Visited St. Martin via cruise ship Oasis of the Seas. Took cab to Orient spent several hours & returned. Taxi1 driver thinks Hurricane was cat 6+.

Phillipsburg- Lots of damage everwhere. Maho beach popular destination. You have to insist to get a cab to Orient. Taxi1 driver reported that almost all galvinzed roofs were destroyed. There is a huge growing landfill of Dutch side debris by the Phillipsburg Salt pond. Many empty cargo containers and boats were tossed about due to high hurricane winds increasing wind & water damage to buildings. Taxi2 driver's cab in Phillipsburg was totally submerged with all windows broken. After hurricane passed Taxi2 driver washed engine & cab out with fresh water, thus preserving cab. He then replaced all windows.

Oyster Bay- Sunk boats, damaged houses, damaged hotels. boats still blown ashore agains houses, damaged houses. Considerably greater damage on French Side.

Cab Driver1 (Uncle Al)'s house- House on TOP of mountain overlooking Oyster & St. Bart's. During storm his house was hit by a BOAT that was lifted by hurrican winds. He kept his cab inside garage. Although roof was destroyed his cab made it thru storm.

Orient - Accessed by Salt pond road. Club O walls destroyed. Road and turn around cut thru where various units used to be. Perch bar Lite was up & running. Pedro's, New beach bars, old beach bars, everything destroyed. Chairs & multi-colored umbrellas are up!

There is only a small operation on the textile side for chairs & beer. You can walk the beach but nothing else open. Not anything going on beach wise around Orient Village.Thus Perch Bar Lite is serving both nudists & gawkers as to beer, chairs & umbrellas. I don't think they were allowing cabs with non-residents into Orient Village.

Club O security is around but they have a withdrawn presence. Likely worried about bigger issues.

Thanks for the update, even though it was not favorable. I was afraid this would happen.

Thanks for the report. I've got Delta credit from last year's cancelled trip. I'm thinking about going back for Christmas. We usually just spend 10 days at Club O beach. I'm hoping that there will be more places open by then so that Perch isn't flooded with gawkers.

On the bright side, I suppose you can walk the entire beach nude and no one cares. :)

Maybe Orient Beach will go back to the 1980's until it is rebuilt again.