Catamaran CharterCaribbean
— Route · 7 days · round-trip
Catamaran charter route · Martinique

Le Marin
round-trip.

Sail Le Marin to the Pitons and back: a 7-day Martinique & St. Lucia catamaran route with channel crossings, Marigot Bay, SMMA moorings and turtle-filled bays.

Le Marin route card
The route

Day-by-day route

Click any pin on the map or any day in the Route summary below to see the daily stop, narrative, and photos.

Sainte-Anne
Day 1

Le Marin → Sainte-Anne

Ease into the week with a gentle 2 NM shakedown from Le Marin's mangrove-lined channel to the huge, sandy Sainte-Anne anchorage. Flat water, light trade-wind puffs and just enough time to test the sails, the dinghy and the rum supply before sunset.

Distance

2 NM

Sailing

~0.4h at 5 kn

Route at a glance

Best season

December – mid-July (peak Mar – May)

Duration

7 days · Sat – Sat

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, restaurants, and route notes for every leg of the week — written by sailors who’ve actually run this passage.

Day 1 / 7
Sainte-Anne
1
Day 1

Le Marin → Sainte-Anne

Most crews step aboard in Le Marin around midday, so keep day one simple. Finish provisioning at the supermarkets within walking distance of the marina, run through the boat briefing properly, then slip the lines and follow the well-marked channel out through the mangroves. Sainte-Anne sits barely 2 NM away — a wide, sand-bottomed bay with room for a hundred boats and rarely a rolly night. Use the short hop as a shakedown: hoist the main, check the furler, calibrate the autopilot, and make sure the dinghy outboard starts on the first pull. Anchor in 2–4 metres over clean sand off the village, then dinghy ashore for a sundowner. Sainte-Anne itself is a sleepy French-Creole village with a pretty stone church, a few beach bars and a boulangerie for tomorrow's baguettes. If there's daylight left, walk south toward Grande Anse des Salines, often called Martinique's finest beach. Early night — tomorrow is the real sailing.

Things to do

Stock up on fresh baguettes and rum at Le Marin's marina-side shops before departure

Run a full sail and systems shakedown on the short hop to Sainte-Anne

Dinghy ashore to Sainte-Anne village and its old stone church

Walk south to Grande Anse des Salines for a sunset swim

Mooring tip

Anchor anywhere off Sainte-Anne in 2–5 m over sand — holding is excellent and there is acres of room. Keep clear of the marked swimming zones close to the beach and leave the dinghy channel free.

Windward Islands channel
2
Day 2

Sainte-Anne → Rodney Bay (St. Lucia)

Get the anchor up early — the St. Lucia Channel is best crossed before the afternoon trades stack up. Once you clear Pointe des Salines the shelter of Martinique disappears fast, and for around three hours you're in open Atlantic water: 20-plus knots on the beam, a long ocean swell and a west-setting current that rewards steering a few degrees high of the rhumb line. Put a reef in at the start; a catamaran at 6–7 knots eats this crossing in style. St. Lucia's dramatic north tip rises steadily ahead, and once you round Pigeon Island the water flattens like a switch was flipped. Head into IGY Rodney Bay Marina to clear customs and immigration — filing your details in advance on SailClear speeds things up considerably. Formalities done, anchor off Reduit Beach or stay on the dock, then dinghy or walk to Pigeon Island National Park and climb to Fort Rodney for a view back across the channel you just crossed.

Things to do

Clear in to St. Lucia at Rodney Bay Marina — pre-file on SailClear to save time

Hike up to Fort Rodney on Pigeon Island for channel-wide views

Swim off Reduit Beach's long strip of pale sand

Celebrate the crossing with a cold Piton lager at the marina bars

Mooring tip

Anchor off Reduit Beach in 3–6 m over sand with good holding, or book a berth at IGY Rodney Bay Marina for water, power and an easy walk to customs. Pigeon Island National Park charges a small landing fee if you go ashore.

Marigot Bay, St. Lucia
3
Day 3

Rodney Bay → Marigot Bay (St. Lucia)

After yesterday's channel, day three is pure decompression. The lee of St. Lucia gives you flat water and shifty puffs spilling off the hills, so expect a lazy mix of sailing and motoring as you pass Castries — keep an eye out for cruise-ship traffic off the harbour mouth. Marigot Bay's entrance is famously hard to spot from seaward; a narrow cut between steep green headlands suddenly opens into a perfectly protected lagoon that has sheltered boats from hurricanes for centuries. Legend says a British admiral once hid his fleet in here with palm fronds tied to the masts, and Hollywood shot the 1967 Doctor Dolittle along its shoreline. Pick up a mooring in the inner lagoon or take a berth at Marigot Bay Marina, then spend the afternoon exactly as the bay demands: swim off the palm-fringed sandbar, ride the little water taxi across to the beach side, and settle in somewhere with a rum punch as the frigatebirds circle the ridgeline at dusk.

Things to do

Swim off the palm-fringed sandbar guarding the lagoon entrance

Ride the tiny water taxi across the bay for a beachside lunch

Paddleboard deep into the mangrove fringe at the head of the lagoon

Toast the sunset with a rum punch on the Marigot Bay Marina waterfront

Mooring tip

The inner lagoon is deep with limited swinging room, so most crews pick up one of the managed mooring balls or berth at Marigot Bay Marina — book ahead in season. Local boatmen may offer to help with lines; agree any tip beforehand.

