After running around the island on Thursday, our little group decided that Friday was a day to spend at our hotel “La Sammana”. It’s really very nice, but one of the best features is that all of the rooms face the beach and the Caribbean. The little bit of water that we adjoin is called “Baie Longue”, and the beach called “Long Beach” (1). Not sure why Google has one in French and the other in English.

I’m not even sure what makes it a bay. There’s a bit of land at one end, but the other end has no obvious demarkation. In any event, there are different boats anchored here everyday. This makes it even more picturesque.

We had a very leisurely breakfast, then some of us went down to the sauna beach. The temperature was about 90, as was the humidity. So despite the umbrellas, I felt that it was beyond my comfort level and declined to participate. My contribution was to take down a bunch of junk at 7:30 am to “reserve” three lounges for the others. There are lounges up and down the length of the hotel, although not enough for every guest so there’s always this need to mark your territory early. Despite all of the chairs near our section of the beach being so marked, I never saw more than half of them occupied.

I stayed in the air conditioned room, reading and occasionally venturing out to the balcony to enjoy the view and take these pictures.

We all just snacked lightly through the day, so by late afternoon we decided that an early dinner was in order. I collected a number of prospects to circulate to the group (thank you, Trip Advisor) and we settled on Mr. Chow in Maho, across from the pizzeria where I ate the night before. Asian Fusion was what they said, and it was very good (3). Some of us even brought leftovers back to the hotel. We went across the street to a little dessert shop and had ice cream, and sat at a sidewalk table for a while in the evening. Very pleasant.

Maho has a one-block long commercial strip with about a dozen bars, a couple of restaurants and some souvenir and clothing shops. I posted one of the bars yesterday. All of the clothing stores are oriented towards women for some reason (2).

This morning I am sitting on the balcony to our room enjoying the mild weather, the sound of the waves, and the quiet of the beach.

---

(1) The main street that the hotel is off of is called Rue Baie Longue.

(2) Yes, I know that two of the mannequins are male, but pretty much all of the merch is for woman.

(3) Sally says “excellent”.