My husband and I have a two week trip planned to St. Maarten leaving in mid-November. Over the weekend, my husband had to have early eye surgery to repair a detached retina. Unfortunately, one of his restrictions is that he can not fly for 2 months. We have invited another couple to join us, so postponing the trip is not really an option. Does anyone know if there is anyway for him to travel from Miami to St. Maarten by water (charters, ferries, boat, ships)? I don't know where to begin to look.

Any ideas are sincerely appreciated!

As the crow flies, it's about 1228 miles between Miami and St. Maarten. And, that's without having to circumvent any islands on the way.

I'd head to Key West and leave St. Maarten for another trip.

Yes, JeanH is right - it's much, much too far for a ferry and taking a "charter boat" would be very expensive and time consuming. A sailboat would take about 3 weeks (each way), assuming you had decent weather conditions for the entire time. A power boat would take about half that time but the cost would be prohibitive for all but the very wealthy. Regardless, you'd be crossing a lot of "open water" and that kind of trip is not something an inexperienced person should even consider.

You might be able to book your self on a cruise that leave from Miami or Fort Lauderdale that has St. Martin as one of their Ports of Call but you'd have to make special arrangements with the cruise ship company to actually disembark (for more than one day) as international maritime laws prohibit some cruise lines from leaving passengers on any given island. If you did find a cruise line that will drop you off, you'd still have to pay the full cost of the entire cruise. And that only gets you there. You'd have to deal with the same issues to get back to the US.

What you are contemplating is neither practical nor cost effective.

If your husband can't fly there's no way he can reasonably get to St. Martin from anywhere in the US.