Saint Martin 2019: Part 4 - Anse Marcel Beach and Pinel Island

Anse Marcel is a picturesque beach located in a quiet bay in the north of Saint Martin. The drive there offers beautiful views. More importantly for me it’s one of the beaches where the water is pretty calm and shallow as the bay is protected from the swell.

Before going to Saint Martin this year I read online that Anse Marcel Beach Restaurant and Bar had reopened. So we jumped at the opportunity to stay there for lunch and possibly spend the whole day.

As we approached Anse Marcel a great view of the azure sea and Anguilla in the distance opened up in front of us.

We were pleasantly surprised by how nice Anse Marcel beach restaurant and bar looked. The gazebos face the sea and have cozy seating and tables with white linens.

There is a large seating area near the bar/kitchen as well.

Even the bathrooms look stylish.

It was around 10 am and we were among the first people on the beach. The sea looked beautiful and calm and we noticed that the beach chairs had comfy thick cushions. We went up to the bar to rent chairs and make a reservation for lunch. But alas the only available reservations for lunch were after 2:30 pm which was too late for us. We had to get lunch elsewhere and ended up going to Sol e Luna restaurant (see my post on Saint Martin restaurants).

Our parents Nancy and David came to Anse Marcel during the week and had no problem getting a table. They were very impressed with their lunch. Here are a couple of dishes they had:

Chicken with scalloped potatoes and mushrooms

Chocolate tart with chocolate mousse dessert. Seeing these photos of the beautifully presented and delicious looking food makes me wish that we had lunch at Anse Marcel too. We are definitely going there on our next trip.

The water looked so inviting that there was no way we could leave without swimming. We decided to spend an hour or so on the beach without renting chairs.

We had a good time swimming and walking along the beach.

The north end of the beach which is away from the restaurant looks more deserted.

By the time we left at around 11 am there was a good amount of people enjoying the beach.

The beach looked almost as lively as it used to be before hurricane Irma.

Here is my photo of Anse Marcel from 2014. There might have been more people before Irma but the beach itself looks as nice now as it used to.

Driving away from Anse Marcel we stopped at a view point to enjoy the panoramic views.

Pinel Island is also on the north of Saint Martin. It is a charming small island with a wonderful beach with shallow calm water.

A short 5-10 minute boat ride from this dock in Cul de Sac takes you to Pinel island. Boats are scheduled every 30 minutes. During high season, the ferries run from Monday through Sunday, from 9:30 am until 5:00 pm. The price is 12 dollars per person round trip. We arrived to the ferry early at 9:30 am but had to wait till 10 am for the first boat to take tourists to the island.

There are a lot of boats and yachts moored in the area along the way to Pinel.

We were the first tourists on Pinel that day so there were plenty of beach chairs to rent. The Yellow Beach section looked inviting.

We rented chairs at Le Karibuni as we wanted to be somewhat away from the pier where boats arrived and departed.

This time it was much quieter on Pinel than in the past. There were considerably less tourists than on our previous trips to Saint Martin.

Karibuni has a restaurant, bathrooms in a separate green shack and a shop with beachwear. Nancy did a little bit of shopping and bought herself a sunhat. We were impressed how well it was made and how great it looked on her.

Gorgeous views opened up right from our chairs. St. Martin’s mountains reminded us of Lake Como a little bit.

We looked at the menu at Karibuni but remembered that we preferred food at the Yellow Beach restaurant in the past. We only got drinks at Karibuni. The servers at Karibuni were really nice and made sure that guests were happy.

We headed to Yellow Beach for our lunch.

There were several specials of the day but we ordered from their regular menu.

I got a salad with shrimp. It was Ok, but I expected it to be better. I should have ordered something simple like barbecue chicken.

Brian got barbecue ribs and it was the better choice. The portion was quite generous. None of us had any dessert.

While sitting at the table in Yellow Beach we watched people feed iguanas. They came up to people pretty close. Some girls shrieked as the iguanas would suddenly run up to them looking for food.

I am a bit afraid of the iguanas myself but I liked their intense colors.

After lunch and a little bit of rest it was time to swim. The water was so clean and shallow just the way I like it. When standing in the water waist deep and looking down we could see different fish.

You can tell by my smile how happy I was with Pinel beach.

The water was so calm that I grabbed my camera and took a couple of photos from the water.

Although Pinel island is small it was nice to walk along the beach.

We had a great time on Pinel and left at 4:30 pm. The last boat is at 5 pm during high season. As the boats are pretty small it’s better to line up at the pier a little bit ahead of time. Some tourists were left waiting for the next boat as there was no space left on ours.

Here are some of my paintings of beautiful St Martin:

Prints of my St Martin paintings are available here.

Please check out my paintings on my website. Thank you!