Cupecoy Beach

Cupecoy is the beach you reach last, right at the southwestern corner of the Dutch side, where the land runs out and the cliffs take over. It isn’t one beach so much as a series of small coves tucked beneath honey-coloured sandstone bluffs, and the configuration changes with the season — the surf carves the cliffs and shifts the sand, so the cove that was wide in winter can be a sliver by summer. The first time we came down the cliff steps I genuinely wondered if we were trespassing, because it has none of the loungers-and-bar machinery of the bigger St. Maarten beaches. It just has rock, sand, and water doing what it likes.

Cliffs that rearrange themselves

The sandstone here is soft, the colour of weak tea and old paper, and the sea has hollowed it into overhangs and shallow caves that throw welcome shade by mid-afternoon. People tuck themselves under the ledges to escape the sun, and there’s an unspoken etiquette to claiming a patch. The far western section is traditionally clothing-optional, which is worth knowing before you arrive with strong opinions either way; it’s never a problem, just a fact of the place, handled by everyone with Caribbean unconcern.

A word of genuine caution, though, because the same softness that makes the cliffs beautiful makes them treacherous: chunks do come down, especially after storms, and you should not picnic directly beneath an overhang or let children scramble on the upper rock. I watched a fist-sized piece detach itself and land where a towel had been an hour earlier, and it recalibrated my relationship with the scenery considerably.

The best sunset on the island

What Cupecoy does better than anywhere else on St. Maarten is the end of the day. Because it faces west off the island’s far corner, the sun sets straight into open ocean with nothing in the way, and the sandstone catches the last light and glows like a coal. The little informal bar above the cliffs fills up with a mixed crowd — locals off shift, a few yachties, the kind of long-term visitors who’ve stopped checking the time — and the whole thing has the unhurried, slightly conspiratorial feel of people who know they’re somewhere good and aren’t inclined to broadcast it.

We came back three evenings in a row. Each time the sea was a different temper and the colours never repeated, and on the last one a man with a guitar played quietly without asking anyone’s permission, which felt exactly right. Cupecoy is not the easiest beach on the island, nor the one with the most facilities. It is the one I’d go back to.

When to go

Late afternoon into sunset is non-negotiable, whatever the season. December through April brings the driest, breeziest weather; the summer and autumn months are hotter and carry hurricane-season risk, but also fewer people and bigger surf. Bring water and shade of your own — there’s little of either down on the sand — wear something with grip for the cliff steps, and check the tide, because at high water some of the coves shrink to almost nothing.