Simpson Bay Beach

Where this beach actually is, and where Kim Sha stops

Simpson Bay is the wide, southwest-facing bay between the Pelican Key headland in the east and the airport in the west. The eastern end, at the base of the Billy Folly hill, is called Kim Sha Beach. Simpson Bay Beach, in local usage, means everything west of roughly the Atrium Beach Resort, running past the Royal Palm and Karakter, along the Simpson Bay Village waterfront, and out to Mary's Boon and the runway.

The practical rule: Kim Sha is the short, busy, bar-lined east corner. Simpson Bay Beach is the long, quieter, mostly residential stretch west of it. Same sand, different day, and as the water quality section shows, measurably different water.

Total length is not published anywhere credible. The tourism board calls it one of the longest beaches on the island and says it borders the runway for about a mile at the western end, without giving a total. Working from gazetteer anchors, the shoreline runs roughly 2.5 to 3 km. That is derived, not sourced, and somebody should measure it.

Facilities are thin, and that is a real difference from Great Bay. The tourism board states plainly that there are no public showers directly on the beach and that K's Beach Club's showers are for its guests only. Plan on using a restaurant.

The cleanest tested water on the Dutch side, next door to the dirtiest

The Nature Foundation's water quality report of 29 October 2020 sampled four Dutch-side beaches against the US EPA safe-swimming threshold of 35 colony-forming units of Enterococci per 100 ml.

Simpson Bay Beach came in lowest, at an overall average of 5.4 CFU. Kim Sha Beach, the same continuous shoreline a few hundred metres east, averaged 136.7 CFU, roughly four times the threshold, with one section recorded as too numerous to count, and the report recommended that Kim Sha not be used for swimming until the situation improved. Mullet Bay and Cupecoy came in below the threshold on average with individual sections above it. Simpson Bay and Kim Sha were both sampled between 24 and 26 March 2020.

The story is not that Simpson Bay is clean. It is that a few hundred metres of shoreline separates the best and worst results on the island, that the report attributes the problem to wastewater discharge from nearby businesses and the Simpson Bay Lagoon, and that no retest has been published in more than five years.

So the number on this page is a March 2020 result. It is the most recent one that exists.

Turtles nest here, and people walk dogs here

In early June 2022 the Nature Foundation confirmed nesting activity by a leatherback on Simpson Bay Beach, with reports of activity near Karakter Beach Bar. Nesting season on Sint Maarten runs April to December. This is also where the Foundation relocated a 150-egg green sea turtle nest from Great Bay in October 2018, because Great Bay's umbrellas and tourism activity threatened it and Guana Bay, the usual relocation site, was choked with sargassum. In the Foundation's 2019 nesting record, Simpson Bay is one of only five beaches on the island with recorded nests.

The Foundation's guidance is specific: stay at least 15 metres from turtles or hatchlings, avoid marked nesting areas, keep pets away, avoid flash and bright lights, and report sightings on +1 (721) 544-4267 or WhatsApp +1 (721) 581-6365. Its warning about the sand itself is blunt: driving on, walking over, placing beach chairs or piercing umbrellas into the area of the eggs can cause severe damage to the whole nest.

And this is the island's dog-walking beach. The tourism board says so directly. Those two facts sit uncomfortably together from April to December, and saying so is more useful than pretending they do not.

Declared an environmental disaster, swimmable again in under three weeks

Simpson Bay was declared an environmental disaster on 2 October 2017, in the weeks after Hurricane Irma. After cleanup by the Nature Foundation, parts of the beach were declared safe for swimming in less than three weeks, along with Mullet Bay, Cupecoy, Maho and Dawn Beach in front of what was then the Westin. Great Bay still needed more work at that point. Swimmers were warned about sharp objects and exposed rocks.

That is a specific, dated recovery story, and most beach pages on this island do not have one.

The bay behind the beach has its own history. The tourism board's account is that Simpson Bay was historically part of a continuous sandbar with the airport area, and that a storm in 1819 created the gap connecting the lagoon to the Caribbean near Pelican. The first wooden bridge over it went up in 1933, replaced by a stone and cement bridge in 1950. A canal was cut in 1970, and the excavated sand created Snoopy Island, now used for superyacht docking. The current bridge replaced a swivel bridge in 1989.

The village is said to be named after Captain John Simpson, credited with defeating two pirate frigates nearby in the 17th century, and to have developed as a fishing community with Scandinavian roots. Label the Captain Simpson story and the Scandinavian origins as local tradition: neither is sourced beyond tourism copy. The 1819 storm and the bridge dates are specific enough to be checkable in the archives, and worth confirming.

The airport end, and the bars

The western mile of this beach borders the Princess Juliana runway. Maho, on the other side of the runway threshold, gets all the attention for the landings. The Simpson Bay side is where aircraft depart from, and where the beach is quiet. If you want the aviation experience without the Maho crowd, that is the trade. What jet blast conditions are actually like at this end, and whether there is any safety signage, we do not know and would want checked before anyone plans around it.

Named by the tourism board as on or beside the beach: D's Beach Bar & Grill, K's Beach Club, Boon's, Balls & Wine, Al Pasha, Beirut and the Lotus nightclub. Karakter Beach Bar is independently confirmed through a 2022 Nature Foundation turtle report, and Mary's Boon sits at the western end near the runway. On the wider strip behind: Pineapple Pete's, The Hideaway, Juliette's Bistro, Topper's Rhum Distillery, Bovin Steak House, Replay Sports Bar and Huppel The Pub. Prices are in US dollars.

One honest caveat on that list: only Karakter is confirmed by dated 2025 or 2026 reporting. The rest come from an undated tourism board page, so check anything you are building an evening around.

This is the island's main nightlife strip, so the beach has an evening life the quieter Dutch-side beaches do not. It is also roughly 25 minutes by taxi from the cruise pier and is not a standard walk-off destination, which is why it is the answer in this part of the island for a beach that does not change when the ships come in.