Day 8, Sunday, July 29th -- Our eighth day on the island:

Good evening from Mont Vernon.

Damn!! I really had my heart set on pizza for dinner this evening from the little pizza shop located here. But so far fate has not been in our favor, when it comes to getting one of their pies. Now I’m no expert on the various pizza places on the island, but I know what I like, I and I like their pizza. We’ve eaten their pizza on each stay on the island, and despite our bad luck so far, we will eat there this trip too.

So with our primary plan scuttled, it was time to put into action plan B. The only problem was, we didn’t have a plan B. So we had to quickly devise one. So after a couple quick thoughts, we raided our supplies and cooked some chicken, mixed vegetables, and potatoes, and enjoyed our impromptu meal on the balcony, with the sounds of the crashing surf, and some local kids playing on the beach, as night fell on our all too temporary home.

Again today, we decided not to fight the phenomena so appropriately called “Sand Gravity” and gave in to its’ strong but gentle pull as it inexorably tugged at us. So, after morning coffee it was off to the beach. But today, some strange eddy in the Sand Gravity Well decided we needed a little excitement to start the day with.

Now every morning we go through the same routine: Pack our lunch, a few beers, some water, and our beach gear. One of the last things we do is to get some cash out of the safe, lock it back up, and put the keys to studio in the the bag. This morning was no exception -- almost.

So, out the door we go, all ready to trek down to Orient Village to pick up some croissants and then head down to Pedros for our usual chairs. This is where the fun begins: I pull the door closed and hear latch click. Now, I always use the key to double lock the studio when we leave, usually I have the keys in my hand. But not this morning. I ask Diana for the key -- she doesn't have them, and neither do I!!!

Yep, the keys are safely locked away in the studio. Also safely locked away in the studio, is two cellphones, and all of our contact information for Amaury and Thibault. Now, it’s not like we can down to the front desk, and have them let us back in our room -- There is no front desk!!

So what do we do? We don’t speak French, and most of the locals here don’t speak English. In short we are up that proverbial creek without a paddle. So,we just stand there, outside our safely locked up studio, in beach attire, no phone, no phone numbers, and no keys. After asking each other, what do we do now, and hearing the answer, I don’t know, we knew we had to do something. So we trek off to laundry on the property, to try to explain our situation -- in english, to a non-english speaking person.

As I was trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to explain to the nice lady working there what our problem was, she managed to put together that we needed Amaury, or Thibault to come to our rescue. Now I’ve never meet Thibault, as I have always worked with Amaury. Anyway she pieces together enough to figure out that we need one of them, and points to a car parked there and says “Thibault”.

The gods smiled on us, and pushed us gently out of that Sand Gravity eddy, as I explained our situation to Thibault. He, and we, had a good laugh as he walked back to the studio with us and opened the door with his key.

All in all, we lost maybe ten minutes this morning with this little mishap. Yes the gods smiled on us and gently put us back on our planned course through this mysterious region of space called Sand Gravity.

All’s well, and we will have this memory of SXM for all time.

Good night, from Mont Vernon...