Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Bart

We're off in mid-May for three weeks of wandering around the beaches
of Anguilla, St. Martin's and St. Bart's. In addition to beach combing,
hiking and sunning, we'll have our snorkel gear and will be looking for
areas that have plenty of colorful fish and flourishing coral. Are there
any 'not-to-be-missed' snorkel spots (either shore-based or excursion)
on these islands or is it all just pretty much average for the
Caribbean? We'll be monitoring the newsgroup for the next few weeks and
any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Better check about snorkeling if you think of Saba. It is a prime
DIVING spot, but I'm not sure about depths for snorkeling.

I haven't found any first-class beach access snorkeling places on St
Martin. The little rock reef off the Pedro's end of Club Orient has
quite a few nice fish in shallow water. I've even seen a green moray
eel there. The snorkeling at Ilet Pinel wasn't anywhere near as good
last I was there. Similarly Baie Rouge. Essentially nothing at Dawn
Beach anywhere near shore, maybe the 1999 hurricane that destroyed the
hotel did in the snorkeling as well. BTW, an upscale hotel w/ condos
is about to be built on that Dawn Beach site. The authorities intend
that there will still be puiblic parking and beach access, but we'll
see how that pans out.

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:42:44 -0400, newfinon94 <fubar@snafu.net>
wrote:

> We're off in mid-May for three weeks of wandering around the beaches
>of Anguilla, St. Martin's and St. Bart's. In addition to beach combing,
>hiking and sunning, we'll have our snorkel gear and will be looking for
>areas that have plenty of colorful fish and flourishing coral. Are there
>any 'not-to-be-missed' snorkel spots (either shore-based or excursion)
>on these islands or is it all just pretty much average for the
>Caribbean? We'll be monitoring the newsgroup for the next few weeks and
>any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
>
Junk's Hole Bay (SE side), Anguilla, has superb snorkeling. A bit
difficult to get to, but worth the effort. Plus, the Palm Grove Cafe
is located on the beach there. Great food and atmosphere.

> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005, Ben Brosgol <brosgol@worldDOTstd.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Consider Saba (reachable by WinAir from St Martin, a 12 minute flight
>>with a never-to-be-forgotten landing :-).
>
>
> I thought my landing on St. Bart's was more memorable than on Saba. On Saba
> if you weren't looking out the window it would seem normal. Not so with the
> descent coming into St. Bart's.
>

Don,

you never landed Saba with wind and rain i think. During my work on St
Martin i had to fly about 20 times tot Saba and 4 times they didn't
manage to land and went on.

That's more thriliing than the little hill descent on St Barths Airport
near Gustavia.

Martijn