It’s Tuesday morning as I start to write this - the sun is shining, the waves are still crashing and OMGoodness, for the first time in the almost full week we’ve been here we can see the dim outline of Saba in the distance. God’s in his heaven and all is right with MY world! I hope all who might be reading this can say the same thing.

We were soon off to Anse Marcel for the day. Daughter Kim picked us up and we were off for an eleven o’clock reservation and a 12:45 cabana lunch reservation. There was talk here a while back about how to go about snagging a cabana and I have no substantive answer to the how or why you can get one but there were four of us and no problems getting one but we did call and reserve. There. weren’t a huge number of people there but enough to make it a nice beach day and while I often have questioned the need for a reservation, many who came behind us asked and were told the front row was totally reserved. Draw your own conclusions.

It was a lovely day. The service, as always, was impeccable and the food?! OMG! It was wonderful! We were served a tapenade and we shared an appetizer around the table. We all had different entres and each one was delicious as were the two desserts we shared. The wine was also a nice touch. After lunch we headed back to our ‘parasols’ and chairs on the beach for a quick dip and then an afternoon nap.

The staff there is so watchful of its clientele. I had left my kindle, one of the older models, on my towel in clear view on my chaise when we went to lunch and one of the beach attendants actually moved it underneath the towel for safety and then came and told me what he had done. After lunch the sun was starting to be a bit much for my DH and without being asked they brought him an extra umbrella. I’ve long enjoyed my days there and today was no exception and while it’s definitely not the most inexpensive island beach day, it’s certainly one worth doing, or at least it is IMHO.

With the exception of our designated driver, we enjoyed one last round of drinks and headed for home about 4:30ish and the traffic was basically stop and go (when you were lucky and got to go that fast.....) once we hit the main road all the way to the Sandy Ground side of Marigot. We had hoped to make the sunset at Kim’s but sadly, we missed it again.

It was a lovely day and now we’re in and done for the night. We had originally planned a nice dinner out but were just too tired to do it. Well, some of us were tired and I don’t know about the younger set.

Thoughts along the way:
We saw lots more “St. Maarten snow” even on the beach today. Kim had never heard the term but we all laughed out loud when we heard the people next to us talking about it, too.
Saba is coming back and we could actually see her clearly, particularly when we got back to upecoy.
Encountered our first moskies of the trip but it was in an area of very heavy flora and vegetation and at a time when the wind had actually momentarily slowed down considerably.
The hills and the countryside are beautiful. All that rain in October has worked an incredible miracle across the island .