Snorkeling Park, King’s Wharf (Dockyard), Bermuda

(NOT a ship’s Shore Excursion)

Ship: Norwegian Spirit (NCL)

Sailing Date: July 22^nd, 2006

Date of Snorkel: July 28^th, 2006

Equipment Availability: we have our own which we take with us.  There is no snorkeling equipment available at this site—you MUST take your own.

Water Access: Beach

Although we have cruised to Bermuda 8 times, this was our first trip to include a stop at King’s Wharf (Royal Navy Dockyard) since our honeymoon voyage on the Meridian in 1993.  We had heard about the delights of the “new” Snorkeling Park off the battery at Dockyard, but this was our first opportunity to try it.  We arrived at the site in the late morning, having been on a ship’s excursion to King’s Point (see our review from a previous voyage) earlier in the day.  The King’s Point site was disappointing as always, despite the hospitality of Ronnie and the crew of the Consort (just too much boat traffic in this area—the visibility is poor at best), although we did get some shots of a Dark Blue Townsend Angelfish.  But, Peg was frustrated by the poor visibility and Derek had been stung by a Jellyfish, so we decided to try the Dockyard Snorkeling Park upon our arrival back at the ship just to see what it was like, and we had our snorkeling equipment with us anyway, with suits and sun block on.

The walk to the Snorkeling Park from the ship is not well marked; there are sign posts everywhere, but none include a marker for the Snorkeling Park for some unknown reason.  Basically, one follows the road from the ship virtually straight along to the Battery buildings, walking past Pirate’s Den Pub and the visitor’s center, down to the moped rental facility where one turns right into the Snorkeling Park Entrance.  The Snorkeling Park is free and obviously very popular with the local population. It was very crowded (especially with children) during the late morning we spent there.  Facilities on the beach included a snack bar (over-priced and cash only), picnic tables, beach umbrellas and several tent tarps that offered good shade.

Snorkeling here was superb, especially once one gets past the shallow beach area where the children are splashing about and kicking up sand.  There are two large yellow play-slides at the site about 10 yards off shore, and once we were past those, the visibility cleared considerably.  The site is extremely shallow in most places with lots of algae covered rocks (snorkeling gloves are a necessity here since one has to pull oneself along the rocks to remain even partially submerged in some spots).  “Deeper” water is only about 10 to 15 feet deep at the maximum and boasts a wide variety of well developed colorful corals.  Fish were abundant: Queen Parrot, Princess Parrot, Damselfish, Squid (we shot a number of immature ones hanging out near the surface) and what can only be described as the “mother-load” of Four Eyed Butterflies!  Every shot we took has about 10 to16 of these wonderful animals in it!! We were in snorkeling heaven, especially when compared to the disappointment of the early morning’s trip.  We would have done much better to simply get off the ship as early as possible and come straight to this site!

We lunched at the Pirate’s Den Pub on our way back to the ship.  A bit over-priced (as are all restaurants on Bermuda), but the food was excellent—don’t miss the Garlic Shrimp appetizer!

Snorkeling Grade: A (Would have been an A+ had we gotten there earlier in the morning)