Having just recently returned from two weeks at OBBR, as a long time owner I am pleased to report that the resort is looking very good after the post-Irma rebuild. Even the landscaping is looking lush! We were also very fortunate that there was only a small amount of sea weed to contend with and the water seemed much easier to enter (the waves were breaking farther offshore). With the destruction and subsequent removal of the Great House plus their affiliation with the Coral Beach Club, OBBR now has more chairs on a much larger section of Dawn Beach.

We ate twice at the recently re-opened Big Fish and it is even better than ever! Le Oasis has new ownership and the food was very good there and for the first time we dined at BHZ (I guess I never realized before that they served supper!) which had a very nice atmosphere tucked away behind what you can see from the street with very good food as well. And of coure Quay Ouest didn't dissapoint, but it is so sad to see the remains of Captain Olivers. We really miss Canoa and to a lesser extent, Daniels.

The restaurant on-site (Infinity) is much improved from past years. On previous visits we rarely chose to stay and dine on-site. For lunch yes, but rarely supper. Over the (many) years I never found the selections on offer worth the price point asked. On our recent trip, we enjoyed both the breakfast buffet and a three course price fixe dinner at Infinity. Not only did the price seem extremely reasonable at $24.95, the food was well presented and very good.

There will be a brunch at Infinity on New Year's Day if those of you on island who didn't over celebrate the night before. menu

As most know, Mr. Busby's was completely destroyed (and has been cleaned up) but the section of it where Island Pizza was is still intact and has turned into a sales office for the Dawn Beach Club "body snatchers". It seems so odd that they are actively selling DBC when absolutely no work is being done on the Westin Hotel itself. The pool was re-done since it is used by DBC and you can see chairs and umbrellas on the beach for their use, but the hotel itself just sits there unoccupied with no sign of any work being done. Kind of reminds me of the old drive through Mullet Bay to get to the Towers for years after Luis.

In contrast, the work going on at Royal Palm and the Flamingo is now quite obvious. While we were there the first two weeks of December there was a full two page ad in the Daily Herald looking for a large number of skilled trades (as in 50+ tile layers, 50+ductwork installers, etc.).

The Dutch side in general looked better than I was anticipating only two years after Irma and surprisingly, the French side also. They have a long way to go, but at least there were many re-building projects underway, large and small. From all that I had read, I really wasn't expecting to see that level of reconstruction. Perhaps the majority of these projects have only started recently.

We were fortunate that the protest only turned unruly the last two days of our trip and we had already been everywhere on the French side that we wanted to drive. I walk over to the observation tower at Bai Lucas every morning and stop for coffee at Bread and Butter on my way back, and experienced no troubles at all.

And on another positive note, the interim government signed all of the necessary paperwork to get the funds released to finally start on the reconstruction of the rest of the airport. Right now maybe only about a third of the building is operational.

We spent several days on the beach at Karacter and it was extremely relaxing. Their playlist is back to being something similar to when Jorritt was there. The chairs now have pads and are much more comfortable and the menu, while changed is still very satisfying. Great salad options! Walking the beach down to El Zafiro, I was shocked to see the number of chairs all crowded together. Must be a cruise ship beach destination now. Completely spoiled the atmosphere for me, but then while I loved the location, I was never a fan of the food.

There was a fair bit of wind for our time on island, and some heavy rain overnight and the last few mornings, but it didn't bother us at all. We had friends along with us this trip who were experiencing Sint Maarten for the first time. When I asked them at the end of the trip what they thought of the island, their response was "We'd come back anytime, everyone here is so nice!. Funny how things go. Our first trip to Sint Maarten was in 1996 on the heels of Luis when the island was in full recovery mode and we felt exactly the same way. And still do!