Couldn't help but notice everyone disappeared except the two women sitting on the corner of the deck close to the action.
They know the drill, boat hits bridge, never loose your choice seat. Yes, this has happened a few times before. Wonderful basin, you just have to get in, by inches....
I guess they never anticipated how big boats would become... trying to remember when that bridge was build... 90s I think? wonder why they had that platform open at the bow, that s what caused the real damage. St Maarten was already crowded, dirty, corrupted, and a traffic nightmare in the early 90s, I can t imagine how it must be now. Crime was pretty bad too... yuck.
The platform on the bow was so they can get the bow line, or the only way. I really really liked St. Maarten up until the hurricane 2 years ago and found it to be fairly clean, fairly safe, and a lot of fun with a nice variety of things to do. St. Maarten is REALLY hurting right now, as the hurricane that hit 2 years ago wiped out A LOT of their income.....all of the hotels and marinas destroyed, so the only business they had was a random cruise ship coming in, since the tourist businesses were also destroyed.
I understand why the platform is needed for line handling but I don’t see why they had to open it before going thru a very narrow bridge. Sure, nobody plans on hitting anything but a mechanical malfunction is all it takes. maybe SXM had cleaned up its act after I left st Barth’s in 94...