TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Club Orient beach

My wife and I just returned from ten days in SXM. Had a great time and met so many fun-loving people. Enjoyed doing Rum shots at 2:30 on Club O beach. We tried so many different types of rum. Thanks for all the new memories.

My one concern though, is the condition of the beach itself. It seems to be slowly eroding away. The last day there the water was washing under all the chairs that were set out. So many rocks just inside the waters edge making it hard to walk into the water. But we all prevailed and made it into the water each day. Just don't want our last bit of beach to disappear into the water.

Hopefully the powers at be, will let Cedric clear back some of the growth to allow a much larger beach back from the water. The interest is still there for this section of beach that so many people still enjoy, I remember in the days of the past a much wider beach there, I'm sure the vegetation has grown over much of the old beach and makes it seem so much smaller. Heading back next year.

I really don't think it is vegetation growing out over the beach, so much as erosion all along the beach. Older pictures show a ton of sand in front of Papagayo, and immediately pre Irma, there was almost none.

I remember many years ago when Baywatch lost their front steps. It was in the late fall and by the time we arrived in February the beach was back to normal. Locals would say beach comes and it goes. But I agree with Carol that the Club Orient end of the beach has had much more erosion than the middle and north ends. I have a picture of what the beach looked like in 2000 that i will try to find and scan

If you look at the placard on that radio tower looking pole midway down Club O beach, you can see how much that beach has eroded over the years...it is quite alarming! We have experienced the rocky conditions described here and the return of the sand, but, the long term movement of that coastline is pretty dramatic. It really doesn't bode well for constructing anything on that section of the beach. It is a very similar dynamic to what we see with so many of the barrier islands in the US.