Route · 7 days · round-tripYacht charter route · Martinique

Le Marin round-trip.

Round-island week from Le Marin: turtles at the Anses d'Arlet, 1902 wrecks off Saint-Pierre, black-sand Anse Couleuvre and the white arc of Les Salines.

The route

Day-by-day route

Click any pin on the map or any day in the route summary below to see that day's stop, story and photos.

Day 1

Le Marin → Le Marin

Settle into Martinique's biggest charter base, load the boat, and paddle the mangrove creeks before the week's first westward leg.

At a glance

Route at a glance

Best season

December – May (peak Jan – Apr)

Duration

7 days

Departure

Le Marin

Sailing area

Martinique

Route summary

Click any day to jump back to the map and see its photos, narrative and mooring tip.

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The full story

Day-by-day journey

Named anchorages, mooring notes and things to do for every leg of the week — the map follows along as you scroll.

Day 1 / 7

Day 1

Le Marin → Le Marin

Most crews board around midday, so day one is about groundwork rather than miles. Marina du Marin holds roughly 830 berths and a hundred mooring balls, which makes it the busiest base in the Eastern Caribbean and a slightly chaotic place to find your slip. Take the boat handover slowly. Walk to Auchan for baguettes, French cheese and a case of Lorraine, then top the water tanks while you have easy dock access. If you land early, the mangrove channels north of the harbour are worth an hour in the dinghy, quiet and full of birdlife once you clear the moorings. Eat ashore tonight. Kokoarum and the marina-front terraces do a decent first supper, and an early night sets you up for tomorrow's run west to the Anses d'Arlet.

Things to do

Provision at Auchan for baguettes and Lorraine beer

Dinghy the mangrove creeks north of the harbour

Supper on the terrace at Kokoarum

Run the systems check before leaving the dock

Mooring tip

Your slip at Marina du Marin is assigned by the charter base, not chosen on arrival, so call up on VHF as you enter the buoyed channel. Shore power is 220V European fittings, so pack an adapter if your fleet is US-rigged.

Day 2

Le Marin → Grande Anse d’Arlet

We usually leave by nine to hold the beam reach in steady air before the trades build. The leg runs about twelve miles up the leeward coast, rounding Cap Salomon into the string of bays the French call the Anses d'Arlet. Grande Anse is the widest, a pale crescent backed by Creole houses and a little pier that every visitor photographs at least once. The real draw is underwater. Green turtles graze the seagrass meadows here in numbers, and a marked snorkel trail runs off the northern end where you drift over them in three or four metres. A team of bay wardens works the moorings and will point you to a free ball. Lunch is easy at the beachfront tables: grilled fish, accras and a cold ti-punch, then back in the water for the afternoon.

Things to do

Snorkel the marked turtle trail off Grande Anse

Photograph the headland church and its pier

Grilled fish and accras at the beach tables

Paddle south to Petite Anse d'Arlet

Mooring tip

Much of the bay is a protected seagrass zone where anchoring is banned, so pick up one of the wardens' buoys, white for boats and yellow marking the swim lanes. They fill through the afternoon in season, so arriving before lunch gives you the pick of them.

Day 3

Grande Anse d’Arlet → Saint-Pierre

This is the week's biggest single passage, roughly twenty-two miles up the coast past the capital at Fort-de-France. Give the headlands room where the wind funnels, then settle in for the reach north. Saint-Pierre sits in the shadow of Mount Pelée, whose 1902 eruption killed nearly the whole town in minutes and sent the hundreds of ships then in the bay to the bottom. Eight of those wrecks are still dived, scattered between roughly ten and eighty metres off the breakwater. Ashore, the Frank Perret memorial and the ruined theatre tell the story properly, and Cyparis's cell, the prisoner who somehow lived, still stands. The sand shelves steeply and holds well in eight to fifteen metres. One thing to plan for: the volcano sends cool gusts down onto the bay after dark, so a well-set anchor matters here.

Things to do

Dive the 1902 wrecks off the breakwater

Visit the Frank Perret volcano memorial

Walk the ruined theatre and Cyparis's cell

Dinner in the cobbled old town

Mooring tip

Saint-Pierre is an open roadstead with no shelter from north swell, so anchor on the black sand in eight to fifteen metres and set it hard. A few visitor buoys sit near the south breakwater; stay at least 100 m off the wrecks, which are a protected archaeological site.

