We are now firmly into our usual island rhythm. Make a pot of coffee, feed the cats, sit by the beach until the sun invades around 8:30, walk to the bakery, swim, go to out eat lunch, swim, prepare for sunset, feed the cats, go out for dinner. Each day pretty much follows the same script. We've only put about 70 klicks on the odometer, and yet to get back to the Dutch side. We'll start getting more active, but we still have 16 more days. Sand gravity is such a powerful force.

The weather has been decent, and doesn't seem to be as unbearably hot and humid as the last few years. We've had rain one evening. Sunsets don't seem to have the usual colors on the clouds, but we can actually see the sun set at the horizon as there's enough clearance under the bottom layer of clouds to allow this. No green flashes, though. Life is good.

Today has been most cloudy and the surf roughish, at least by historical standards, providing a welcome down day from all the nothing we've been accustomed to.

Dining is getting rough. We're having problems with 3 meals a day, as our appetites aren't as big anymore. We constantly alter dinner plans based on how full we are from lunch. Today we're skipping lunch to see how that works. The main problem with that is there are so many places I want to hit this trip, so I need to re-prioritize my list.

Still, we eat well and often. It took us until Friday to get to Yvettes and, wouldn't you know, they were out of goat stew. So, I decided to have the pan fried snapper filet with creole sauce. Ah, heaven. Shirley had her standard, conch with dumplings. I asked our waiter, Gabriel, for one of his special Ti Punches, and it seemed even better than before. This is probably my favorite place on the island, and if I came for only one meal, this would be the place, unless L' Estaminet magically reappeared. Other meals included delicious plates of beef carpaccio and tuna tartare at Cafe du Paris in Marigot, after having breakfast at Miss Ebby's shop in the meat/fish stalls of conch soup;Blue Martini in Grand Case had Bouchot mussels, so I had to stop there. I really enjoyed my mussels, but Shirley thought her burger was meh--too lean. They have a resident cat, and we had some kibble for him, as there was no way I was giving him my Bouchots; Finally located some curry goat, so split an order, returning to Villa Royale. Also tried the newish Oyster Cafe in Grand Case last night as we weren't overly hungry. Had their oysters, whelks, and 2 bowls of crab soup. My only experience with oysters is New Orleans, and these oysters had a bit more flavor, were saltier, but smaller and 3x the price, possibly because of the 4000 mile plane ride they took. Crab soup was very enjoyable, and probably something I'd stop by for again if I had a small appetite. We ate fish and chips, which is really pan fried grouper at Sunset Cafe at GCBC. We love grouper, and they do their fries crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Grouper is moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside. As I said, we are eating well, and this is the primary reason I like to return year after year.

This is probably a good place to close part 2.