Sint Maarten’s Sunset Beach Bar is world famous, and for good reason. With it’s ideal location overlooking Maho Beach it’s an easy place to lounge around all day while watching mammoth airplanes land and takeoff right over your head. So naturally, there are a lot of people interested in the progress of this iconic beach bar as it, and the entire island, works to recover and rebuild from Irma.
Sunset Beach Bar reopened on November 5, 2017, two months after Irma hit the island. Here’s a photo from just after the storm hit. In it, you can see Sunset Beach Bar in the distance. It’s a good way to contrast between then and now to see the progress that has been made from the time of this photo to the feature image in the post, along with the video below.
In the videos below, posted on YouTube by Darius Ben on November 3, 2017, you can see that the beach is still completely eroded. I’ve seen Maho Beach with the rocks exposed in the past, but never quite to this extent. There’s no real way to know when the sand will completely return. But wait! On further inspection, you can see in this still shot from the video that there is some sand coming back (under the shadow of the airplane).
Over the past several years, Sunset Beach Bar has transformed from a sleepy, cute little place on the side of Maho Beach, to a large, extremely crowded experience. Although, there’s no question that Irma has caused the entire island to take a few steps back in time, and Sunset Beach Bar is no exception.
Of course, if you’ve ever wanted to experience Sint Maarten for it’s simple beauty, meet and get to know the locals on the island, and not spend a fortune doing it, now is the time to go. I really hope that more tourists take advantage of this unique time on the island. There are plenty of hotels open, and plenty to do, such as the newly opened Rainforest Adventures.
For now enjoy the videos, and then start to plan your next trip to experience the wonders of this beautiful island.
Please help rebuild SXM and give today. Click here to visit the SXM Strong donate page. Thank you!
Video of an airplane coming in to land over Maho Beach:
