Trip report for July 23-July 31

This year we decided to fly out of Seattle instead of Portland. This saved us about $500. We flew US Airways through PHL. The flights went well on the way down. We were able to get exit row seats for the trip down. This is great because I am 6’8” tall.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and were greeted right away by the representative of Unity car rental. We rent from Micheal every time we go to SXM. We were taken right away to the lot and we were driving away in our Jeep in just a couple of minutes. We then went and picked up our phone from Sharon’s company. This was our first time renting a phone on the island and it will not be our last.

We rented a room at the Esmeralda again. We stayed in Building 51. We have stayed in this villa before. We like the private pool. The grounds looked better this year than the last time we were there. We only had one other couple in our villa and that was only for one night. After that, we had the place to ourselves. We also like the continental breakfast every morning. We are not big breakfast eaters so this was great for us. We ended the day with the buffet at Captain Oliver’s.

We spent Sunday at CoCo beach. They have their clothing optional section open again, but we were the only couple that used it all week. We had dinner at the Dinghy Dock.

On Monday, we decided to go to Cupecoy Beach. Danny was still there, but the beach has lost its charm for us. The water was great and the food was great, but we did not enjoy the people in the condos above us constantly trying to get pictures of the nude people on the beach. We had a great dinner Skipjacks. We had never eaten at Skipjacks, but we will be eating there again.

Tuesday morning we hiked over to Happy Bay. The beach was great for the first few hours and then a big tour showed up by boat and the beach became very loud and very crowded. We decided to leave the beach early and go shopping for gifts in Phillipsburg. We then had dinner at Jimbo’s. This was another new restaurant for us. We loved this place. The food was great and the severce was too.

Wednesday was spent at the beach at Club O. The day was spent reading and just enjoying the water and the chance to meet so many great people on the beach. We decided to have the ribs at Lady Cs for dinner. We actually went there for dinner at the Pizza Galley, but they were closed for vacation.

Thursday was also spent at the beach in front of Club O. This was also another great day. It is so funny how you get to looking forward to hearing the Perch’s happy hour bell. We had dinner at Pineapple Pete’s. We seem to have at least one meal here every trip.

Friday was the highlight of our vacation. We did the Peggy and Paul’s trip around the island. Peggy was gone, so Paul’s wife Carol filled in. She was great. I do not see how Peggy could be any better. We had a great group of people on the boat and the trip was great. If you have not taken this trip, you need to do it. The food and company is worth taking the trip. It was great to see the island from the water. This trip takes you around the whole island. We had dinner at the Calamos Cafe in Grand Case. The food was served at a table in the sand and the service was great.

We had to go home on Saturday. The flights back to Seattle went fairly well. We had exit row seats again which was nice. This was our first time going through Customs in PHL. Needless to say, we hated it. We went right through homeland security and then went to get our bags to go through customs. It took almost an hour for the bags to start coming out. We barely had enough time to make our connection to Seattle.

Overall, the traffic was not that bad this trip. We experienced no crime while on the island. In fact, we felt that the people seemed even more friendly than normal.

We took a walk every morning the full length of Orient beach. There was still no problems walking nude early in the morning.

We did hear one couple on our outgoing flight had their car broken into and lost all of their money and both of their wedding rings. I did not have the heart to ask them what the heck they were thinking leaving stuff in their car while at the beach.

We did not go to SXM last year due to concerns about the crime. We went to Tulum instead. We are glad to be going back to SXM again. After not vacationing there, we now know what we were missing. We will return.

I know that this is not as detailed as Norm’s trip report, but I gave it a good effort.