Las Cuevas Bay

If Maracas Bay is the poster child for Trinidad’s beaches with its imported sand, “Bake and Shark” stalls and decent bathroom facilities, then Las Cuevas Bay must be her ugly sister. One has to drive about 10-15 minutes further down the North Coast road. It is easy driving with no forks in the road till the beach. This is another one of those beaches in Trinidad that doesn’t get the publicity of Maracas (in fact, no beach in Trinidad gets the publicity of Maracas) but is just as good or even better in terms of water quality.

On the eastern end, on a low cliff above the beach, there are beach facilities consisting of a snack bar, showers, toilets, changing rooms and car parking. The eastern end of the bay is more sheltered and lifeguards patrol this section with posted flag warnings. The beach facility itself, has better bathroom and changing facilities than Maracas but there is only one main food stall, so the variety here is lacking, but most Trinis will pack a cooler or basket with food and head out for the “beach lime”.

“Las Cuevas” is derived from the Spanish word for caves and there are many caves on this beach. This bay is more sheltered than Maracas and is therefore calmer – there are lifeguards on the beach from 10am – 6pm, but of course this is Trinidad – so who knows if and when they will actually get there.

The water is clear and provides excellent swimming with waves reaching to 0.82m / 3ft . Also there are many fishermen who “park” their boats on the eastern side of the bay and there is usually fresh fish on sale at the eastern end of the beach.

On the western end of the beach, there is much less development and a lot more vegatation, so inherently there would be more of a security concern going down towards the western end.

Getting there:
From Port of Spain – head on the Lady Young Road, then through St Ann’s and up Saddle Road. It should be about a 20 min drive until Saddle Road meets the North Coast Road then it is straight driving past Maracas and Tyrico Bays to Las Cuevas.