Great Bay Beach, Sint Maarten

Great Bay Beach, Sint Maarten: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Great Bay Beach is a landing point located in Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands situated on the southern portion of the island of Saint Martin in the northeastern Caribbean. As a coastal landing point, Great Bay Beach connects Sint Maarten to a regional submarine cable network that links several smaller island territories in the northeastern Caribbean. One submarine cable lands at Great Bay Beach: the Saba, Statia Cable System (SSCS).

The SSCS establishes a regional inter-island corridor connecting Sint Maarten with Saint Barthélemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Sint Eustatius and Saba. This positions Great Bay Beach as a node within a tightly clustered island network rather than an intercontinental gateway, reflecting the character of submarine cable infrastructure serving smaller Caribbean territories.

Cables Landing at Great Bay Beach, Sint Maarten

The Saba, Statia Cable System (SSCS) is a regional submarine cable with a total length of 198 km that reached ready-for-service (RFS) status in 2013. In addition to Great Bay Beach in Sint Maarten, the SSCS connects to landing points in Saint Barthélemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Sint Eustatius and Saba. The cable's relatively short length reflects the compact geographic distances between the northeastern Caribbean islands it serves. The SSCS was listed as a draft system at its RFS date.

Regional Context

Sint Maarten has three submarine cable landing points in total: Great Bay Beach, Philipsburg, and Saint Maarten, each hosting one cable. Great Bay Beach therefore shares an equal standing with its two regional peers in terms of cable count, with no single landing point in Sint Maarten hosting more than one cable. The country's submarine cable infrastructure spans an average cable length of 768 km across these three landing points, with the first cable on the island having reached RFS status in 1995.

Network Role

Great Bay Beach functions as a single-cable terminus, hosting only the SSCS and its connections to Saint Barthélemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Sint Eustatius and Saba. This makes it a regional inter-island node rather than a multi-cable hub, with its network role defined by short-distance connectivity among a group of smaller northeastern Caribbean territories.

Within the broader submarine cable graph of Sint Maarten, Great Bay Beach represents one of three geographically distributed landing points that collectively give the island country access to multiple cable systems, ensuring that no single coastal location bears the entirety of Sint Maarten's submarine cable connectivity.