Deep-sea diving on Saint Martin: Loisirs bleus

Water sports on Saint Martin: Deep-sea diving

A piece of useful advice to novices: don’t attempt your first dive in a non-certified diving centre with an unqualified instructor. Even more experienced frogmen should avoid wandering off the shore to deeper regions of the astonishing seabed without a proper guide.

Saint Martin owns two marine reserves

This is why underwater flora and fauna are rigorously protected by authorities, and can thus reproduce and develop in peace. The majority of diving sites are equipped with mooring buoys in order to avoid damage caused by anchoring. Diving sites are numerous, counting about forty around the northern point of the island and its smaller surrounding isles. Orient Bay, on the Atlantic Coast also classifies as an underwater reserve. Diving is ideal to a depth of 18 meters around the Rocher Creole, north of Grand Case. Tintamarre island’s most important site is the shipwreck of a small towboat 15 meters below sea level. The seabed of Basse Espagnole, situated between Tintamarre and Saint Martin, is also accessible in good weather.

A great number of species can be observed in the area, among them sea fans, crayfish, turtles, sponges, helmet shells, and so many multicoloured fish that you’ll feel just like in an aquarium. More experienced divers can discover the cannons of the shipwreck of Proselyte, which sank in 1801, or marvel at a school of rays around the shipwreck of La Renee. Whatever your level, the enchanting sea beds of Saint Martin’s forty diving sites are sure to capture your imagination. Diving institutions propose initiation trips for beginners, exploration dives, night dives, special tariffs and possibilities of passing to different levels.