This was our 4th SXM vacation. The other 3 were in 1987, 2005 and 2006. This was our first time to stay on Baie Rouge and had a 4 bedroom house on the beach. Baie Rouge was indeed as difficult to walk on as I had remembered, but still did several round trip walks the entire length of the beach – using the rocks when I could.

Upside of our location was it was extremely quiet and safe. Only saw 2-3 other people walk by our villa all week. Also the view was very good, especially at sunset. Going into the ocean was problematic with all the rocks in front of our villa, so we would walk to Chez Raymond area to go swimming.

New things for us: Butterfly Farm, Friar’s Bay and Happy Bay. All 3 were worthwhile trips. Went to Orient Beach a couple of times and walked the entire length of the beach and up into Mt Vernon to take a look around.

Went shopping for Ma Doudou and did not find it until we hit the Match in Marigot. Struck out at Grand Marche (Cole Bay), Gourmet Marche (Cupecoy), US Market in Marigot and a new grocery in Simpson Bay.

Went to Gus on Baie Rouge for the 1st time to try it out, as we’ve been fans of Raymond. On a scale of 1 to 100 Raymond clocked in at 100 and Gus topped out at -1. Had the worst meal of our lives at Gus. Raymond special rum drink is all that I’d heard about – simply wonderful and we loved the fish sandwiches there.

We did not go to SXM to eat out, but we did go to La Marine in Grand Case twice and it was outstanding, especially the fois gras – the real deal. Restaurants (all of them) were very quite, even Mario’s. Our friends ate out a good bit.

One of our couple friends had never been to SXM so we did a loop around the island. Man has Pburg grown. Saw the new traffic circles I’ve been reading about.

Lots of homemade Ti Punches as well as rum punches in addition to getting them at the beach bar. Weather somewhat cloudy and rainy but did not really interfere much if at all.