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Club Orient Beach & SXM traffic DAS 3 hours ago My wife and I first visited St Martin in 1989, and have vacationed there every year since the early 90's (except for the Hurricane Louis year, 1995). We would stay at Club Orient, until Hurricane Irma. Some brief notes from our most recent vacation (February 21 to March 7) -
• if we wanted front row chairs at the 'Club Orient' beach we needed to be there by 5:20 AM. Shortly thereafter, people would come and 'save' groups of 10-14 chairs
• there are only about 200 chairs set up on that beach, which is now far smaller than before Hurricane Irma - prior to the hurricane, there seemed to be more than 400 chairs
• those who do not rent chairs/umbrellas from Cedrick are required to place their chairs beyond a flagpole situated past the massage hut
• much of the sand in the 'Club Orient' beach has been lost, and there are many exposed rocks in the water, up and down the 'Club Orient' beach
• it was very windy during our vacation and the waves at the 'Club Orient' beach were considerable - a number of people chose not to go into the water because of the current. We wonder if the reef between Green Cay and the mainland was damaged during Hurricane Irma, leading to a greater impact of the ocean on the beach
• some of the Club Orient units are being claimed by the ocean, and there is rebar sticking up in various parts of the beach
• Orient Village was very crowded every night, and it was advisable to make restaurant reservations online days in advance.
• the traffic situation in SXM has become very difficult. It took some friends 3 hours to drive from Juliana Airport to Orient Village after their flight last Tuesday arrived at 2:00 PM. When we drove to Juliana last Saturday at noon, the traffic coming in the other direction was barely moving and stretched all the way to the rotary giving access to Cole Bay and the airport bridge.

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Happy Bay question Summerbreeze2 9 hours ago Apologies if this has already been discussed. Which side of Happy Bay is the one where naturists generally go? By the rocks closer to where the trail from Friars Bay is? Or the far side?

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Rosy's market on VG closing... charlie Yesterday at 06:23 PM I got this sad news on FaceBook that 50 year old supermarket Rosy's on Virgin Gorda is closing, including their Home and Garden shop.
Since we stopped bare boat chartering (age issue) we have been on Virgin Gorda for many years now, three weeks in May. Rosy's and Bucks
markets were our go to shopping grocery stores. Now it is just Buck's. We have been in Riteway but it is the island version of
Kroger or Publix but it looks like it is now included. We will miss Rosy's. We have their red grocery bags and take them with us to local markets
here in Virginia. Check out clerks look at them and ask where this store is, so then we go off on a long tale about island location and the fun things'
to do there. May is coming up so back we go and drive on the left side of the road...lol!

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Lasagna Lunch Today At SBR Villa Pool Whale Tail Yesterday at 04:32 PM My wife has been busy this morning making lunch for our Villa Pool "Board" members. She has made 3 trays of lasagna and a ceasars salad and we picked up 5 baguettes at Le Sucriere this morning. Of course I had to pick up a couple of treats for me

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I had totally missed this story--More Traffic!! Carol_Hill Yesterday at 01:09 PM Link Just what Beacon Hill needs--more traffic..

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Return of the humpback whales AUCspouse Yesterday at 09:49 AM Yesterday (Sunday) we joined a group of interested amateur whale watchers for a 2-hour excursion to the lookout on the Grandes Cayes trail near Cul-de-Sac. (We hiked only 10 minutes from the parking area, to a lookout area with excellent views of Ile Pinel and Tintamarre. The attached photo of Ile Pinel was taken from the hiking trail.) Unfortunately, the afternoon was windy and the there were whitecaps on the ocean, so conditions weren't great for spotting the migrating humpback whales. We didn't see any, but we intend to keep our eyes open for the next two months.

The free excursion was organized by a non profit called "Mon Ecole, Ma Baleine," and was led by a volunteer, Amandine Vaslet. About 20 interested whale watchers showed up, many with binoculars. Amandine provided a few extra binoculars for the group to share.

There are about 10,000 to 12,000 humpback whales in the Caribbean, and the months of March and April are the peak months to watch them from shore. They dependably travel between Saint Martin and Anguilla, and between Saint Martin and Tintamarre. A portion of these whales are headed to arctic Canada; another group are headed to waters between Iceland and Norway; and a third group are headed to Cabo Verde off the coast of West Africa.

We learned a lot during our excursion. The free excursions will continue: there is one scheduled for Saturday March 21; another on Saturday arch 28, at Babit Point; and a final one on Satuday April 4. Here is a link for more information (in French):
https://monecolemabaleine.com/Actu/33

All of the participants at the event yesterday were French-speaking, so if you join the group, it would be helpful to know a few words of French.

Even if you don't join one of these excursions, keep an eye out for humpback whales. We saw them last year from Cupecoy. One of the obvious signs of whales is a visible blow or spout (an exhalation), although you may see a fin or even a breach if you are lucky.

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Grand Case Parking Tuesday Nights links83 Yesterday at 12:55 AM Hello All,
My Wife and I will be on the island the beginning of May. Will they still be doing Carnival the beginning of May? If so, where does everyone park?

Thank you

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Regatta Day 4 Last Day Bridge Opening Whale Tail Yesterday at 12:18 AM We went down to SMYC for the return of the sailboats after the last day of racing for the show. The yacht club was packed with no tables in sight so I saw our favorite waitress and said can we just stand and order from you and run a tab rather than try to order from a very busy bar. She said follow me and took us to a table for 4 that just became available , perfect!! It was not very long before people asked if they could take the 2 empty chairs to another table which we said no problem. Then we saw Kim (Pats Daughter) come in with her friend Joan and told them if she could find 2 chairs they would be welcome to sit with us. Then our favorite waitress went to a storage area and brought out 2 chairs for them. Which made for a very enjoyable afternoon of conversation.

There were fewer boats than previous years and no water balloons thrown from the sailboats into the crowd at the yacht club but the boats got the super soaker water guns treatment from the bottom of the bridge. It was a good time!!

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II Bacio SXMScubaman Yesterday at 12:13 AM Has anybody been there? I just saw a reel on Facebook and looked inviting. Located in the Hills Plaza in Cole Bay.

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Park, Sleep, Fly - Miami Jerry_R 03/08/2026 04:18 PM Has anyone used the 4 Points Sheraton near the airport? Reviews are about 50/50.

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