I've been seriously trying to stay off social media of late - it can really become addictive and all-consuming - but this morning, while working in my office, I couldn't resist so I keyed up both the SXM Island Cam and the Sunset Beach Bar Cam. After watching each one as background for over five minutes I was so depressed I logged off BOTH cams.

In ten minutes of total watching - not one plane or boat moving in the island cam and a total of two vehicles driving by Maho Beach - one being a police pickem-up truck and the other perhaps a bus? Typically, this time of the day there would be a non-stop stream of vehicles passing through this area. Not a person walking the beach and virtually no footsteps in the sand.

I'm aware the island is in shutdown mode but my heart just aches for the island and all her people. To have all that beauty and potential enjoyment at your toes and not be able to enjoy any of it has to be so depressing.

I know it is to me from afar but I keep telling myself - hang in there, this will pass and eventually things will go back to normal. Perhaps a new kind of normal but at least a normal we can relate to after what we've recently been forced to experience. At least I hope so....