Playa Santa Lucia

Twenty Kilometres Of North Coast Beach With A Barrier Reef Offshore, Shipwreck Diving And A Long Running Bull Shark Feeding Dive, Served By A Handful Of Ageing All Inclusive Hotels · Nuevitas, Camaguey

Camaguey's north coast runs for twenty kilometres of pale sand here, with a barrier reef a couple of kilometres offshore that keeps the water flat and holds a long list of shipwrecks. It is the diving that gives Santa Lucia whatever fame it has, and one dive in particular: for years a divemaster has hand-fed bull sharks at the wreck of the Nuestra Senora de Altagracia, a seasonal and frankly contested piece of theatre that brings divers a long way. At the western end, Playa Los Cocos sits by the Nuevitas channel with better sand, a fishing hamlet and a lagoon where flamingos feed. The handful of all-inclusive hotels along the strip are faded, built for a market that never quite arrived, which is why the beach is cheap, quiet and largely empty. Horse and cart is still the ordinary way to move along the strip. Two hours inland sits Camaguey, a UNESCO old town of maze-like streets, and hardly anyone who flies in for this beach ever goes to see it.

Playa Santa Lucia, Nuevitas, Camaguey, Nuevitas, Camaguey, Cuba

The beach is public and open at all times. The hotels run year round. DIVING IS ARRANGED AT THE DIVE CENTRE and depends on boats, fuel and weather; the BULL SHARK FEEDING DIVE has been seasonal, generally in the winter months, and should be confirmed rather than assumed. The flamingo lagoon at the Nuevitas channel is best in the early morning.

Playa Santa Lucia on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos