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Caribbean-St.Maarten-Philisburg Well back here for a few days rest after my escapades around the islands. This time spending time on the St.Maarten side. Did manage to watch the large planes coming in over the beach.. |
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| The Post office managed to find more stamps on this visit.. Things are looking up stamp wise.. |
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Caribbean-Netherlands Leeward Islands-St.Eustatius-Oranjestad This Island was quite historic and a number of sites to visit. |
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| St. Eustatius had loads of stamps so no issue here.. |
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Caribbean-Anguilla-The Valley Arrived here on the boat from St.Martin. I believe Anguilla has some wonderful beaches, however during my day visit, I did not see any.. I spent the time in the capital which is The Valley. I can see why I could not find a postcard of the Valley.. It is really a " One horse Town".. One long street and that is it.. Nothing to write home about. So the charms of Anguilla pasted me by from the time I arrived at Immigration to leaving.. |
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| The Post office is bang in the centre of the main street. A large modern Post office and quite busy. |
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Caribbean-Netherlands Leeward Islands-Saba Here you can see on the bottom left , I believe the shortest international runway in the world for commercial flights. Amazing coming into land.. The main town is called the Bottom..But in fact I spent the time at "The top... not sure what that village is called. |
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| At this time Saba issued stamps from "Netherlands Antilles ". Just like most of my trips around the Antilles stamps were a big issue , or lack of them. When I went to the Post office I was offered Sticky labels. Which I don't use. So I went to every hotel and one of them just happened to have two regular stamps. So here they are.. They look like labels but they are at least stamps as we know them. The Post office told me they had no regular stamps for over 6 weeks at this time! |
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Caribbean-Netherlands Caribbean- The Bottom Here you can see a overhead view of the Island. |
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| The year after I was here, the Netherlands Antilles ceased to exist. Some of the Islands were renamed Caribisch Nederland or Netherlands Caribbean.. I sent back this Postcard to the Island with the new Stamps.. |
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Caribbean-St.Maarten-Philisburg My Cruise had finished so now flying in the Caribbean. The airport on St.Maarten is quite famous for how near the planes land in relation to where the beach is. A nice airport too. This island is divided in two between St.Maarten ( Dutch) and St.Martin (French) . |
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| A very busy post office. Mainly sending payments abroad. The Post office said they had no stamps. They were putting sticky labels on the mail when I was here. However , I managed to persuade the Postmaster to find a stamp somewhere in the back of the office. |
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Caribbean-Leeward Islands French-St.Martin-Marigot I stayed on this side of the Island and certainly preferred it. Well French food was always going to be a winner on that score. |
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| St.Martin uses French stamps as this island is part of France. Part of the territory in the Caribbean of Guadeloupe as seen on the Postmark. |
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Pacific Ocean-Galapagos Islands-Santa Cruz-Puerto Ayora This map gives a great overview of the Islands in the Galapagos chain which are also a World Heritage Site. Many of the Islands are amazing and best seen from a cruise which I took here. I was surprised to see so much activity on some of the Islands with Villages and hotels. I guess I had never though of the Islands that way. |
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| The Post offices were quite small on the Islands. They have their own postmarks. |
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Pacific Ocean-Galapagos Islands-San Cristobal-Puerto Baquerizo Moreno Here is a selection of the many unique animals that you will see this far north. A very special set of Islands . |
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| A very nice local Postmark showing a Seal and a San Cristobal Postmark. |
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Caribbean-Netherlands Antilles-Bonaire Have not seen Bonaire . Was here just by chance on the KLM flight from Quito that stops here en route to Amsterdam. So took the opportunity to send a card while on a stopover. |
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| A Netherlands Antilles stamp . Mailed at the Airport. |
