Just came in the house from shoveling and scraping snow. But my thoughts are back to the beach - Orient Beach. We enjoyed our 4th trip to the Friendly Island and our 2nd stay at Club Orient. Perfect weather, very friendly staff, and just enough of evening activities to get us to mingle. Met several new friends at the wine and cheese social, including Carl Stone and his lovely wife Diane. We have read Carl's trip report and agree with his lament that there was not enough time to get to know them. One week vacation is not enough time! Met Jerry at Papagayo's and other friends from TT, who noted Carl's T shirt logo. We did fly our flag and it drew comments/questions- it is a great conversation starter. We especially enjoyed the Tuesday night dinner dance at Papagayo's. A first for us. The meals at Papagayo's are always excellent, and we did eat most of them there. We did not rent a car this year, which was a good decision for us. Gave us plenty of beach time- from our 6:30 AM walks the whole length of Orient Beach and back. We also were dismayed with the erosion in front of Baywatch. On our early morning walks, we were sure to meet up with Steve from Conn. and we told him about this web site. Our travel reservations were handled by Ed Roman of Caribbean Travel Services in Shrewsbury, Mass. Ed has done bookings for us in the past and always with perfect results- he specializes in Orient Beach. We hope to be able to tell Ed to book us longer than 7 nights next year! We left St. Martin where it was 88 degrees, and arrived in Providence,R.I. to 9 degree weather. Welcome back to reality.<br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 12/15/00 05:17 PM.</EM></FONT></P>