Here I shall detail my travel experiences, nature adventure moments, and how much I enjoyed traveling with my family. I also took some nature photography on this trip which I shall share.

Place

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Saints Martin’s Island

In the middle of the blue waters of the sea is the small island of Saint Martin.
Saint Martin is a small island in the northeast corner of the Bay of Bengal, south of Bangladesh. It is situated at the mouth of the Naf River, 9 km south of Teknaf in Cox's Bazar district. This coral island is an attractive and popular tourist spot for sea lovers, especially Bangladeshis. Tourists come here in November-April every year. The island is also known as Coconut Jinjira as coconuts are abundant on this island.I can't use the map in the post so I gave the location screenshot

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Saint Martin Island,20-02-2020.

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Some descriptions of this island

Some people on this island were known as Jinjira at first. Later some Bengali and Rakhine communities started living as fishermen. The island already had thickets and kia trees, the fishermen planted a lot of coconut trees to alleviate water stress and thirst, and since then the island has become a major coconut tree and a lot of coconut trees grow here.

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Coconut garden

So then this island was known as Coconut Jinjira. Later, the island came to be known as Saint Martin's Island outside the people of this region.

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keya tree

About 66 species of corals are found on this island. In addition, seaweed, marine fish, crabs, and various species of snails and oysters are available. Among seaweeds, red algae are quite popular. Around the island, there are many jagged corals where there is a chance of cutting your feet if you walk barefoot. To the south of this island, there is a small island known as Chinra Dwip. The island is accessible by foot during low tide but by boat during high tide. It is an uninhabited island.

Saint Martin's sunset

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According to the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, the Ministry of Environment has declared 1743 km of the Bay of Bengal as a marine protected area. Then many people come here to visit just to see its natural beauty.

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Chheradip Island

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Saint Martin Beach

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Location

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Saint Martin is located in Cox's Bazar, the southernmost district of Bangladesh. It is a union closest to the Teknaf sub-district of Cox's Bazar which is Saint Martin Island. It is the only coral island in Bangladesh.

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Access to travel or transportation to the location

Saint Martin goes both ways-

From Dhaka to Teknaf by bus and from Teknaf by ship directly to Saint Martin Island.

You can go by air or bus journey from Dhaka. Cox's Bazar International Airport can be reached by plane from Dhaka Airport. From Cox's Bazar we have to go to Saint Martin Island by ship again.

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Tickets /fees

A day ago we booked a ticket to St. Martin from Saydabad and also booked a ticket to St. Martin by ship from Teknaf. We collect all tickets from Shyamoli NR Travels. Since we live in Uttara of Dhaka, we first went to Sayedabad from Uttara. There are many bus services from Sayedabad to Teknaf. Later, Saint Martin Island is reached by boat from Teknaf in just two and a half hours.

The bus fare for 4 people from Dhaka to Teknaf was Tk 4400
The fare from Teknaf to San Martin was 500 taka per person by The Atlantic Cruise.

Facilities/conditions

Saint Maarten has good quality resorts for accommodation and food. Online resort booking is best. Rooms can be booked in two ways, online and offline. We went through online booking for two nights.

Auto and Vans are available for commuting and sightseeing. Fresh seafood is available for meals.

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Activities we do when in nature

We started our journey on the night of 17-02-2020, first, we left Uttara for Saydabad, and from there we started for Teknaf by Shyamoli NR Paribahan. Arrived at Teknaf Jetty Ghat around 6 am. There are many hotels with breakfast here. Everyone was hungry, so I finished the breakfast. All of us passengers started our journey from 8:30 to the jetty, and one by one we all started walking towards it.

The surroundings were quite beautiful. This method has been observed in mangrove forests where the roots are visible above, trapping the saline water and keeping it for making salt.

Many ships take passengers to Saint Martin from the jetty. Many people go by spread boat but to me, it seems very risky. We all sat on the Atlantic Cruse looking at the seat numbers. It felt very good, I was a little scared to go on a new journey again over the Bay of Bengal. The ship started moving, sailing across the Naf River between Bangladesh on one side and Myanmar on the other towards Saint Martin. Accompanied by Gangchils (seagulls) which added another dimension.
I could not say when I fell asleep from the start of the journey.

