Top Photo: A big yacht passes the upraised Simpson Bay Bridge.Bottom Photo: Bruce and our son, Kess, watch a mega-yacht from the deck at the St. Marten Yacht Club.

To St. Marten residents, especially taxi drivers, the Simpson Bay Bridge, or John Sainsborough Lejuez Bridge, just might be the biggest headache ever brought to the island. Six times every day the connection between Phillipsburg and the Princess Juliana International Airport is disconnected as a funny little drawbridge is raised into the air. No big deal, raising a bridge to allow a boat to pass under, but this bridge sometimes raises for nearly an hour to let a parade of boats exit or enter one of the Caribbean’s largest lagoons.

Covering 12 square miles, the Simpson Bay Lagoon is a perfectly protected, landlocked anchorage for boats big and small wanting a break from the sometimes rowdy Caribbean Sea. Some cruisers go in for a week and stay for a lifetime, joining a community known as Lagoonatics. The booming mega yacht craze encouraged the development of several uber-marinas inside the placid waters, offering guests boutique luxury shopping, personal pampering, five-star dining and high-rolling casinos, all within a stone’s throw of their yachts.

A concentric ring of businesses has sprouted around the mega-yacht facilities, all geared to the thousands of crew who drive, maintain, steward or cook on the mighty-mo sized vessels. A mile-long strip running on both sides of the bridge is crammed with restaurants, bars and hotels, each spilling onto the next with bright lights, loud music and alluring house specialties. Nightly they fill with tropically outfitted, drinking disco dancers who earlier in the day were proper, uniformed crew.

The John Sainsborough Lejuez Bridge was built in 1986 to accommodate the many visiting cruising boats and the local charter and sport fishing industry. In 2002 it was widened to 56 feet, allowing mega yachts to enter, which in turn lit the economic fire of St. Marten, establishing it as one of the Caribbean’s finest super yacht centers. The bridge channel has a depth of 17 feet, deep enough for all but a few of the world’s biggest boats. Making the span bigger and deeper again is in the future, unless, as some predict, a tunnel is built instead.

Long before yachting became a way of life in St. Marten, a much smaller bridge spanned the Dutch side opening into the lagoon, similar to the current one on the French side. Bruce remembers the polite protocol required in the 1970s to gain entrance to the sleeping waters inside, where only half a dozen boats anchored. He would row his tiny dinghy from Simpson Bay across the lagoon to the house of Mr. Brown. With him he carried $10 or a pie, either one could convince the bridge master to pick a day and time when he would drive around and let you through. The airport back then was miniscule and there was little traffic to stop. But, oh, how times have changed. In 2006, 10,377 vessels were recorded through the bridge, 1,025 of them mega-yachts. Bridge fees today range from $10 (boats up to 12 meters) to $500 (for boats 36 meters and more.)


For visitors to St. Marten, the bridge represents one of the greatest shows on the island and the perfect place to watch it is a ringside seat at the St. Marten Yacht Club. Happy hour there starts at 4 p.m., priming patrons for the 4:30 outbound parade. In the high season from December to May, that parade lasts about 30 to 45 minutes, and all the while the place keeps filling with the curious and convivial, who arrive in time to welcome the 5:30 inbound procession of glitz and glamour. The yachts proudly file through the tight opening from Simpson Bay, to the delight of onlookers who greet them with whistles, shouts and long, low blasts from conch-shell horns. The crews, usually busy handling fenders the size of large water heaters, smile and wave. Shipboard guests snap photos of the Yacht Club crowd snapping back. The fun loving captains hit their horns, sending the cycle into a crescendo.

Buried in a wall of onlookers from the Yacht Club deck, it’s difficult to see what’s coming next through the upturned bridge. When the biggest of the bunch appears with just inches to spare, side thrusters pushing away from the concrete structure, onlookers gasp and hold their breath. Accidents do happen, but Frank Hoedemaker, commodore of the Yacht Club, told me there’s never been a major mishap. “That blue boat there,” he said, pointing to a nearby row of super yachts, “It hit the bridge last month. They still don’t have the damage fixed.”


We’d been watching the amazing scene from our anchorage outside the bridge in Simpson Bay as over 100 super yachts first left the lagoon, then re-entered. The 100-footers seemed huge until the 200-footers dwarfed them. The 300-footers, carrying helicopters (some had two!) and full-sized yachts on deck, were simply over-the-top. The cause of the exodus was the ritual rush to St. Barts for
New Year’s Eve, where nearly 200 mammoth vessels anchored, creating the illusion of a large, very well lit city. Almost as soon as the ball dropped in Times Square, they raced back to the pampering docks of the St. Marten lagoon.

Our own boat, Woodwind, made her first passage into the lagoon recently, when we sought calm water for a high-water rigging maneuver. We were halfway though the messy job with tools, coils of old and new rigging, dinghies and gear filling our deck. Compared to the slick, gleaming yacht that preceded us in, I fretted that we looked like the Clampetts in comparison. But as Woody’s 13-foot bow sprit poked beyond the bridge, the yelling crowd onshore cheered our arrival, cameras flashing and hands waving. “Geez,” I told Bruce. “If we’d known it was that easy to get attention, we’d have come here years ago.”

If a visit to St. Marten is in your future, be sure to schedule a few hours to catch the action from the Simpson Bay Yacht Club or across the street at The Upstairs Bar in the Royal Palm Resort. And when you’re ready to fly home, be sure to beat the bridge!

Jan