Playa Santa Lucia

Santa Lucía runs for around twenty kilometres along the northern Camagüey coast, backed by a handful of hotels and fronted by a barrier reef a couple of kilometres offshore, which keeps the water calm and shallow. The reef and the wrecks along it are the reason divers come, and the site known for feeding bull sharks off the mouth of the Nuevitas channel is the best known dive in Cuba. At the western end, Playa Los Cocos is a separate beach beside a fishing village with a flamingo lagoon behind it.

What you actually see

• The beach - some twenty kilometres of sand with shallow, calm water inside the reef.
• The barrier reef - coral a couple of kilometres offshore with wrecks along it.
• The shark dive - a seasonal site where bull sharks are fed at the channel mouth.
• Playa Los Cocos - a quieter beach by a fishing village, with flamingos on the lagoon behind.

When to go

November to April is the dry season and the diving is best then. The bull shark dive runs in a limited season, generally in the cooler months. Hurricane season from August to October affects this coast.

Honest expectations

The resort strip is small and dated compared with Varadero or the keys, and food options outside hotels are very limited. Baited shark diving is controversial and worth thinking about before booking. Seaweed accumulates on parts of the beach at certain times of year.

Nearby

Camaguey is a couple of hours inland, and Nuevitas is west along the coast.