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When I woke up, I saw the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, nothing else could be seen around. I thought there would be a lot of waves in the sea, but it doesn't feel like any waves in the sea, but it feels good. The fear is over. The sea Gangchills and flies with us as the cross runs. The view is very beautiful, when the chips are thrown from the ship into the sea, they are caught again by the Gangchils( mews)for food. In two and a half hours we arrived at Sant Martin Jetty. The market is next to the jet. Vans and autos are available here to reach the hotel rooms. We hired a van for 4 of us to go to the hotel room. After that, I came to Kingshuk Resort to see the surrounding beauty.

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The feeling of spending two nights in Saint Martin

I went to the rest and got a little fresh, the resort is very beautiful, well-decorated, and surrounded by greenery, a small cottage is arranged separately for the honeymoon couple. There is a swing to relax, lie down and see the sea. Our resort was near the private beach, there is less crowd of other people, and the sea beach is just outside the resort.

We came out of the resort and spent the whole day on the beach. I looked around the beach. We went down to the beach, seeing that there are no waves in the sea, you can go far. After spending a lot of time in the sea, We came to the resort to eat. There was a food service in this resort. It was good to eat the fresh fish of the sea because we came a little late, We did not get the dry food and it was over. So I told the restaurant boy to have dry food for us the next day.

In the afternoon we explored the KeyaPatar forest and took many pictures. There are small shops near the beach, and there are many green coconuts available, so I used to eat green coconuts and the water of green coconuts is very sweet.

kEYA FRUITS

In the afternoon we used to sit in the shop and eat tea, there were many dogs here, and my son used to buy a loaf of bread and feed it to the dogs. Since then, when we went out, the dogs stayed with us.

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We saw the sunrise in the morning and my husband and I took a morning walk for a while, my son rented a cycle and cycled for a while, cycling in the sand is very difficult. There are many shops near the market in the afternoon, and many types of food are available, especially fresh fish, instant fresh fish is fried for food.

At night the hotel management organizes a BBQ party, the whole beach is full of music because every resort organizes a bbq party. If you like to fish, it will be BBQ, you have to pay yourself, the price of coral fish was 1600 taka. The coral fish was quite an amazing taste to eat.

At night I would sit on the swing and watch the stars in the sky, there were many swings near the beach inside the resort so you can see the beach while lying on the swing. I used to lie down and watch the beach to relax. This feeling is another feeling. Watching the sunset in the evening, wearing a saree, walking around with my family, having fun, and doing photoshoots, all in all, a joyful atmosphere.

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We all boarded the motorboat the next day and went to Chheradip Island. As a child, I was very afraid of this engine-driven boat, I thought the boat had sunk. The Chheradip island is only a keya tree forest, sand, and beach-only coral reef. After spending the allotted hours here, I came back to the resort. All in all, my trip to Saint Martin Island was quite charming.

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What moment of joy and sorrow do I feel

Actually, I enjoyed the whole journey quite well and then I liked some things and some things I disliked. It was really great when I used to go near the beach at night and see what was burning, I would take them in my hand and see the light. Actually, these were phytoplankton.

And the worst thing is that everyone throws away the packets after eating, so many plastic packets are floating in the sea. I didn't like it at all. We ourselves are destroying our environment. Also, the beach comes from the small shops that are built next to it and we eat some food and throw the packets down, making the beach area dirty. These discarded plastic packets end up in the ocean causing waste to marine life and even corals.

One more thing that was bad was that when we went to Cheradawip none of us were given life jackets. When we were in the middle, two policemen came in a speed boat and asked us to stop the boat and the engine broke down again. Then there was a little fear in the middle of the sea. Seeing that we did not have life jackets, the boatman was scolded and slapped by the police. He said that if the boat sinks here, how will these people survive, if they have life jackets, they will be saved to some extent.

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