USP Spa and sail weekends where you get a trip out to sea aboard a luxury yacht, "to experience the stunning Jersey coastline", and lavish spa treatments in relaxing surroundings at a brand new St Helier hotel.

AMBIENCE Spa Sirène, as the name suggests, takes the legendary siren as its inspiration: “Be it legend, femme fatale, star or seducer, sirens represent our most seductive selves,” as the brochure puts it.

The ambience is one of dreamy pleasure and luxurious indulgence. Chiming nicely with the Royal Yacht’s Channel Island location, the spa’s product range comes from the Phytomer laboratory, situated just across the water in St Malo, Brittany. Phytomer's "marine cosmetics" draw vitamins, antioxidants and amino acids from locally sourced marine plants and algae, which all adds to the feel good factor.

EXPERIENCE Spray on your face, waves crashing along your top sides, ripples playing over the water’s surface — and that’s before you get out of the treatment rooms.

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Spa Sirène etiquette dictates that guests should arrive at least 30 minutes before the start of their treatments to “enjoy the facilities”. Not being one to displease, I pitch up a full hour and half before I’m due to go through. Wearing the robe, slippers and towels provided, I pad my way between the powerful Jacuzzi, the generous sauna — with ice cold bucket shower for the brave — the steam room, the aromatherapy room, the “monsoon experience” shower, which sprays you in everything from relaxing “Caribbean Rain” to bracing “Atlantic Sea Mist”, the thermal suite, and the water-jet swimming pool.

Then it’s down to the serious business with the, ahem, “Bathing Belles” treatment. It begins with a 30-minute soak in a private Jacuzzi bath of “therapeutic marine ingredients” including seawater, seaweed and the “104 trace elements necessary for balance and vitality".

A quick briefing on the giant bath’s control panel, lights are dimmed and the ever present tinkly, twinkly music is cranked up a notch. Jets hum, throb and whirl as they work on knotted muscles; water broils and boils, I float, then float away. What seems like days later, my therapist arrives and I’m taken off for a full body massage, tailored to my specific requirements and based on “refreshing philosophy of fun, relaxation and healthy selfishness”.

Floating of a more fundamental kind comes with the sailing. An early start and I find myself at the harbour across the road to meet Will Carnegie, a former officer with the Royal Navy, and the skipper of the 34ft Dufour yacht, Veritas.

Will, the director of Jersey Sailing, which has teamed up with the hotel to run the spa and sail package, is passionate about the Channel Islands and what they have to offer the seafarer. “It’s all about the tides,” he says. “That is what makes the islands a unique sailing experience. The range of tide and the race of the water can add another two or three knots to your normal boat speed so you get a lot further in a day — another 20 miles if you get it right.”

A typical day sail with Will might get you right around the island of Jersey — some 40 miles — or across to the storm-swept Les Ecrehous islets, where abandoned fisherman’s huts have been turned into holiday homes and where at low tide arcing sand bars and silver pools are exposed.

Seals, whale sharks, puffins and gannets are there to be admired. Defensive forts, from the Neolithic to the Second World War, are testament to the islands’ continuing status as strategic jewels. Today Will, and I head southeast to Corbiere lighthouse and then tack around for an anchorage at Beauport Bay and a picnic lunch of sushi, salad and langoustine. A quick dip and then it’s an exhilarating race back to St Helier. If it’s sea minerals you’re after, then a day out with Will matches the spa treatment.

IN-CROWD Ageing pop stars, retired racing drivers and even television talent scouts have been known to grace the treatment room benches, but Jersey being Jersey, the in crowd largely consists of rich financiers and their wives eager to redistribute some of the wealth that only a tax haven can bring.

FOOD An all-day brunch comes with most of the treatments. Choose between the Mediterranean salad with caspian and cucumber "to help lung function and boost fluids"; sushi and sashimi “for essential omega 3s”; a lobster and prawn platter which promises a low-fat source of protein bursting with minerals and the antioxidant selenium to keep you looking young, with zinc to "boost immune systems and libido”; sandwiches and fruit. The smoothies are amazing and a meal in themselves.

WALLET WATCH The Spa and Sail package costs £259 per person, based on two people sharing. It includes two nights in one of the brand new “gold double or twin” rooms, a day on the water aboard a 34ft yacht with a local skipper, dinner in one of three restaurants at the hotel, a treatment at the hotel’s Spa Sirène and use of the swimming pool, steam rooms, sauna and gym.

Other weekend spa offerings at the Royal Yacht include a “First Mate, Soul Mate” package of indulgence for couples, and the “Confidence Clinic” which works over then pampers your emotional self as much as your physical. The 110-minute Bathing Belles soak and massage costs £100.

NEED TO KNOW The Royal Yacht, Weighbridge, St Helier, Jersey, JE2 3NF (01534 720511;
www.theroyalyacht.com). E-mail: reception @theroyalyacht.com

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