Little Bay Beach

The fort above the beach is where Stuyvesant lost his leg

Fort Amsterdam is a triangular stone fort built by the Dutch in 1631, the first Dutch fort in the Caribbean. The Spanish took it in 1633 and held it until 1648. In 1644 the Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant led an attempt to retake it and made it all the way to the top of the northwestern rampart before being severely wounded. That is the leg he lost, and the reason for the wooden one he is remembered by.

Today the fort is a registered historical site in a decaying state of repair, on a peninsula roughly 2.5 km long, reached on foot uphill from the Divi property. It is a good early morning or evening walk and it is not suitable for wheelchairs.

The tourism board also describes Little Bay as the first place the Dutch made landfall on the island and the site of its oldest settlement, between Fort William and Fort Amsterdam. That claim comes from tourism sources only, so treat it as their account rather than an established fact.

There is also a breeding colony of brown pelicans, up to 60 nests, on the west side of the Fort Amsterdam point, and the surrounding 278-hectare area is designated an Important Bird Area. Keep your distance from the birds. Little Bay Pond behind Belair Beach Hotel is one of only four Important Bird Areas on Sint Maarten, alongside the Great Salt Pond, Fresh Pond and Pelican Rock.

A development is proposed on 720 feet of this beach

In February 2025 The Daily Herald reported on the Lagune Bay Masterplan, a proposed luxury waterfront development covering 720 feet of Little Bay Beach and the land around Little Bay Pond in Belair. The plan includes four mid-rise residential buildings with 85 condominium units, an eco-centre with a restaurant and botanical garden, a mixed-use high-rise called La Punta, and wooden walkways through the mangroves. The developer is listed as Dolomita Development Group.

Two things in that reporting are worth repeating carefully. The paper found no building permits in National Gazette records for the project location since 2020, and it verified the developer's claimed St. Maarten headquarters as false.

The Nature Foundation's manager noted that the pond is recognised as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International, and the Foundation warned the plan would remove mangroves and nesting sites and extend structures tens of metres into the pond. In April 2026 it returned to the theme, listing Lagune Bay alongside the Mullet Bay access case and The Morgan Residences at Beacon Hill, and pointing out that Little Bay Pond is one of only four remaining ponds in a country that once had nineteen. Its line was blunt: the privatization of public beach access is unacceptable.

Permit status as of August 2026 is unknown to us and needs a Gazette check. This is the live story on this beach.

Beach access here is a resort question, not a legal one

Sint Maarten's beaches are governed by a 1994 Beach Policy, which the Nature Foundation describes as establishing guidelines for the use and development of the island's beaches. In no public source we could find does it define a right of public access.

In practice at Little Bay you drive in, park before the Divi security booth and walk down. It works. Visitors reported it working through 2026, and one specifically praised the security booth. The tourism board says the beach is open to the public, and separately says Divi offers day passes, while Divi's own FAQ is written entirely for guests and mentions neither public access nor a day pass. Whether a day pass exists, what it costs and what it includes are genuinely unclear.

The reason the arrangement works is convention, not a codified right. That is exactly the point the Nature Foundation is making in the Mullet Bay and Lagune Bay cases, and it is why the development story above belongs on a beach page rather than a news page.

Non-guests report paying about $15 for two chairs and an umbrella. Divi guests get complimentary sun shelters and umbrellas on a first-come basis. Restrooms are in the resort parking area. Vendor pressure is low, which is a genuine contrast with Great Bay.

The snorkeling, and the things people say are down there

This is the best shore snorkeling of the beaches immediately around Philipsburg. Visitors report green sea turtles and tropical fish, and placed underwater objects including a sunken helicopter and cannons.

Those last two come only from visitor reviews, not from an operator or the Nature Foundation, so we are flagging them rather than promising them. Aqua Mania Adventures runs the water sports centre on the beach behind the spa, renting snorkel gear, kayaks and jet skis and running dive trips, and would be the people to ask.

Visibility drops sharply after summer storms, and one September 2025 visitor found the water very choppy. Whether Little Bay falls inside any boundary of the Man of War Shoal Marine Park is something we could not establish.

Sargassum is rarely a problem. The bay faces south and west, sheltered from the Atlantic swell that carries sargassum onto the east coast beaches like Guana Bay, Dawn Beach and Oyster Pond.

Closed for eight months after Irma, reopened on schedule

Divi Little Bay Beach Resort closed after Hurricane Irma in September 2017. Trade press reported in October 2017 that it would reopen in May 2018, and it did, on schedule, eight months after the storm. Its president said the team had poured their hearts and souls into rebuilding for those eight months.

The reopening included refurbished rooms, a new pool, an expanded Gizmo's Bar & Grill deck, a spa and a rebuilt water sports centre. Currently operating on or beside the beach, per Divi's own 2026 pages: Gizmo's Bar & Grill with beach service, pureocean, MIX at Oceans, and Fort Amsterdam Café for coffee and gelato. The Shack, a barbecue and jerk outlet from the 2018 reopening, we could not confirm as still running.

Worth knowing for anyone researching post-Irma status generally: a well-regarded independent hotel review site still carries a stale temporarily closed for repairs notice on this property from 2017. Post-storm status has to be checked against a dated source, not a review page.