Happy New Year!
I am the optimistic guy. We will be returning to Club O as soon as they can receive us. In the meantime we will return to support the island we call our home away from home.
We have too many friends we have met on the island not to return.Some stay at Club O and some in timeshares. Most are returning to support SXM .
carib cheers,
doctorj

I posted this not long after Irma. It's pretty far down the thread, so here it is again: We visited Club O the first time in '94. After that, Hurricane Luis pretty much leveled everything. In some ways, these photos don't seem as bad as it looked after Luis. My wife and I visited the following year, stayed at Esmerelda, and travelled to the Club O beach every day. They got the umbrella and chair concession set up first. Part of Papagayo's was still standing, with no roof, and had a bathroom. They also cooked burgers on a small barbecue grill and sold drinks. It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing. The beach was still the beach. By the year after that, Club O reopened. The new chalets they built then are the ones that are still standing. It seemed Luis hit Club O the worst, and most of the other hotels on the French side opened relatively soon. I don't know if that's the case here, or how much damage the Club O infrastructure (generator, desalination plant) suffered.

Horace,
I am with you. We have 30 plus visits. We were at Club O for Omar. Omar was minor compared to Irma but we rode it out with great friends. Our friends we have met in SXM are so important to us that when we can travel you will find us exercising sand gravity on Orient Beach. We will be staying at Club O with our Club O friends when they are again ready.
carib cheers from the frozen tundra !
doctor
beach ball racing and bead lines for 2018!
Let's all meet again in St. Martin

If you go to your favorite on line hotel site and search St Martin you will see many hotels are open for business. You can fly to St Martin, rent a car, stay in an open hotel or condo , and drive to any beach including Orient. According to the internet the grocery stores on St Martin are open and many restaurants are also. Going ahead and making a trip now would be the best thing for the residents of St Martin who have relied on the tourist business.

I also rode out Hurricane Lenny in '99 with my wife and 2 yo daughter while huddled in the storage room of L'Orientique. It was pretty scary because Lenny hovered as a Cat 5 off the coast for 24 hours before landfall. When it came ashore it diminished quickly. We never lost power because Club O had it's own electric plant. We stayed another week,the beach was great and we had it mostly to ourselves. By the time we left, the people who were smart enough not to fly down there before the storm were arriving.