Orient Bay

The bay's name comes from its position on the east coast, though old maps call it the "baie d'Orléans". It was also known as the "Baie des Flamants", after the flamingos that once lived in the salt ponds behind the beach and were wiped out long ago. On 22 June 1676, during the Franco-Dutch War, a large Dutch fleet landed here and sacked the French part of the island. In 1848 the two big ponds were worked semi-industrially for salt: the Étang Chevrise by the notary Charles de Mery d'Arcy with the abolitionist François Perrinon, and the Salines d'Orient by Pierre Daniel Beauperthuy.

In 1985 the area was still completely undeveloped. After a French tax-break law for overseas territories in 1986, known as the Loi Pons, a wave of property development followed, with many exemptions from planning rules, and temporary permits allowed bar-restaurants and sunbed concessions along almost the whole beach. From the 1970s the far end of the beach had been home to a naturist establishment.

Hurricane Luis caused damage in 1995, quickly repaired. Hurricane Irma did considerable damage in 2017, and the repairs have been slow; since Irma the naturist club and the tennis courts have gone. The offshore islets became part of a national nature reserve in 1998.

Orient Bay is a beach community rather than a town, and its culture is the culture of the beach. It is the most popular beach on the island, and the day is spent in the water and on the sand: beach volleyball, sea kayaks, parasailing and catamaran trips all start here, and there is a riding centre. Boats run from nearby Cul-de-Sac to Pinel, which has four beaches, coral shoals and walking trails.

The French side's relaxed attitudes apply. Topless sunbathing is frequently seen on the island, and a section at the southern end of the beach is frequented by naturists.

Respect for the sea is part of local life. The islets offshore — Green Cay, Pinel, Tintamarre — and the salt pond behind the beach belong to the National Nature Reserve of Saint-Martin, created in 1998 and covering about 3,000 hectares, most of it sea. Seabirds still pass Pinel but no longer nest there because of the number of visitors.

Orient Bay is a small resort community with no population figure of its own. It has no schools and no places of worship — a chapel-shaped building in the area is purely decorative. Orient Bay Village, built in the 2000s, is the residential heart, a mixed area of colourful Bahamian-style buildings around a square with restaurants.

The economy is tourism: hotels, apartments, beach concessions, restaurants and water sports. The beach is the busiest on the French side, and the development that has grown up behind it since the late 1980s depends on visitors. Since Hurricane Irma in 2017 the area has been rebuilding slowly.

Geography shapes the place. The beach is a tombolo, a bar of sand between the Étang Chevrise pond and an older, fossil sand bar at its eastern end; the flat land behind extends to the Salines d'Orient pond and is backed by the 58-metre Morne Griselle, the foot of a ridge rising to Pic Paradis.

Eating at Orient Bay means the beach bar-restaurants that line the sand and the restaurants around the square of Orient Bay Village. The cooking mixes French dishes, grilled fish and seafood, and Creole food from across the French side.

The Creole dishes of the island include accras, salt-cod fritters; colombo, a curry of chicken or goat; johnnycakes; and locri, the island's one-pot rice dish with meat or fish. French cheese, charcuterie, wine and bread are part of everyday shopping.

On Pinel Island two restaurants serve visitors who come over by boat from Cul-de-Sac. For cheaper meals, the lolos of Grand-Case — open-air shacks serving grills and traditional Antillean dishes — are a short drive away. Grand-Case, which calls itself the gastronomic capital of the French Antilles, is also the place for a more formal dinner. Local rums and guavaberry liqueur, shared with the Dutch side, are the usual drinks, along with French wine.