a razor. James had the sudden urge to shave so we eventually found one in the gift shop. We went back to the room, packed up our bags and headed down to the lobby to check out. While we were waiting in line, Casey and Tony came by. They had been down at the beach.

When we checked out we finally discovered our mystery airline employee discount rate: $125 + tax. According to Casey, during ‘low season’ you can get a discounted room for $75. Unfortunately this is considered ‘high season’ right now. We left our backpacks with the bellhop and headed to the tiki-bar.

For the next three or four hours we stayed planted at the tiki-bar. I started out with a foul tasting rum punch. After that, I had about four red bull & vodkas (they don’t have Stoli Vanilla or else I would have ordered that and Coke).

To our delight a few girls along the beach decided to go topless. Presumably since they were European they didn’t see anything wrong with it, and we certainly weren’t complaining. I saw a guy at the bar who looked out of place wearing slacks and a polo-shirt eyeing them and I think I saw him snap some covert pictures too.

I took a lot of pictures of the incoming planes using the UHS mode on my camera. Of those sequences, I made some animated GIF’s: “Landing 1″:/images/animated_landing1.gif, “Landing 2″:/images/animated_landing2.gif, “Landing 3″:/images/animated_landing3.gif, and “Takeoff”:/images/animated_takeoff.gif. I was pretty happy with the quality of the photos given the difficult shooting conditions. I pre-focused and pre-exposed on people that would be directly underneath the plane. Then, as the plane was coming in, I held the shutter, getting about ten or fifteen frames at 7fps.

To mix things up (and also at Tony’s suggestion) I set up on the other side of the runway of a huge airbus. Unfortunately people were crowding around to watch and I was seriously delayed getting my shots off. This resulted in a nasty sequence starting way too late and the plane filling more than the entire frame. Even at 28mm, from where I was standing, it was too close. To make matters worse, a lady standing in front of me fell on top of me spilling rum punch on my white Abercrombie shirt.

At 3pm we headed over to the hotel to collect our bags. Casey and Tony managed to score a temporary room (it didn’t even have a bed) to change in. Casey and Tony took turns rinsing off in the shower and we all changed back into our stifling air travel clothes. We took a taxi to the airport and checked in with no problem. Because we were there for less than 24 hours (it was just about 24 hours), we didn’t have the pay the $25 departure tax.

The ‘gate’ area was really crowded and we got our seat assignments which was first class for the four of us. The flight back was pretty uneventful. They showed “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”:http://us.imdb.com/Title?0295297. For lunch they served beef shish kabobs with a salad, bread, and cheesecake. James had been talking to a girl back in the airport before we left and she was on our flight back in coach class. He went back there to talk with her more for about an hour. When we arrived and cleared customs I asked James about it and he said she’s a dancer (I don’t think exotic dancer) who gave him her phone number and email address.

When I got home I did all my laundry and uploaded the 335 pictures I took. I selected some of the better ones, cleaned them up where necessary in Photoshop, and posted them to a “photo album”:/gallery/st_maarten_march_2003. I also wrote my journal entries. When I checked my email I got a message from my old friend Tara Hernandez. I tried to track her down several years ago but could never find her. She told me that she found my website when doing searches for her name. I’m looking forward to replying and catching up.

The weekend getaway to St. Maarten was certainly worthwhile and I definitely need to go back.