We were going to post a short trip report about our stay at L'Hoste between the dates indicated in the subject of this post. However, most of what we were going to say we have already posted in replies to other posts since we returned. Consequently, we will limit this post to a few observations that we made on SXM and St. Barth during out stay.<br><br>Pedros has extended their parking lot about 10 to 12 feet further onto the beach than they had last May. It now extends out so far that it almost cuts the beach into two parts. It is especially difficult to get around the extended parking when the tide is in and/or the wind is up. I spoke to some people from Club Orient who said that this usurpation of so much of the beach is illegal; they are fighting him about it, but there isn't much that can be done. If someone were to be boycotted for unwelcome practices on Orient Beach, we would think that it should be Pedros.<br><br>On one Tuesday when the Disney ship and two others were in port, the beach was wall-to wall people. Kontiki put out so many additional chairs that they almost extended down to Coco Beach.<br><br>Contrary to what we thought, the parking lot and swimming pool that L'Hoste shares with another place, is shared with St. Tropez, not Cap Caraibe. Cap Caraibe has its own pool, completely separate from L'Hoste.<br><br>Ther is very little c/o use of the main beach after about 9:30 in the AM. During the time that we were there, we only saw one man occasionally using the c/o section near Coco Beach bar. In fact, there was more c/o activity at L'Hoste than at any other parts of the beach except Club Orient (perhaps 3 to 5 people at any one time).<br><br>On St. Barth, Anse de Grand Saline has some c/o use along the entire beach until about 10:00 AM, and then mostly at either far end. The locals start arriving about 10:00 and pretty much appropriate the center section of the beach. I suppose that a person could also walk onto the center portion of the beach after 10:00, but the presence of so many clothed locals makes it pretty daunting.<br><br>The beach at St. Jean has lost a lot of sand since we were there last. We had lunch at the Filao (yes Carol, we do eat light lunches sometimes), and had to step down about 2 1/2 or 3 feet to step to the sand from their gate. There is only room for about 1 row of chairs on the sand at the Eden Rock and a small strip at the Filao.<br><br>We did enjoy the SXM part of our trip, as usual, and we are already making our plans for 2003.<br><br>P.S. On the way back, Bobbie was picked at ?random? to be fully inspected in San Juan. After all, she certainly does look like the type of person who might be a terrorist (NOT). I think that they make those "random" inspections on the people that they think are LEAST likely to be suspects so that there won't be any accusations of profiling or discrimination.<br>