Sailing to Tintamarre on Celine

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Map of St Martin
We boarded at Skipjack's at 7:30AM and sailed across the lagoon as we enjoyed coffee and pastries. We exited at the French Bridge, passing by Marigot, Gallis Bay, and Grand Case on the north side of St Martin. After that, we were exposed to the tradewinds in the Anguilla channel. They were moving along smartly producing six to eight foot chop. It calmed down enough to get this panoramic photo as we passed by Anse Marcel (below). At this early hour, the sun was not up high enough to illuminate much of Anse Marcel, home of the Radisson Hotel.

Nude boat

After we came around Anse Marcel we could see Tintamarre in the distance. It's about a mile and half off the northeastern shore of St Martin. The headlands (above left) closest to St Martin are the highest point and in truth, not all that high. In fact, Anguillans call this flat island. Given that their island's highest point is about 300 feet in elevation, that really suggests that Tintamarre is flat. It does have a lovely little beach and some hiking trails. It is now included in the St Martin nature preserve (map) that starts at Créole Rock in Grand Case, skips over Anse Marcel, and circles around the northeastern corner of St Martin to the border with St Maarten on the north side of Oyster Bay.

The center photo featuring the naked butt is someone getting off Tiko Tiko, the nude cruise from Orient Beach. Previously, they and many others would come up here for mud baths, scooping up the soft dirt from the island and mixing it with seawater for a great exfoliating experience. When the area became part of the nature preserve, digging mud was banned as was snorkeling over the reef. They also posted signs saying that there were poisonous manicheel trees everywhere (right). This is the tree whose sap is most irritating and used as the poison on the arrows used by the original inhabitants. While there may be some of these trees here, tourists have been wandering about for decades.
Below is a panoramic shot of the west end of Tintamarre, with the headlands on the left and the beach in the center. Here is a nice history of Tintamarre.

Captain Neil prepared his understandably famous Seafood Paella while the first mate grilled some mahi on deck. There were also some nice salads and plenty of liquid lubrication. We headed back stopping for some snorkeling at Créole Rock off Grand Case and then over to Happy Bay for a mud bath. Captain Neil has his own special mud and he doesn't like to display it on Tintamarre for fear that people will think he is plundering the island. We rubbed it all over and looked pretty strange until we washed most of it off in the warm waters of Happy Bay. We headed home passing through the late afternoon opening of the French bridge, reaching Skipjack's at about 6:30PM. It was a full day of eating, drinking, snorkeling, sailing, and swimming. Great fun! When we got home we found more mud when we took a shower. Neil does this every Friday. If you want to join this or the lagoon cruise, check out his website.