Day 4

Saint-Pierre → Anse Couleuvre

Only about five miles today, but they take you to the emptiest anchorage on the route. Past Anse Ceron the coast turns wild, all steep basalt and forest tumbling to the sea, and Anse Couleuvre opens up as a dark strip of volcanic sand with almost nothing built behind it. Go ashore early for the walk. A forest path follows the Couleuvre river inland for an hour or so, past the ruins of an old estate and its distillery, huge fromager trees overhead, to a waterfall dropping twenty metres into a cool pool. Back aboard, the snorkelling along the rocks is good and turtles turn up now and then. This is a night to leave the cockpit lights off. There is no village glow here, only the cliffs and the stars.

Things to do

Hike the Couleuvre river trail to the waterfall

Snorkel the rocks at the cove's edges

Swim off the volcanic black-sand beach

Watch for turtles surfacing near the boat

Mooring tip

Couleuvre is anchor-only on black sand in six to ten metres, tucked under the easterly wind but wide open to any north swell. Check the forecast before committing to the night, and if swell is running, drop back to Saint-Pierre or Anse Mitan instead.

Day 5

Anse Couleuvre → Anse Dufour

Turn south and retrace the coast, roughly eighteen miles with the trades on the quarter and the capital slipping by to port. Anse Dufour is small, a single curve of gold sand with brightly painted gommiers, the local fishing skiffs, drawn up at the top of the beach. The turtles are the whole reason to stop. They come in to graze the seagrass most mornings, and you can slip off the swim step and float above them without a boat trip or a guide. Two small restaurants do accras and grilled catch just off the sand. When you have had enough of the water, the ten-minute path over the headland leads to Anse Noire, the one black-sand beach on this coast, worth the walk for the contrast alone.

Things to do

Snorkel with green turtles over the seagrass

Walk the headland path to Anse Noire

Accras and grilled catch at the beach snacks

Photograph the painted gommiers on the sand

Mooring tip

The bay is small and popular, with room for only a dozen boats, so aim to arrive before noon in season. Where buoys are laid over the seagrass, use them rather than anchoring; otherwise find a clear patch of sand and stay well off the swim zone.

Day 6

Anse Dufour → Saint-Anne

A fine last full day of sailing. From Dufour it is about fourteen miles southeast, rounding the Pointe du Diamant with the great pyramid of Diamond Rock standing off the shore. Break the trip at Les Salines. The three-kilometre arc of white sand at the island's southern tip is the beach every Martiniquais names first, and the shallow water off it makes a lazy lunch anchorage. Push on in the afternoon to Sainte-Anne, a proper village with a stone church, a busy market and beach cafes selling rum punch and crepes. The anchorage is broad and sandy, sheltered from the easterly trades, and holds a big fleet without feeling cramped. Wander the market stalls before they close, then take a sundowner ashore with the day's last light on the water.

Things to do

Lunch anchor off the white arc of Les Salines

Round Diamond Rock off the Pointe du Diamant

Browse Sainte-Anne market for spices and rum

Rum punch and crepes at a beach cafe

Mooring tip

Sainte-Anne is anchor-only on clean white sand in four to six metres, with excellent holding and shelter from the trades. There is plenty of swinging room even at peak, but keep clear of the marked swim areas off the village beach and leave the dinghy channel open.

Day 7

Saint-Anne → Le Marin

The last leg is barely five miles, so there is no rush to weigh anchor. Take a final swim off Sainte-Anne while the light is soft, then motor-sail the short hop back into the Cul-de-Sac Marin. Most contracts want the boat alongside by late afternoon for the check-out, and the base runs the berthing on VHF as you come in. Time the fuel dock carefully. It gets a queue on hand-back mornings, so filling up between nine and midday saves a long wait with the engine idling. Once you are fast alongside and the tanks are topped, there is usually time for a last lunch on the marina front before the walkthrough. Crews tend to spend it working out how to book the same week again next year.

Things to do

Early swim off Sainte-Anne before departure

Refuel at the Marina du Marin dock

Last lunch on the marina front

Hand-back walkthrough with the base team

Mooring tip

Fuel and hand-back both bottleneck late in the morning, so top up early and confirm your return time with the base. Berthing for check-out is directed by the base crew on VHF, so listen out as you enter the buoyed channel rather than picking a slip yourself.