The Pitons, St. Lucia
4
Day 4

Marigot Bay → Soufrière (Pitons)

This is the leg everyone books the route for. From Marigot it's a lazy 7 NM under the lee of the island, and within an hour the Pitons — Gros and Petit, both UNESCO-listed — start filling the horizon like something from another planet. The whole Soufrière coastline sits inside the Soufrière Marine Management Area: anchoring is prohibited, so you must take a park mooring. Rangers come by to collect the fee, and local boat boys will meet you well offshore offering to run lines — choose one, agree the price with a smile, and they'll earn it, since moorings off Sugar Beach often need a stern line to a palm tree. Once secure, you're floating between two volcanic spires with reef right under the boat. Snorkel Anse Chastanet's protected reef, taxi up to the Sulphur Springs drive-in volcano and the Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens, or walk the Tet Paul Nature Trail for the classic between-the-Pitons photograph. Sunset here, tucked under Petit Piton, is a lifetime keeper.

Things to do

Snorkel the reef drop-off at Anse Chastanet inside the marine reserve

Bathe in the mud pools at Sulphur Springs, the 'drive-in volcano'

Walk the Tet Paul Nature Trail for the iconic Pitons viewpoint

Swim off Sugar Beach with Petit Piton towering straight overhead

Mooring tip

Anchoring is banned throughout the SMMA — pick up a park mooring off Sugar Beach, Anse Chastanet or Soufrière town and pay the ranger's fee in cash (EC or US dollars). Off Sugar Beach the shelf drops steeply, so expect a boat boy to run your stern line ashore.

Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
5
Day 5

Soufrière → Rodney Bay (St. Lucia)

Take a last morning swim under the Pitons before dropping the mooring — the light on Petit Piton just after sunrise is worth the early alarm. The 14 NM back north runs the same lee coast in reverse, and it's worth breaking it up: Anse Cochon, roughly halfway, is a quiet dark-sand cove with some of the island's healthiest inshore snorkelling and makes a perfect mooring-ball lunch stop. Winds funnel and die off the valleys, so keep the sheets in hand and let the engines fill the gaps. Arriving into Rodney Bay mid-afternoon leaves time for the important job: clearing customs and immigration out of St. Lucia at the marina office, so tomorrow's crossing can start at first light with paperwork already done. Chores finished, reward the crew — dinghy toward Pigeon Island for a swim and watch the sun drop into the sea beside Fort Rodney. If it happens to be Friday, the famous street party at Gros Islet fires up just behind the anchorage.

Things to do

Break the passage at Anse Cochon for a snorkel over its inshore reef

Clear customs and immigration out of St. Lucia at Rodney Bay Marina

Dinghy to Pigeon Island for a sunset swim below Fort Rodney

Join the Friday-night street party at Gros Islet if your timing lands right

Mooring tip

Drop the hook off Reduit Beach again in 3–6 m of good sand, handy for the marina customs office. Clear out the evening before so you can sail for Martinique at dawn without waiting for offices to open.

Grande Anse d'Arlet
6
Day 6

Rodney Bay → Grande Anse d'Arlet

Slip out of Rodney Bay at first light with clearance papers already stamped, and the channel usually rewards you: 20 NM on a fast beam-to-broad reach, the Atlantic swell shouldering under the hulls until Martinique's Cap Salomon draws its wind shadow over the water. Grande Anse d'Arlet opens up as a deep, calm horseshoe of pale sand backed by a low-key fishing village — this is the French clearance point on this coast, so head ashore to the customs computer, tap in the crew list, and you're legally back in France in ten minutes. Then the real business: the bay's seagrass meadows host one of the Caribbean's most reliable green turtle populations, and you'll likely spot them surfacing beside the boat before you've even got fins on. Snorkel slowly, keep your distance, and let them graze. Ashore, beach restaurants line the sand, and a short dinghy ride south brings you to Les Anses-d'Arlet's photogenic church-and-pier waterfront.

Things to do

Snorkel the seagrass beds with Grande Anse's resident green turtles

Clear back into France at the village customs computer

Dinghy south to Les Anses-d'Arlet's famous church-and-pier view

Grab a barefoot creole lunch at the beach restaurants lining the sand

Mooring tip

Pick up one of the white visitor buoys laid to protect the seagrass — anchoring is restricted across much of the bay, and the turtles are the reason why. Buoys are first-come, so arrive by early afternoon in high season.

Le Marin
7
Day 7

Grande Anse d'Arlet → Le Marin

Save one last snorkel with the turtles before coffee, then point the bows south for the finale. Twenty minutes out you'll round Diamond Rock, a sheer 175-metre volcanic plug with a story worth telling on the way: in 1804 the Royal Navy landed cannon and sailors on it and commissioned the islet as 'HMS Diamond Rock', a stone warship that harassed French shipping for a year and a half before being retaken. The wind accelerates between the rock and the Martinique shore, so expect a few lively gusts and short chop as you pass — a final flourish before the south coast flattens the sea for the reach home. If the schedule allows, drop the hook off Sainte-Anne one more time for lunch and a swim, then follow the buoyed channel through the mangroves into Le Marin. Top up the fuel at the marina dock, hand back the boat, and start plotting the return trip — most crews do before they've left the dock.

Things to do

Take a farewell snorkel with the turtles before slipping the mooring

Round HMS Diamond Rock and retell its 1804 stone-warship story

Anchor off Sainte-Anne for one last lunch swim if time allows

Refuel at Le Marin's fuel dock before the check-out walkthrough

Mooring tip

Give Diamond Rock a respectful offing — wind funnels and seas stack in the gap between rock and shore — then time your arrival to reach Le Marin's fuel dock before the late-afternoon rush. Berthing for check-out is directed by the base team on VHF.

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