Tuesday November 8 – Woke up to rain, but the forecast said it should stop soon. Will it finally be a beach day? Hoping that it was, we packed our bags and headed to Orient Beach. Our timing wasn’t great as the bridge opening was happening, but once that cleared up it was pretty much a good commute to Orient.

Club O’s parking lot had more cars in it than we’ve personally seen in a while. It was mostly cloudy on this side of the island too, but the winds were gentle and the ocean relatively calm. We enjoyed 4 nice hours under the yellow umbrella. As for the ocean, the water is warmer than the pool at Royal islander, but the rocks on the ocean floor were plentiful and at times painful to walk on. I should've packed water shoes. The sun was peaking through a hazy sky and we got a fair amount of Vitamin D today.

We left the beach around 2:00, wanting to have lunch at Chez Leandra, but they weren’t open, so we drove to the Middle Region and had a nice lunch at Da Jungle. Colin, the former chair rental guy at Pedro’s, and his girlfriend Shanika own this cute local restaurant. Colin is currently in Jamaica, and Shanika gave us her phone so that we video chat with him. It was nice to virtually see him. Lunch was grilled chicken and shrimp curry. Shanika is a very good chef, and our meals were delicious.

Before we knew it, it was four o’clock. Where did the day go? We showered and left the condo again to meet our friends for Happy Hour at the Greenhouse. It took us almost 40 minutes to get there as traffic was heavy. Anyway, it was another fun evening with Gail, Guy, Will and Jacky. Shortly before leaving, the skies opened up and another heavy rainfall fell. We huddled under the Greenhouse’s large umbrella and waited for it to subside a little before walking up the hill to Greenhouse's parking lot.

Plan A for dinner was Lal’s, but it was an hour wait for food (he had a large party dining there), which was too long for us. Plan B was Chinese food at Dragon House, located in Cole Bay (or maybe Almond Grove?). This restaurant was highly recommended by Gail & Guy and it didn’t disappoint. We shared an order of beef lo mein and a chicken with vegetable dish. Both meals were very good and plentiful. I think we’ll have enough food for three meals!

That's unusual for Orient to have a problem with rocks on the ocean floor, but glad you had a beach day, finally!

The very sharp rocks were horrible last week. And lots of tiny stones.

Thank you for the interesting report. The grilled shrimp looks delicious.