Thursday, February 16, 2017

The Lagoon

Simpson Bay Lagoon, on the west side of St. Martin /St. Maarten, our home for almost two weeks. We anchored at the end of the runway and next to the causeway that cuts across the lagoon.

One of the visual highlights of the lagoon was the light show on the causeway bridge. Multicolor LED lights ran through a rainbow of colors, mainly monochromatic, but occasionally all the colors.















The bridge is set up beautifully for pedestrians, a nice wide path on either side, separated from traffic. It made for a lovely evening stroll.
Hearts provided for "locks of love".
Providing these was a really good idea on their part for a few reasons.
1) It is a clever tourist activity and 2) the hearts can be removed, exchanged when they get overloaded, preventing damage to the bridge.



To enter and exit the lagoon we had  to wait for the bridge opening times and the call ahead to the bridge operator and tell them we were coming. Then we lined up with all the other boats that wanted to enter or exit the lagoon.
The bridge opening for boat traffic.
Both when we entered and exited the lagoon we were behind boats that were going slowly.  Both times the bridge operator yelled at us!
"Come on captain, hurry it up!" "Next time we will leave you behind!"
What did they want us to do? Ram the boat in front of us?
The line of boats waiting for the bridge.
The dark hulled boat is the one that was going so slow that we got yelled at.
Simpson Bay was a little noisy and definitely lacking in water quality, however it was a great place to get work on the boat done and make people connections. For me, people connections are a wonderful part of cruising and I happily made connections with fellow cruisers here. Simpson Bay is definitely on the list of places to return to in the future.




We love to hear your comments.