Mullet Bay
Arriving at St. Maarten - during the last seconds of the airplane's approach, the visitor is exposed to a shocking sight: roofless ruins of two-level building littering a large golf course between one of the island's most beautiful beaches and an especially charming branch of Simpson Bay Lagoon.

The once spectacular Mullet Bay Resort has been closed '95 after Hurricane Luis and never reopened. The 18-hole golf course is open to the public, but not maintained to great standards.
St. Maarten offers now the unusual pleasure of golfing amongst- what appears to be - bombed out ruins.

The Mullet Bay Resort had been the island's flagship institution, even though is was not a financial success. Hotel specialists tell me that de-centralized resorts are difficult to operate on a profitable level.

There is an ongoing legal battle between the individual owners of the condominium units and the former managing company. Insurance money had been released after the 95 disaster, but the managing company blocked reconstruction of the unprofitable concept, while the individual unit owners wish to have the former layout restored.

The result of this battle is the fact that a large part of Dutch St. Maarten looks like a war zone - an area the equivalent of the size of Texas relative to the US. How the local government has been manipulated to turn a blind eye to this huge problem is a matter of speculation and rumor.

One has to admire the many new investors who started the present building boom, even though every visitor looking out of the approaching air plane sees these terrible ruins as a first impression. Would the legal battle of Mullet Bay have been resolved in due time, the island would have pulled out of its decade long recession 5 year earlier.

- posted by Jan @ 9:04 AM