Icacos Island Things to Do: How to Fill the Hours Ashore

Icacos island things to do, ordered as a day

Any list of Icacos island things to do is bounded by the boat. The tours on this site quote total trip length, each including the 15 to 20 minute run out from the Fajardo coast: 3.5 hours for the self-drive mini boat, 4 hours for the private charter, 5.5 hours for the catamaran snorkelling tour. Sea conditions can move departure times, so confirm yours the evening before.

Work from the water inwards. The sea is flattest early, the counted crowds build towards mid-afternoon, and there is no shade to retreat into at noon, so put the swim and the snorkel at the front of the day and leave the walk and the camera for the back of it.

• Swim first, while the water is calm and the mid-afternoon boats are still at their marinas
• Snorkel second: off the beach over sand and seagrass, or at the boat's reef stop in about 18 to 25 ft
• Walk the southern end for the quarry traces, then cross to the sand on the north coast
• Eat under the umbrella you brought, since nothing is sold or hired ashore
• Shoot photographs in the lower light before pick-up, then bag every piece of rubbish for the boat

Icacos island swimming on the southwest beach

The swim happens where the boats set you down: a 220-metre run of sand on the southwest shore, catalogued by the natural-resources department as Zone B, the sector held for bathers and the water taxis that deliver them. The bottom there is sand and seagrass, the depth builds slowly as you wade out, and the ring of cays takes most of the wind and swell off the water, which is why it rarely gets choppy before mid-day.

Keep your own count of who is in the water, because the cay has no lifeguard and every swim or snorkel is taken at your own risk. Endangered turtles graze the seagrass meadows just offshore, which is one more reason to float over the bottom rather than stand on it.

Clarity and seaweed follow the calendar. January through March is the driest and flattest run of the year, April hands over to the rainy season, and sargassum in the Atlantic belt builds through spring, peaks in June or July and sits at its lowest in winter. The sand itself moves: littoral currents rebuild the beach profile across the seasons, so the strip you walk in February is not quite the one in July.

Swimming needs nothing except a towel and sun cover, neither of which the cay supplies and none of the three trips here lists. Every format lands you on the same sand, so book one of them for what else it carries.

Snorkelling off the beach and at the reef stop

Two snorkelling sites sit off the cay: the flat reef to the south, where catamarans start their excursions, and the reef beside the mooring buoys, which the department's own survey found richer in fish and coral. The in-water stop boats use is in roughly 18 to 25 ft, which makes it a boat stop rather than a swim from the beach. Snorkelling straight off the sand shows you seagrass, sand patches and the fish that work the shallows.

Gear is covered on all three trips featured here. The catamaran snorkelling tour with lunch includes snorkel gear and an in-person guide, the private charter includes snorkel gear, and the self-drive mini boat hands over premium gear with USCG-approved life jackets plus guided snorkelling on the reserve's reefs.

What passes under the mask is worth knowing before you get in: 83 fish species across 33 families on these reefs, 39 stony coral species recorded in the reserve, and endangered staghorn coral on the shallow reef the tour boats work. That staghorn is why the next number matters. Of the snorkellers departmental observers watched at Icacos, 33 to 34% did at least one damaging thing, with an organism disturbed in 21.6% of the logged behaviours, fins driven into the reef in 19.6% and a hand on coral in 15.6%. Keep your fins up and behind you, stand on nothing hard, and let the captain tie to a mooring buoy.

Walking the cay to the quieter shore and the quarry traces

Icacos holds about 0.659 km² (0.254 sq mi) of dry land, the largest uninhabited cay in its chain, and it is small enough to cross on foot. Behind the beach there are palms, sea grape bushes and rocky points closing each end, and the reserve's management plan records sand on the north coast as well as the south, so there is a second shoreline to reach while the landing beach fills.

The southern end carries the traces people ask about: a limestone quarry once worked there, served by a short railway down to the pier, and the ruins hikers find today are what is left of it. There are no signs, no marked path and nowhere to refill a bottle, so the water you drink on the walk is the water you carried off the boat.

On the walk you will see small rocky islets just offshore from Icacos and from Cayo Ratones. Between March and September they are breeding ground for roseate tern, brown noddy, bridled tern, sooty tern, brown booby and laughing gull, so stay off them and keep your distance from any nesting ground you come across.

The walk needs shoes you do not mind filling with sand, carried water, and spare time. On the 3.5-hour self-drive format the day is tight once you add the convoy cruise and a guided snorkel, so if crossing the cay is high on your shortlist, take the 5.5-hour catamaran tour or a private charter where your group sets the return.

Shade, lunch and photographs on a cay with nothing built on it

Icacos has no permanent facilities. Nothing there is plumbed, sold or collected: no restroom, no drinking water, no food service, no trash collection, and no built shade of any kind. Shade is either carried across or arrives as part of your trip. Plan your picnic around that rather than around a tree you hope to find.

Food and drink are handled inside the tours here. Lunch on the 5.5-hour catamaran snorkelling tour arrives as a deli-style buffet with bean salad, then a fruit platter and cookies, and the drinks run to piña coladas, rum cola, rum punch, water and soft drinks, with beer and gratuities left for you to settle. The private charter brings fruit, ham and cheese sandwiches, snacks, Pepsi, 7up, juice and water, along with a case of Medalla and rum. The self-drive mini boat gives you a personal cooler with ice, light snacks and refreshments. None of the three lists towels, so pack your own.

Photographs are better early. Counts across the department's study zones peaked in the 2:00 p.m. hour at roughly 598 people on average, and by then the light is also at its hardest with nowhere to stand out of it. A 7:00 a.m. check-in at Villa Marina has you over the reef and on the sand well before that curve.

Floats and beach toys appear on some catamaran picnic formats only subject to availability, and none of the three trips featured on this page guarantees inflatables or paddling kit. If floating about is part of the plan, pack a light inflatable, because nothing is hired ashore. Pack out everything you bring as well, since the cay has no bin.

Which trip covers your shortlist

Shortlist two activities, three at most, then book the format that supplies them. Trying to swim, snorkel both reefs, cross the cay and sit through a long lunch inside one boat window means doing all of it in a rush.

Swimming, the reef stop and a lunch you did not carry: Fajardo: Icacos Island Catamaran Snorkeling Tour with Lunch, 5.5 hours, from $130, rated 4.8 ★ (103 reviews), check-in 7:00 a.m. at Villa Marina, with the last shuttle to the vessel leaving 15 minutes before departure. Snorkelling plus the freedom to move between the cays: Self-Drive Mini Boat Snorkeling Tour to Icacos Island, 3.5 hours, from $250, rated 5.0 ★ (1969 reviews), check-in at the white tent next to Sabalos Restaurant at Marina Puerto Chico. A group that wants its own boat, its own choice of cay and its own return time: All-Inclusive Private Charter to Icacos or Palomino Islands, 4 hours, from $638, rated 5.0 ★ (511 reviews).

All three can be cancelled for the full amount back at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time, so hold a weekday morning slot and check the forecast the night before.

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