Best snorkeling from a beach?

[Nettiejeanne]

This is my husband and my first time to St Kitts. We bring our own snorkeling gear and are wondering the best beach to visit for snorkeling.

 

Thanks in advance for any info you can give me!

[PORT ROYAL]

This is my husband and my first time to St Kitts. We bring our own snorkeling gear and are wondering the best beach to visit for snorkeling.

 

Thanks in advance for any info you can give me!

 

Nothing decent let alone average. Something, sometimes off Shipwreck Beach Bar, but subject to cloudy sand conditions in the sea. Warning - Fire Coral

[Nettiejeanne]

Nothing decent let alone average. Something, sometimes off Shipwreck Beach Bar, but subject to cloudy sand conditions in the sea. Warning - Fire Coral

 

Is Shipwreck Beach the one with black sand? And what on earth is fire coral???? Sounds horrible!

[PORT ROYAL]

Is Shipwreck Beach the one with black sand? And what on earth is fire coral???? Sounds horrible!

 

Yes, but only some black sand, accompanied by a 45 degree beach. Beds are free when taking drinks/food.

 

Fire Coral

https://www.thoughtco.com/how-does-fire-coral-look-2963123

[RMH]

I thought the snorkeling at South Friars was decent, but seeing any fish at all is what I consider decent. I did see several sea urchins, but as long as you are not walking on the rocks/reef, you should be OK - they are not in the sand.

 

The rocks came right up to the beach where we were at and we had to navigate out about 20 yards into the water before the rocks ended and it was all sand. But at that point it was nice to swim and snorkel parallel to the beach. We were located midway between Carambolla and Sunset Beach Bar, so the water entrance might be better at different points along the beach. The water was not crystal clear, but it was not too cloudy either.

[Birdnutty]

We had good luck at reggae beach bar. Go all the way to the left as you're facing the water. There are some rocks there that lend interesting hiding places for critters.

Fire coral is a red coral that you don't want to get too near. It causes nasty burns that take forever to heal, sometimes not ever going away completely. Just avoid and you'll be fine.

[ColoradoGurl]

We snorkeled on our own, from the beach at Carambola Beach Club (which I believe is Cockleshell Beach). We thought it was fun, very clear water, plenty of fish and sea urchins, very little coral.

 

The water was so salty that we could easily float on our stomachs without life jackets comfortably.

 

We didn’t see any fire coral when we were there, but a couple of us did get stung by jellyfish.

 

I’ve had to swim through massive amounts of fire coral in the middle of the ocean in Belize. No choice but to swim through it, and we weren’t wearing wet suits, just bikinis, so we definitely got initiated into the world of fire coral. Ouch. We still enjoyed our snorkel because Belize is AMAZING for HUGE colorful coral that comes all the way out of the water, tons of exotic and colorful fish etc. We’ve snorkeled in a dozen different islands and have never seen anything so beautiful.

 

If we’d come across fire coral at cockleshell, the views wouldn’t have been worth the pain of staying in the water, but we had a good time and the kids snorkeled for about 4 hours.

 

 

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