Simpson's Bay Lagoon

St. Maarten and Simpson's Bay is probably, along with Antigua, the mega yacht capital of the Caribbean. Every year boats that spend the summer season in the Mediteranean start arriving here in mid to late November. Simpson's Bay Lagoon is 12 square miles of landlocked water accessible by passing through a narrow channel and under a drawbridge that opens three time per day for outbound and three times per day for incoming traffic. In the lagoon there are three marinas that can accommodate these boats, most of them in the 35 to 50 metre range. Everyone tells me the number of boats arriving this season is down but there have to be 35 to 40 here now with more arriving each day and the amount of cash I can see floating at the docks is nuts. Earlier this week Maltese Falcon (if you don't know it, Google it) spent two nights at anchor in the bay outside the bridge.


This picture is from the ocean side of the bridge. The building to the right is the St. Maarten
yacht club. Happy hour at the club is from 4 until 6:30 and the locals seem to all stop in on their way home to watch the parade of boats at the 5:30 bridge opening. Yesterday there were three sailboats and one big motor yacht.






This is a boat coming through the bridge. If I get a chance I'll try to get some beter pictures of a bridge opening.