Saint-Martin is the French 60% of a tiny 37 square mile (96 sq km) island jointly owned with the Dutch Saint Maarten (see Netherlands Antilles). The island was devastated by Hurricane Luis in September 1995 and has only slowly returned as the luxury holiday duty-free shopping destination that it was. There have been no whale or dolphin surveys in the waters around the French (northern) side of Saint-Martin. The type of tourism (timeshare apartments, shopping, beaches) is less conducive to attracting those who might be interested in seeing cetaceans.

From St.-Barthélemy (St. Barth's), in 1997, Arnaud Apremont set up a small research group, Saint-Barths Cétacés, and began taking photo-ID shots of humpback whales as they passed St. Barths between January and June. In 1997 he counted 111 whales during the season, and in 1998 he found 103 whales. 1999 records have yet to be processed but as of March 25th, he had logged 53 humpback whales off St. Barths. In 1999, with the assistance of Mr. Apremont's records, Patrick Laplace from St. Barth Sea Cursion became the first operator to offer whale watching here, taking people to see humpback whales. It may also be possible to see sperm whales in May and other months off the northwest of the island. As well, the reefs on the west side of St. Barths, accessible via diving charters out of Gustavia, are often visited by various dolphin species.
A 1200-hectare marine protected area protects and draws attention to the richness of the marine ecological systems around St-Barths. Although this does not cover all the possible whale and dolphin areas offshore, it does provide a good starting point and atmosphere for developing sustainable, high quality, respectful whale watch tourism.