Marigot Bay, St. Martin, French West Indies

Marigot Bay on St. Martin's French side is one of the Caribbean's most elegant anchorages — a small, sheltered harbor where the division between French and Dutch halves of this remarkable island is most keenly felt. The French side trades the Dutch side's duty-free shopping frenzy for café culture, boulangeries, and a waterfront market that channels the Antilles through a Parisian sensibility.

The waterfront along the Bay de Marigot provides St. Martin's most atmospheric strolling — colonial buildings housing restaurants that serve lobster thermidor and accras de morue (salt cod fritters) with equal conviction, and a Wednesday and Saturday market where spices, tropical produce, and Creole crafts create one of the Caribbean's most colorful shopping experiences.

Fort Louis, the eighteenth-century fortification above the bay, provides panoramic views across Marigot Bay, the neighboring island of Anguilla, and the surrounding Caribbean that explain every strategic decision ever made about this coastline. The climb is brief but rewarding, particularly at sunset when the light transforms the bay into a watercolor.

Emerald Yacht Cruises, Seabourn, and Windstar Cruises anchor in Marigot Bay, with the intimate harbor providing access to the French side's beaches — including the clothing-optional Baie Orientale — and the restaurants of Grand Case, a small village on the northeast coast known as the 'Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean' for its concentration of fine dining in a community of barely a few hundred residents.

December through April provides the driest conditions. Marigot Bay is the Caribbean's most convincing proof that an island can be shared between two nations and produce not conflict but complementarity — the French elegance and Dutch energy creating together what neither could achieve alone.