Sunset Bar & Grill...watching the "heavies" (747's from Europe) land--complete with Bud's video!

It has become tradition for us to spend one afternoon each trip at The Sunset Beach Bar & Grill. The bar sits on the left-hand side of a smallish but very pretty beach right at the end of the runway at Princess Juliana Airport (SXM) on the Dutch side of St. Maarten.

It's an amazing sight because the planes, from teeny WinAir commuters from the neighboring islands to the KLM 747 from Amsterdam, all land directly over the beach.  And I do mean directly.  The Travel Channel did a segment last fall on the 10 scariest airport approaches for pilots in world (click here for images and text of all airports). Only Honduras and Nepal ranked scarier--read the piece!  But do forgive their fact-checker.  they misspell St. Maarten as St. Maartin.  The Dutch side is actually spelled Sint Maarten and the French side Saint Martin. They also call SXM Queen Juliana Airport--it's Princess.

But the point is well-taken. Here is KLM flight 785 landing at 1:15 on Tuesday.  Notice Bud to the right taking video.

And here is the video!

The smaller guys get fewer notice.  Sometimes they come in low like this DHL plane, but other times they are way high--they don't use a lot of runway like the 747's, so can cruise on down towards the terminal before they actually have to set down.

They have reinforced the barrier to keep people from playing in the jetwash.  It doesn't stop them, though.  And the signs seem to be a "must-do" photo op.

In all, a fun afternoon!