My wife and I just returned from St. Martin late last night. We stayed at Esmeralda Resort on Orient Beach in our usual villa with its very private pool. As has always been the case in the past, all of the couples in our villa enjoyed nudity on the porches and around the pool. So Esmeralda continues to retain much of the client base that it built up through the years; however, I spoke to four couples who stated that they would not be returning to Esmeralda unless the Coco's beachfront restaurant, brings back its nude section.

On that front, I understand that Sophie, the owner of Coco's, has a meeting with the French-side authorities next week to discuss her long-pending application for a permit to restore the nude section.

My wife and I purchased the $100 pass to Club Orient and got to park inside the resort and use chairs and an umbrella for seven days. Except just north of the Perch, the Club O beach is back to normal, wide and lovely. Papagayos has added palapa-type roofs over the outdoor patio tables, providing needed shade for lunches.

During our eight days on the island, the wind blew constantly and very hard, making sunbathing much less pleasant and actually making the beach a little chilly when the sun went behind the clouds, which it did for one entire day and for extended periods on a couple of other afternoons. Small craft advisories were constantly in effect, and even the sea adjacent to the Club O beach was choppy.

We enjoyed terrific dinners in Grand Case at California, L'Auberge Gourmande, Fish Pot and L'Escapade (all 1-1, so long as you pay in cash). Incidentally, while Fish Pot, which used to not offer 1-1, has reverted to 1-1, Bistrot Caribes, just across the street, which used to offer 1-1, has eliminated that option. We did notice that the Fish Pot prices had risen while the Bistrot Caribes prices had fallen, giving credence to the opinion expressed by some that, at the end of the day, a meal is going to cost you about the same, whether its priced higher and they give you the 1-1 option or whether its priced lower and they don't give you the 1-1 option. We also enjoyed a more expensive, but really delicious, meal at Le Cottage. We also made an aborted attempt to have dinner at Captain Oliver’s, where we were the first to arrive in the dining room, were seated at our table and provided menus, and then were left completely alone for nearly a half an hour, without even our water glasses being filled. We simply left, drove back to Esmeralda and had a fine meal at L'Astrolabe.

The hit of our trip was leaving Orient Beach on one of those cloudy days to try the Fly Zone zip line course at Loterie Farm. It was loads of fun, a little scary at first as we were 20-30 feet in the air navigating across steel cables like tightrope walkers and then suspending ourselves in slings to zip across valleys, but very memorable. Next year, we'll try the newly-opened "X-treme Zip Course", which involves zipping hundreds of feet in the air from one side of the mountain to the other.