Paul's Last Day - Friday July 11

We had already been scuba diving, snorkeling and boogie boarding, had good meals, spa treatments (oh wait, that was just me) and done some shopping, what was left to do today? I guess more eating and beaches. After a very late start and calling in his peeps, Paul arranged for a complimentary lunch for us at Nikki Beach. But first, some shopping in St. Jean, where I found another great St. Barts, I mean St. Barth, style item to add to my Chicago wardrobe. I have caught on that everyone looks so elegant here by wearing simple flowy items with great accessories like belts and necklaces. I'll see how I can incorporate that into my style at home, which may be hard since I don't own many simple flowy items but with my best friend Bluefly.com, I may own some of those and some glam belts and accessories very soon.

Nikki Beach is a celeb hot spot "in the season" (ha!) very close to Eden Rock and is just what I expected, an elegant beachfront restaurant where you have a great view of all of the beach activity. We had seen pictures of white canopied beds on the beach but didn't see any there today. Kind of reminded me of the setup at the Delano in South Beach, but without all the real estate. I would have to admit that I would love to have bottle service while hanging out on a canopied bed on the beach, but today was not my lucky day. Instead we feasted on sea scallops and chicken curry and dover sole, and for myself, a couple pina coladas. No celebrity spotting today but here are some nice pics of the people we saw actually doing activities while we stuffed ourselves:





After lunch, busting out of my top:
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My artsy pic:


Then, on to the beach. I picked the beach in L'Orient because it is well known for its snorkeling and sightings of big sea turtles. It was just a quick drive past St. Jean and has a very easy-to-miss pedestrian entrance next to one of the many above-ground cemetaries on the island. After yesterday's wonderful surprise walking over the sand dune at Saline, I expected to once again hear angels sing when I crossed over from the path to the beach. Not so. This beach was much longer (wider? i mean from end to end) than Saline, but very narrow. It is also backed up to a couple of cute beach houses and some not so cute, dark and depressing ones - at least from the outside. I was super disappointed when I walked out to the water and instantly hoped I had brought some kind of beach shoes. It was very rocky but I managed, not gracefully I must add. Once in the water, I put on my mask and snorkel and found that the water was pretty murky today and that the fancy snorkel that Paul let me use was too complicated for me; I kept getting mouthfuls of salt water. Instead of a snorkeling day, it turned into a sun worshiping day, and a day of watching the guy next to us get in and out of the water. He was not so hard on the eyes, I must say.

Paul had to catch the 6:00 ferry back to St. Martin so that he could get his early flight to San Juan, so we came back to the house to clean up and grab his stuff. After I dropped him off at the ferry dock in Gustavia, I had aspirations of a big night in St. Barts, I mean St. Barth, on my own and spent about an hour deciding where to have dinner. I decided on Pipiri Palace, a restaurant I had been to when we moored here on a sailing trip several years ago. I then decided to take a quick nap, and proceeded to wake up at 11 p.m. Wow, I'm super fun. And here I sit writing my blog after eating the leftover pizza from last night, an ice cream cone and some pretzles and drinking the wine that Suzanne thought we would finish but of course never opened.......