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The San Bernardo Islands (Islas de San Bernardo) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea in Colombia. They’re a popular tourist destination.
Introduction to the San Bernardo Islands
The San Bernardo Islands are made up of nine small islands and one small artificial island in the Gulf of Morrosquillo. Since 1996, they’ve been part of the Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Park. Some of the islands feature fantastic beaches with white powdery sand, and have decent choices for accommodation.
While in Coveñas, we decided to take a day trip to the San Bernardo Islands. Tours leave from Tolú. There are also opportunities to visit from Cartagena, which is much further away. Many of the resorts on the islands also offer day passes.
Tours to the San Bernardo Islands
We booked our tour through our hotel in Coveñas. It should cost about COP$85,000 per person during low season and COP$120,000 during high season (as of June 2024). Prices vary depending on demand, size of the boat, and season. Also, the prices included lunch and round-trip transportation from our hotel.
Pickup and Departure to the San Bernardo Islands
The tour began when we were picked up by a bus at the entrance to our hotel just after 7am. We stopped to pick up several other guests along the way and spent about 90 minutes in the bus altogether. When we arrived in Tolú, we stepped out and turned in our vouchers at Navegar Club, the company running the tour.
From there, we were escorted to the beach and jumped onto our boat. We then started the 45 minute ride to our first stop of the day.
Isla Boquerón
After about 20 minutes sailing through the Gulf of Morrosuillo, we passed by a small island, Isla Boquerón. It’s the only island in the archipelago that belongs to the department of Sucre. The rest belong to Bolívar. The guide slowed the boat down to point out cormorants resting on a tree.
Isla Palma
A few minutes later, we passed by Isla Palma. The island was once owned by Pablo Escobar and contains the ruins of his holiday home. Today, this small private island contains a resort with a narrow strip of white sand beach and nature reserve. The resort offers day trips as well as overnight stays.
Isla Tintipán
15 minutes later, we stopped at Isla Tintipán, which is the biggest of the San Bernardo Islands. The boat pulled up to a dock on the north side of the island where the public beach is located. The guide told us we would spend the entire day there until a short stop at Santa Cruz del Islote on the way back to Tolú.
As beautiful as it was, Isla Tintipán wasn’t the destination promised when we booked the tour. We were supposed to spend the day at Isla Múcura, which is supposed to have the best beaches in the archipelago. The guide agreed to take us to Múcura for an extra COP$20,000 each.
We ordered a coco loco (lots of alcohol in a coconut) and enjoyed the beach for a bit. After a little arguing, Marisol got the guide to take us for free because Múcura was the island sold to us. Another couple from Bogotá who was in the same situation joined us and we set off a few minutes later.
Isla Múcura
We first stopped at Múcura Club and then Hotel Punta Faro to drop off a few people. With a beautiful and seemingly deserted beach, Punta Faro especially looked like a great place to spend a day or two.
We then turned toward the other side of the island and got dropped off at the public beach. It was super crowded but that didn’t take away from the beauty of the beach. The water was warm and crystal clear and the sand was powdery and soft. Would we have preferred something a little more tranquil? Sure, but it was still a great experience.
Isla Múcura is a small place dotted with a few resorts, but the interior remains mostly wild. We were able to walk past mangroves on the way to the beach and took a peek at a small lagoon behind the beach.
After a little time in the water, our guide called us in for lunch. We ate at Don Goyo, one of the several restaurants located at the public beach. Lunch consisted of a delicious fried fish served with coconut rice, salad, and patacón. It was cooked the traditional way by local islanders in an open-air kitchen behind the restaurant.
Santa Cruz del Islote
When our time was up at Isla Múcura, we waited for the boat with the rest of the group from Isla Tintipán to pick us up. From there, we headed to Santa Cruz del Islote, which happens to be one of the most densely populated islands on Earth. It’s an artificial island with an area of only 130,000 square feet. It was founded on May 3, 1700.
To visit the tiny island, visitors pay COP$10,000 each for a guided tour with a resident (as of June 2024). Our guide took us through the main path through town, past stores and homes, and explained how life is on the island. There’s just one school and the government provides many necessities such as clean drinking water.
The short tour ended with a stop at an “aquarium”, which contained a tank with a nurse shark and other fish. It was disheartening to see the islanders allowing visitors to pay extra to jump into the tank and handle the shark, which was clearly distressed. While we were interested to learn how locals live in such a place, we clearly could not support the exploitation of animals for monetary gain. It was a disappointing end to such a wonderful day.
Our Thoughts on the San Bernardo Islands
After our short tour of Santa Cruz, we hopped back onto the boat and went back to Tolú where our bus was waiting to take us back to our hotel. Overall, it was an enjoyable day minus the aquarium. In the future, however, we would prefer to stay overnight or do a day trip to one of the resorts we passed. It would be a much more peaceful day on the beach that way.
