St. Martin · MF

Caye Chateau

Caye Château is a thumb-sized sand-and-coral islet sitting in the surf on the windward north coast of the French side of St Martin, just offshore from the road that climbs past Orient Bay. It has almost nothing built on it and that is precisely the point: a small cay, a flat shoal reef, and one of the island's most quietly hypnotic natural scenes. Because the reef shoals so gently, waves arrive here from two different directions at once and break against the little hump of land — a shape that gave the cay its name, "château". At low water you can wade out from the shore to the first islet and find sand dollars, sea biscuits, coral and shells scattered around it, which is why locals also call the spot Shell Island. There are no tickets, no beach bar and no schedule; visitors come for a calm dip and a strange piece of coastline that does not look like the postcard St Martin.