Which Beach?

[torwa]

We will be in Port from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. Will probably just catch a cab to a beach. Which beach is the nicest, in your opinion? view of Nevis would be nice, and does NOT need to be the biggest party beach. Thanks in advance.

[paul58]

The best view of Nevis from St Kitts would be the beaches located on Cockleshell Bay.They are also the farthest from the port. There are many cruisers that visit Reggae Beach & Spice Mill on these beaches. There will be several ships in port on 2/15/17 besides yours. Many people go the beaches located on South Friars Bay. There is Shipwreck & Carambola which are restaurant/beach bars. There are a few smaller ones also. The Royal Clipper, a large sailing cruise ship is scheduled to be in St Kitts that day and usually anchors offshore at South Friars Bay.

Edited January 22, 2017 by paul58
additional information

[pghsteelerfan]

We've been to both Cockleshell Beach (May 2013) and South Friars Bay (September 2015) and both beaches had good views of Nevis. When at Cockleshell Beach, it was mostly cloudy so we only saw the bottom half of Nevis that day.

 

View of cloud covered Nevis from Cockleshell Beach near Reggae Beach Bar/Grille (May 2013)

 

This is also Cockleshell Beach, down toward the other end near Spice Mill (May 2013)

 

View of Nevis from South Friar's Bay at Shipwreck Beach Bar/Grille. The view is about the same, minus the black sand, at Carambola Beach Club. Carambola is at the northern end of South Friars and Shipwreck is at the southern end. (September 2015)

 

You asked which was the nicest...that's all really personal opinion. Cockleshell is a wider beach with nice views. South Friars Bay also has nice views. I've never been to Carambola, so I can't comment personally. Many people love it and prefer it over Shipwreck for the wider beach. Shipwreck, while we loved it, isn't for everyone. There has been erosion over the years, so there is only room for one row of loungers/palapas. The sand is black and it's very rustic. If it's a windy day and the water is rough, I probably would not recommend it because even when it's calm, the water comes up to where the loungers are. There are nails in the palapas to hang belongings from so they don't get wet. The loungers are free but we did purchase beer to drink from Shipwreck. Their drink prices are reasonable. The scenery from the restaurant area is large enough with great views since it's on a little hill over the beach. There are stairs leading down to the beach from the restaurant. I can't comment on the food since we didn't eat there, but I believe the prices were reasonable.

 

Hope this helps.

[crewsweeper]

Even further erosion at Shipwreck last week. I love rough edged places, but there wasn't much beach there. Food service is slow and looks expensive to me. Just wanted a snack. Cheapest thing on menu was conch fritters at $8.

Fresh fish catch dinners were going for $20 and up with a sammie at $15. I ordered the fritters and 15 minutes later when our bus was leaving they were still in the kitchen. Hope who ever ate them finally enjoyed them. The beer prices were reasonable though.

[mitsugirly]

We have been to both South Friars Bay and Conkleshell and prefer Friars. I have reviews of both Reggae at Conkleshell and Carambola at Friars. They both have TONS of pictures to show you what they look like.

 

We really didn't care for Reggae. It was crowded and everyone was lined up with beach chairs right next to each other at the water. The beach is fairly long, but doesn't go back very far and had a few rows. So, if you are not in the front row (which fills up quickly and can be reserved for tours), then your view is going to be an umbrella in front of you and not the beach or water. The service wasn't the greatest either and we had to track down the waiter for our drink. There was also a guy trying to sell homemade CD's he downloaded off the internet (admitted by him) that came by at least every 1/2 hour asking over and over. It was annoying.

 

Carambola was a nice huge beach with plenty of room to spread out and plenty of room between the water and the chairs. We had a good time there. Although we did have an issue with them when it came time to eat our food we ordered (wouldn't allow us to eat at the tables under the roof where the bar is located unless we had clothes on...however there were several people up there eating at the tables with no shoes or shirts on :mad:).

 

We also walked down the beach to Shipwreck to check out the black sand. The black sand started half way between Carambola and Shipwreck and it was AMAZING! Definitely something to see. We did discover another place to go to next time...Discovery and is the place in the middle of these two. It was quiet and no one was there. It's where we will go next time for sure.

 

Check out my pictures in my review and see which might fit your needs.

[paul58]

The guy selling CD's has been hustling for years on the beaches in St Kitts.The first time I met him he was selling music on cassette tapes. I gave him crap about copyright infringement but he didn't mind. He remembers me when we see him but I do not buy anything from him. One of the first times we saw him, he was offering us an island tour in "our" rental car! He is really a nice guy, just trying to make a living.

[mitsugirly]

The guy selling CD's has been hustling for years on the beaches in St Kitts.The first time I met him he was selling music on cassette tapes. I gave him crap about copyright infringement but he didn't mind. He remembers me when we see him but I do not buy anything from him. One of the first times we saw him, he was offering us an island tour in "our" rental car! He is really a nice guy, just trying to make a living.

 

 

Agreed. After about the sixth time he came back and asked us to purchase a CD, my husband finally said something like "Do you think if you keep coming back and asking us over and over you will somehow get a different answer?" or something like that. He said "yes, sometimes people do change their minds" and then sat down and started talking to us. (That's how we found out he was just going home, and copying the music from online, onto the CD and then selling it (yes, copyright infringement). We still didn't buy any and made the comment that if we wanted to listen to reggae music that we could simply do what he was doing and download it from the internet. But still...it made for an interesting conversation. :p

[mystone99]

Went to Shipwreck earlier this month and it was great.

Here are some pics.

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Went to Shipwreck earlier this month and it was great.

Here are some pics.

 

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Awesome pics. You must have been there during low tide or something. It looks like there's quite a bit of an area between the lounge chairs and the water. The day we were there it looked more like this:

 

 

The closer you got to Shipwreck (the actual restaurant) the less space there was.

 

It also looks like the sand wasn't as black the day you were there. I guess it varies and this helps me understand why I have seen other pictures of the sand not being so black when others went.

 

Does anyone know what determines how black the sand is? Is it the time of year? Day? Weather conditions?