Everywhere you go--in towns and along the more rural roadsides, people are always trying to sell stuff. 

We reached Orient Beach, parked the car and went out to see what was happening at the northern end of the beach.

You could rent a chair and an umbrella for $7, go parasailing, or buy some sexy fruits...

We were surprised to see an eatery here flying a Maryland flag and a US Navy flag.

Looking northward up the beach, you can see a resort with its matching turquoise buildings, but mostly it was crowded with the beach chairs lined up side by side three to five rows deep.  

It was warm and quite windy, but we did go swimming for a little bit.  How could we resist those gentle waves in the turquoise water?

We drove farther south to get to the Club Orient section of the beach.  Dean had read that this part was a nude beach and it was...  We put the camera away, stripped down, and strolled to the end of the beach and back to soak up some vitamin D... 

Our next stop was Dawn Beach.  We'd heard from a couple of locals that the snorkeling was best there because of a reef not too far from the beach.  So we headed south and crossed back into Dutch territory. 

This sign was looking back toward the way we'd come.  We'd decided from what we saw that the French side was maintained better and seemed more prosperous, but it could have been an illusion. 

It turned out that while Dawn Beach was open to the public, it was more exclusive and not a destination site for the cruise ship excursions--much less crowded, but the wind had picked up even more and waves were crashing in over the reef, so we left the snorkel gear in the car. Quite pleasant and someday we may come back, because the snorkeling does look  good--it looks similar to the beach at the St. James Club on Antigua.

Looking back toward Dawn beach shows the tropical paradise... and the steep, narrow road.

<< This was the road going forward for several miles. This was marked as a main road, but it was very slow going because of the gigantic pot holes and wash outs: we hated to think what the secondary roads might look like.  We stopped a car going in the opposite direction and asked if this was the way back to Philipsburg.  It was. The woman giving us guidance said that this was Dog Beach Road and after going up the next hill, it goes straight down into town.  The hill was straight ahead of us as you can see in the photo to the left.  She wasn't kidding about the straight down part. 

Eventually we were back on board the Norwegian Sun and relaxing.  The next leg of the trip was two days at sea to get back to Port Canaveral.  

Back on board, we lounged by the pool and listened to Treasure, a band with an eclectic repertoire from Caribbean to Rhythm and Blues... We were docked next to a bigger cruise ship and we could see lots of folks on that ship were also listening and watching our party on the pool deck.  The band was playing as we left port and we felt like we were on the party boat. 

The following are some random shipboard shots.