Tuesday April 25th

It's sixish AM and the view from our veranda is less than awe-inspiring. It looks as though a good rain squall is about to pay us a visit at about any minute, she says as she goes out on the porch to salvage the chair cushions before the first raindrops start to fall. Too late - here comes the rain but only a quick shower, or so we're hoping. Hmmmmm - this is supposed to be our day to take the girls to Anse Marcel Beach Club so I do hope this passes, and quickly!! And how bizarre to look to the right and see a clear day awakening but to the left - the rain. But things can change here in a moment so we'll see and I'm not giving up on our plans yet......

So we pulled out of here at about 9:15 and headed to Anse Marcel. Strongly doubt they're needed but since we are a group of five we made both chair and lunch reservations. I love this place. And while I think it tends to be what I consider kind of expensive for a beach day, we drank all day - most of us experimenting with fun sounding drinks just for the heck of it and because we could and our designated driver was okay with it - and we had an incredible lunch when the beach attendant came to tell us our lunch cabana was ready. My husband's Tradesman tummy was letting us all know he was more than ready to eat. He's such a terrific guy but he sure can get cranky when he's hungry.

Our lunch started with two Italian app plates of beef carpaccio with accompaniments, and from there we were all over the place. Karen and I had a seafood linguine, Kim a beef carpaccio plate, Rene a grilled seafood platter and John a rack of lamb. OMG!! We're they ever good. But sadly by the time we finished our main plates there was just no room for dessert although the menu looked very tempting. Maybe later. Or maybe NOT!

In for a dip to cool off, and then we settled in for a glorious afternoon nap. I mean, it's so gorgeous there to begin with and then the soft sounds of the waves have a lulling effect on you and the comfy chaise cushions just invite you to island dreams. And so we did, and surprisingly, all five of us corked off. But not for long........

I was awoken about a half hour later to what I first thought was a dream of some type of riot complete with screaming and hollering only to realize it wasn't a dream at all and the hollering was actually two twenty-something French girls who clearly wanted to be noticed. I believe they were from the island though I might be mistaken about that, and a young man who may or may not work there as he was wearing one of their beach staff shirts. They were standing no more than 6-10 feet away from us and literally yelling their conversation at the top of their lungs to each other, to the point the residue noise from this group woke all of us. It almost cancelled the pleasure of the rest of the day for all of us in earshot - and quite truthfully, I think this was about a quarter of the beach population. They had a small cooler of liquid refreshment they carried in with them, and while we did see them order a bottle of flat water, clearly that was NOT what they were primarily enjoying.

So I guess it's safe to say, beach manners, like so many other situations, have clearly gone the way of so many other things. Yesterday we had the people with the boom box settle in next to us, albeit only briefly, and today this trio. We saw the girls go into the water and thought, finally, some relief from their noise but no, the deeper they went into the water, the more their volume level increased. So enough, we decided to pack it in and call it a day. And then of course, we suffered the aftershock involved with settling our bill, 388 EU including our chair and parasol rentals. And truthfully, until the young women arrived, it was a day well spent considering our meals and liquid refreshments and even allowing for their rudeness, it was still a lovely day.

One word to the wise, though, and this may have always been the case and I just didn't notice, but today I truly wished I had surf shoes. The water seemed very rocky and they would have been put to good use.

We left there around 4:30 and headed home but decided to stop at Calmos Cafe. There's something purely decadent about enjoy a BBC (or whatever your pleasure).... with feet in the sand and the occasional wave kissing your toes.

And finally, back to the Towers around 6:15 after a lovely day.

St. Martin is a special place to be able to enjoy in the first place, but when you're able to share it with people you love in venues that are wonderful - well, it doesn't get much better. And by the time we got home from Calmos we had even let the rudeness of those twenty-somethings become a distant memory. Well, almost a distant memory ........

Pooped after a day of doing nothing much of anything, I think we're gonna pass on dinner tonight if I can convince my hungry Hannah husband he can do without it, since basically, all we've done today is eat and drink to this point...... but he did volunteer as designated driver so there's that!