Ile Tintamarre, also known as the flat island is a nature reserve area located 2 miles North East of St Marten (St Marten = the French side of the 87 square km island that has been divided to St Martin and Dutch Sint Marteen) island in the Caribbean. The island has a history with a Dutchman who developed the islands economy around cotton cultivation, sheep, cattle and poultry breeding, having 150 inhabitants on the island. Later on the island was sold to the mayor of St Martin, and then used as an aircraft base, having only 50 island inhabitants.
Today nobody lives on the island, however you can encounter leatherback turtles, goats and multiple breeds of birds on the deserted white sand haven.
You’ll find White Bay, an easily approachable anchorage and base for overnight stay facing towards St Martin itself. It’s a lovely break and getaway from the French Caribbean Hustle and Bustle.
Tintamarre is for relaxing, snorkelling, enjoying the simple things and nature around you.
We did this next mentioned dive around in Tintamarre with a little help from our boat neighbours! Great place to be dropped off and to swim back to your own boat. We moored 40ft monohull to the White Bay and without working outboard, hitch hiked a ride to the diving buoy. You easily could dinghy over to the mooring even with a small dinghy and outboard.
In mid-April, the water temperature was around 28 C°, visibility around 15 metres.
The Tugboat wreck / Remorqueur
18°7.295’N 62°59.261’W
Anchor:
Closest over night stay spot is in the Baie Blance bay on the West side of the island. As it is nature reserve area, there are moorings available. Use them! There usually are more than a few other cruisers, and tour boats roll on to the beach during the days. However, come evening time, many people have left Tintamarre and you’ll have the bay to share with few neighbours only!
Sandy bottom, watch out the reef at the north end of the bay when entering.
Good and well maintained moorings 4-8 metres depth, small island gives a little shelter from E and SE winds, gets little rocky. Best when overall calm conditions
Dinghy:
Ride short ride just North of the mooring field along the the reef. You’ll find a dive mooring attached to the tugboat itself. Small dinghies easy access, dinghies only.
Dive:
Drop down at the tug boat. The boat lies on sand in about 15 meters depth. There are artificial coral and other coral construction, dive training equipment and I suppose, attractions for divers lied down near around the boat. Dive sites spread out from the dropping in at the mooring, and you can choose your direction. You do have reef wall that descends from 3 meters down to 23 meters on the East side of the buoy and the wreck. You can follow the wall and the reef back to the mooring field if want to! Head south, keep the reef on your left until it widens up and keep swimming south on the sandy area. We did one dive during the day time, and followed the reef in and out during the night time.
We had amazing dives! We saw dolphins around the wreck playing in the sand, a few octopus, eels, lots of nudies , lobsters, and crabs.
This dive is a high recommendation, there is a lot of variety, marine life, formations and structures to see in various depths and navigational patterns.
Sailing Divers 
One thought on “Tintamarre /St Martin”