Ile Tintamarre St Martin

Moored off off Tintemarre island

Our plan for Wednesday 9 January was to dive on the wreck of Le Remorqueur, a small tugboat that was deliberately sunk off Tintemarre island to make an artificial reef, and then to return to Marigot Bay.  So at 0935 we raised anchor off Ile Pinel and 45 minutes later had picked up a mooring in the National Park off Tintemarre.

Tintemarre is a low-lying uninhabited island with, on its west side, a beautiful white sand beach backed by scrub and, at its northern end orange and grey rocks, almost mini cliffs.

It’s a lovely place and if we hadn’t felt somewhat pressed for time and feeling as if we needed to make progress north and west, we would probably have stayed a day or two and walk across the island.

Our wreck dive site conveniently marked with a white buoy just beyond the headland

We prepared our kit and took the dinghy out to the small white buoy marking the wreck site.  With the water about 16m deep at this point we were pleased that the buoy was in place as it gave us something to tie the dinghy to. Whilst we do have plenty of chain and rope for the dinghy’s grapnel anchor we were a lot more confident that the dinghy would stay put tied to the buoy rather than anchored on the sand.

The tugboat sits, almost perfectly upright, in a patch of clear sand.  It’s by no means a large dive site but the local fish population evidently loves the wreck, particularly the enormous school of Tomtates that greeted us as we sank down into the turquoise depths.

The wreck is gathering a good encrustation of corals all over but it is still very clear that it was a tug.  I don’t know how long it has been in situ but the fish (and the divers) will have many more years of fun out of it.

Top left: another Lionfish – they’re a bit too common around here. Top right: Cocoa damselfish in its ‘light adult’ colouring.  It will turn quite dusky when it’s a little larger.  Bottom left:  Mustard hill coral (?) with 2 Christmas tree worms in the centre.  Bottom right:  a trio of Spotted goatfish just hangin’ around on the wreck and rooting out food with their barbels

Top right: Bluestriped grunt with Giant brain coral behind it, a Sergeant major in the background on the right and the school of Tomtates in the background on the left.  Bottom: Porkfish disappearing on the left, Giant brain coral on the right with another Sergeant major behind and to the left

The number of different species living on and around the wreck was quite amazing.  Everywhere we looked there was something different to point out to each other and to watch.

We have not had any wreck diving training and so could not enter the wreck but we could still peer in through the portholes and open doors and watch the fish inside.

Bottom left: Corals, including Purple leaf coral and a hiding Cocoa damselfish in its ‘light adult’ colouring. Remaining pictures: The size of the school of Tomtates was quite staggering.  Seeing it up so close we felt rather as if we were in a David Attenborough programme

It was a fabulous dive and being such a small site we were able to go round a couple of times to make sure that we hadn’t missed anything.  And then, reluctantly, we headed for the surface – take only memories (and photos!), leave only bubbles.

Le Remorquer Tugboat 

Back at BV we used our remaining air on some navigation and buoyancy training in the relatively shallow water (5-6m) around her mooring.  And then it was time to return to Marigot Bay to get BV ready to move further west.

Ile Tintamarre, St Martin