Day 8

Woke up early for another sunrise walk, but the sky was dark, so we decided to stay at the Club O beach to walk. Didn’t get too much walking in before it started raining. Off and on rains throughout the entire morning, but off enough that PamWay Pam and I were able to get a length of the beach walk in. It wasn't too long afterward, though, that the rains came and Wayne and Pam decided to leave Orient. The umbrellas weren’t even being put up because of the threat of thunder and lightening.

But by late morning, the sun came out with a vengeance with absolutely no wind on Orient. I’d never ever seen a day with not even a hint of a breeze. Within the half hour it was so hot, with no rain or clouds that the umbrellas were put up, but only for those who had chairs, not all along the beach.

We said our goodbyes to Bob and Pam who were leaving early today and also to Wayne and Pam, who aren’t leaving until Saturday, but due to the forecast of bad weather tomorrow, most likely will not venture from Philipsburg to Orient. Steve and Deb – we missed you today on Orient and you’re leaving tomorrow and we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye – it was great spending time with you and don’t worry…mum’s the word!

After a couple of hours of overcast skies, it was brewing for the next round of rain. We decided to call it a day and head to the MaDouDou shack and to Rima’s for some shopping for souvenirs for Marissa amd her friends. MaDouDou was already closed, so we’ll try again tomorrow. That’s when it started raining hard and continued to storm for a couple of hours. It took awhile to get back to the French side, and by then Marissa was starving. We had planned on going to Cito’s Place for dinner, but unfortunately, he was closed. We’ve been wanting to try Hercules Creole in the Cul d Sac for a couple of years, so we stopped by as plan b, but they were also closed. We didn’t want to venture too far out after having taken so long to get back already, so we stopped in and had dinner at Rancho del Sol. We had the place to ourselves for a short while. After having had an appetizer sampler and nachos, our dinner choices were pizza for John, rib eye for Marissa and Mixed Fish Platter for me. We enjoyed a very good, relaxing meal. By then the storm had finally let up and we headed back to Club O.

We think that we probably won’t get a morning walk in, but hopefully by afternoon this storm will have finally passed. I really can’t complain about the weather. In 6 previous trips, this is really the first day of bad weather that we’ve had and it wasn’t even a total washout. And the island really does need some rain.

We’re now back in our room, listening to the rain, missing our friends….I think we’ll have a MaDouDou toast to them before heading to bed.