The Time: Where Doth It Go?

Breakfast at Geraud's

I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but nearly three days have gone by and I've not made a single note about what we did, where we went, what we ate.  Guess I'll have to rely on my photographs to prompt my memory for this post!

The crowds, as you can see, are simply awful

Let's see...Saturday morning we breakfasted at Geraud's. I usually prefer going early, as soon as I wake up (these days, around 6:00) to bring pastries back to eat on the balcony, but my husband wanted to go and eat there this time around.  An almond croissant, lemon pastry, and a caramel-pecan roll the size of a salad plate, plus two lattes, came to around $20, as I recall.  We sat there for about an hour, reading and savoring the strong coffee and the flakiness of the pastries, before returning to Caribella for more reading up on the giant balcony.

Before too long, though, we were feeling a bit peckish and we decided to give 'A' Burger a try.  So glad we did!  We enjoyed our time sitting on the porch, reading, savoring the breeze.  I had the cheeseburger, DH tried both the kosher hot dog and a bowl of chili (which we had leftovers from), and we agreed that it was a nice addition to the dining options on the island.

Caught in the act!

Here's the menu--click to make it bigger and see those reasonable prices!

After a hard afternoon of reading, walking the beach, and going for a dip in our favorite swimming cove, we decided to head for dinner at Picante--our bellies and our pocketbooks could use a break from the fine dining the two previous nights. We were sort of right.  Despite only sharing an appetizer of guacamole and an entree of the Picante special steak tacos, our bill came to nearly $90--oy! It's true that I had two margaritas, but they charged the same amount of money for DH's two virgin watermelon margaritas as they charged for mine, which was more than a little surprising.  We did have a bottle of water for the table, and apparently the bananas chimichanga is on the pricey side for their desserts--turns out, it *so* wasn't worth it.  Still, we had a great time, even if the bill was higher than expected, and we plan to hit them again before our vacation is over.  Here are a few photos from our fun night:

The exterior

Virgin watermelon and full octane mango margaritas.

Jovaughn, one of our favorite waitstaff on the island

For Sunday, we agreed that we'd like to spend the day out at Elodia's, but that we'd have to get there earlier than last time so we could nab our usual cabana before somebody else could. Thus, we woke up early enough to pack our beach bags, make breakfast, and even linger over our coffees a little before heading out to Shoal Bay East, where we made BIC (that's butt-in-chair) contact around 10:00 that morning. 

The quiet before the storm...

Looking towards Ku

Where we read and read and read. Well, I walked the beach a little to make some photographs, but we were both totally engrossed in our books and occasionally glancing up to watch the people go by when a large (9-10?) and loutish party of Americans (naturally) from St. Maarten got dropped off right next to us.  I'm happy that Elodia's got their custom for the day, but we were wishing we'd brought earplugs with us.  Seriously, they were yelling up & down their row of chairs & umbrellas, yelling from the water up to the beach & vice versa, and they really only seemed to have one volume. 

Beaches & water just don't get any lovelier, I don't think.

Still, when Carole arrived, we had a pleasant little reunion and caught up with changes in each other's lives in the year since we were there.  And because it was Sunday and a pretty good crowd was forming on the beach, they were doing their chicken & ribs grilling, so we could eat our fill of the best barbecued (I use the term loosely, like the Yankees do) meats on the island. So much better than the dry stuff we'd had at Gwen's a few days before, and much better than our last visit to B&D's, too.

Around 5:00 we packed up our bags and paid the bill, which came to about $50, which included lunch, all of our drinks for the day, and $25 for the use of the cabana. Feeling like we didn't want to go out for dinner that night, we decided we'd stop at the Blanchards' beach shack to pick up a lickle somet'ing to go, but turns out they're closed on Sundays.  Instead, we stopped at Foods 95 and picked up some dinner fixin's (an interpretation of pad thai using pasta and crunchy peanut butter and shallots) and ate while watching the sunset and polishing off the last of our Pouilly-Fume. 

No Green Flash, but not a bad way to end the day.