Oyster Pond plans to reopen this Friday, 3/5. with "expanded Italian menu". Good news.

Amsterdam or Paris are a better hub for direct flights

A light at the end of the tunnel... It would be great to see Club Orient rebuilt. Hopefully Captain Oliver’s resort and the marina will be next.

WOW. SXM is very lucky that they did not take out the bridge. What a disaster that would have been for the island. Sounds like hopefully insurance will take care of the yacht club.

Coming soon / stealth opening - David Baysden of Driftwood Dave's and Shambles restaurants has opened a new business in Coral Bay. Pending final inspection and permits (any day) he is opening "Meals to Go" in the Isola building next to Dolphin Market that contains Jolly Dog, Zemi jewlery, and Salty Mongoose pizza. He has fresh local fish, shrimp/prawns, steaks, pulled pork, prepared meals, and specials including buttermilk brined fried chicken. All of his raw food is vacuum bagged and frozen as is the pulled pork.

I'll post more when he is officially open. He is a long time successful restaurateur and a solid guy. This will be a great addition for cruisers and those of us living here.

Cheers, RickG

Carib, I forgot to add other pluses and minuses. On the minus, the street is pretty narrow, cars are parked in different areas, and people dart in and out, so it is hard to travel very quickly down the road. On the other hand, apparently there is a law that says if you are on a scooter , it is strictly prohibited to run it at a consistent throttle to keep it at a decent speed, and you are required instead to fully rev the throttle, then back off, then full rev, so that it sounds like WAW eh eh eh WAW eh eh eh WAW eh eh eh. Surprisingly, the noise, especially late at night, does not have the same soothing effect of the waves hitting the beach. On the plus side, it is great fun either sitting in the balcony, or even on the beach, and watch the planes come in to land at Grand Case . It is not like Maho, the sounds are pretty quiet, mostly smaller prop planes and a few larger planes, no big jets like at PJA, and it is interesting to see them as they try to straighten out on their approach, as they come in low over town.

https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/captain-of-go-opens-up-on-mega-yacht-s-unexplained-malfunction

Get an antigen test. Most place can get results in 15 minutes. In Jersey they are everywhere/ I can imagine there must some in Long island. They are $75. Can be reimbursed by most health insurances.

The boat we are chartering is a 2020, so if they put tens of thousands of dollars into it, hopefully, it will be in good shape next month.

Thanks George - understand. I wouldn't be as concerned if we didn't have Verizon. Skyroam has been reported to work well in BVI so thinking it may be a good back-up to have.

Wonder where they came from with another 9500 miles left to get to Guam

I think the only better unit would be 580