Our trip report can best be summarized “we arrived, we vegged-out, we went home”. We got to the island via AA from DCA with no problems. Leslie Bruce of Kenny’s met us and took about 2 minutes to get us on our way. I ran back in to one of the airport liquor stores for a bottle each of Sapphire gin and Myer’s dark rum. Let the vacation begin! <br> <br>We headed up to Match for mixers, champagne, cheese, pate and other essentials. On the way, we stopped to check out Cupecoy, but the area by the end of the road had no sand. Boo-hoo! The shopping list for Match had been well-planned, but hit a snag- no diet drinks of any kind! My 2nd-favorite island drink is rum & DIET coke (or pepsi). We found the diet coke a few days later at Grand Marche. Several champagnes were on sale as usual, so we bought some Piper-Heidsick and Moet Brut Imperial for about $20 a bottle. (They also had Dom Perignon for $69). At Grand March, Veuve Clicquot was on sale for about $22, so of course had to get some of that, too.<br><br>Check-in at Orient Bay Hotel was quick and we received an upgrade to a two-bedroom “villa” plus the requisite bottle of MaDouDou. We spent the next couple of days in a vegetative state on the beach in front of Club O or on our front porch gazing at St. Barts until the TTOL happy hour on 1/2/03. Met Karen & Jim, Philly & Bill, David & Regina, Butch & Kelly, and Brian. There were many others, but didn’t get around to meeting them all. I think we collectively made some new TTOL recruits (Marty from L.I., where are you?) <br><br>I know the others did much more than we did as the days went on, as far as activities and restaurants, so I’ll be looking forward to their reports. Our routine was that I walked back and forth to the Cul de Sac boulangerie for croissants or bread most days just for the exercise, then we ate breakfast and read or listened to music until around 11, down to the beach until 4 or so, and back to the villa. Went to Mullet a couple of times for variety and Dawn beach once to try the snorkeling. Unfortunately, didn’t follow the advice of the chair guy about where to get in the water, so kept fighting the current while trying to snorkel. Snorkeled a couple times at Orient, too, which keeps improving each year since the hurricane washed sand over the reef. Saw some new brain corals growing close to shore near the Perch - hope they survive. Because we couldn’t get off our duffs early enough, did not do the trip to prickly Pear as I had hoped to do. Maybe next time.<br><br>I have to admit we often skipped dinner after sitting on our porch with an after-beach snack of fresh baguette, cheese and/or pate. We did try 2 new (for us) restaurants - the fish bar at Orient, very simple and inexpensive - great french fries, and Taitu near our hotel. Taitu was okay, generally simple cooking with a tasty “creole” sauce. Charming waiter from Lyon who I assume was the owner or co-owner. <br> <br>Didn’t do much shopping either. The only serious shopping was at Christophle Pavilion in Marigot, where we bought a silver-plated bowl and ordered a sterling baby cup for our new grandaughter/step-grandaughter Emery. There were an awful lot of big-to-giant yachts, and the Daily Herald was talking about how SXM wanted to attract that type of high-end tourist (rather than riff-raff like us??). <br><br>Found out that a woman we had talked to on the beach a few times was Sungoddess. On our last day, we were sitting on the beach with her and a couple who live on SXM. Jack, aka Mr. SXM showed up and promptly poured us his special drink - very tasty! Then he went back to his car and brought out a complete picnic dinner which he was nice enough to share with us! It was a great last afternoon on SXM. On that occasion and several others during the 2 weeks, we and various others remarked how we really appreciate the fun and camaraderie that Carol and Eric facilitated, by providing this forum and therefore the means by which so many of us met!<br>