Our first full day at Club Orient

Tuesday July 25th

We arose around 6:30am and headed for a walk on the beach. We started at Club Orient and walked all the way to the rocks at the far end of Orient Beach. We chose to wear suits for our jaunts which is just our personal preference. It was quite breezy with broken clouds overhead and the hills to our left were very green and rich in color. I noticed that the ocean maintains its beautiful array of blues, greens and tortoise, even when the sun isn’t at full brightness. On our walk back toward the direction of Club Orient we could see clouds increasing in the distance up ahead and it was visibly raining over Tintamarre Island off toward the horizon. The sand at Club Orient, and for that matter the entire beach, is slightly less wide compared to what we remembered from April. We’ve been at Orient Beach when the water came all the way up and covered the rocks at Pedros, but there is still plenty of sand at this point.

Once we were back on the beach in front of Club Orient we ditched our suits and enjoyed a brief swim to cool off from our walk. The water is warmer but the breeze made if feel cooler than we experienced in April. It started to sprinkle a bit while we were still swimming so we headed back to our Studio to pick up some cash before venturing off toward Baywatch for breakfast. Andy remembered us from April and invited us to sit with him as he shared some “interesting” jokes he had just heard and which I won’t repeat here. We were meeting our friends from the night before so we decided to have a cup of coffee as we waited for them to arrive. The clouds were darker now and then the faucet was turned full force and the rain came. Andy invited everyone to sit in the more sheltered area of Baywatch because the beach side of things was getting drenched. We sat with another couple whom we engaged in conversation as they ate and we continued to sip our coffee. I wondered if our day would be a wash and we realized that our friends might not attempt the walk from Alamanda, so we ordered a breakfast we would share together of pancakes and eggs with peppers and onions. I actually enjoyed eating as the rain cascaded down around us. We were almost finished with our meal when the rain died down. Almost at the same time our friends arrived, ordered their breakfast while we drank more coffee and chatted as the sun began to break through the lessening clouds. After breakfast we lathered up in sunscreen and enjoyed a great and sunny morning on the beach. There were fewer people than at high season and it seemed like more families with children were vacationing together, no doubt due to school not being in session during the summer. The winds were lessening now and the sun was warm and bright.

The obligatory trip to the Perch at happy hour commenced at 12:35. In April there was a line down into the sand. Today we were “next in line” as soon as we arrived. We ordered two rum punches and sat with another friendly couple and talked weather, politics, Macintosh computers and I can’t remember what else. It was time for another two for the price of one and this time it was two Presidentes and then back to our yellow umbrella until lunch. Andy had offered his sales pitch for Jersey Roast Beef sandwiches at breakfast so we took him up on it for lunch. They were so good washed down with a couple diet cokes (pacing ourselves a bit at this point). I shared with our friends that I had recently read an article on the benefits of coffee counteracting the effect alcohol has on one’s liver. The article reported that coffee actually reverses what alcohol does to the liver when you drink. We joked about downing handfuls of Starbucks grounds as we drank during the rest of the week. They’ll probably come out with an opposing report in a couple months, they seem to always do that these days with their “new discoveries”.

We enjoyed what turned out to be a beautiful day on the beach and then after a brief nap we met our friends for dinner. We drove to Marigot and ate at a French Restaurant right next to the West Indies mall which was called something in French that translated “the rare bird”. It is a second floor, open air restaurant. Everyone but me had grouper while I enjoyed a shrimp, scallops and pasta dish. All of our meals were very good and were complimented by an extraordinary white wine. Dessert for us was an apple tart with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream while our friends opted for another warm chocolate cake with whipped cream. Each of us enjoyed an espresso with dessert. I’d recommend this restaurant and thought lunch there might be enjoyable as you’d have a water view in the daylight. We dropped our friends off at Alamanda and after reading for an hour or so slept very comfortably through the night.

Lancer