Cayo Icacos

By boat from Fajardo, and only by boat - there is no ferry. The water taxis leave from the Kayak Village pier at Las Croabas, the northern tip of town, and cross the 4 km in fifteen to twenty minutes ($60 a head booked direct, $95 as a beach-day package). The catamarans leave from Villa Marina and Marina Puerto Chico in mid-town and from Puerto del Rey at the south end (45 to 50 minutes under sail). From San Juan it is about an hour by car on PR-3 or PR-66 to Fajardo; the catamaran operators sell a San Juan shuttle for about $50 a person with a six-passenger minimum. Dock by dock, with the map, here.

No. Puerto Rico's ferries from Ceiba serve Vieques and Culebra only; nothing scheduled goes to Icacos, and a page that shows you a timetable is showing you the wrong island. What exists is a reservation with a captain - a water taxi that drops you and comes back at an agreed hour, or a crewed catamaran day. The confusion is common enough that one water-taxi operator keeps a 'ferry tickets' page that simply points at the Vieques ferry.

Fifteen to twenty minutes by water taxi from Las Croabas; 45 to 50 minutes by sailing catamaran from Puerto del Rey. The difference is the dock, not the boat: the cay is 4 km off Las Croabas, the closest point of the mainland, and 12 km from Puerto del Rey at the south end of Fajardo. The power cats from Villa Marina take 20 to 25 minutes. Published figures of 'a mile' or 'an hour' are both wrong; the operators' own pages agree on these.

From $60 for a bare water-taxi seat to about $195 for the premium catamaran day, as of October 2026. Water taxi direct: $60 (children under 5 $40), with one operator applying a four-person minimum. The beach-day package with umbrellas, cooler and mask: $95. Catamarans and power cats: $110 to $155, plus a $3 'DRNA fee' four of them collect in cash at check-in; the premium sail $195. Self-drive mini boats: $225 per boat for two plus tax. There is no entry fee for the cay itself for water-taxi visitors.

Yes, if what you want is an empty sand cay with clear shallow water a short boat ride from a mainland dock - and no, if you want facilities, big reefs or a famous beach. It is the easiest offshore day in eastern Puerto Rico: fifteen minutes from Las Croabas, calm in the lee, a reef off the sand. It is not Flamenco, which is 29 km east on Culebra and a longer, costlier boat. Weekends and holidays bring a flotilla between nine and noon; a weekday morning is the version worth the trip.

Culebra for the beach and the reefs, Icacos for the short crossing and the lower price. East Island runs both from the same marina: the Icacos day is $155 and 45 to 50 minutes out; the Culebra day is $185, 50 to 55 minutes each way on a faster boat, lands on Flamenco or Culebrita depending on conditions, and needs a 50-to-70-foot swim to the beach. Culebra's shore sites - Tamarindo for turtles and rays, Carlos Rosario for the reef - are a different league of snorkelling. If you have one day and small children, Icacos; if the island is the point, Culebra. The full comparison is here.

Palomino is private; Icacos is a nature reserve. Isla Palominos, 5 km south-east of Icacos, is leased by the El Conquistador resort and reached by its guests or by charter; Palominito, the one-acre sand cay beside it, is a water-taxi stop at about $120 a head with a six-person minimum, rarely run. Both are outside the reserve's protection and both are the cays the catamaran captains choose when the swell is up at Icacos - East Island's and Salty Dog's own pages say so. Icacos is the public, protected one, with the reef off its west beach.

Flamenco is the better beach; Icacos is the better half-day. Flamenco on Culebra is a lifeguarded, mile-long strand with kiosks and a campground behind it, reached by ferry, plane or a 60-to-90-minute catamaran. Icacos is a short crescent of sand on an uninhabited cay with nothing behind it, fifteen minutes from the Las Croabas pier. One is a destination; the other is an escape you can fit between breakfast and a late lunch in Fajardo.

About an hour's drive to Fajardo, then a boat. Las Croabas is roughly 35 miles by road from San Juan's airport on PR-3 or PR-66, then PR-987 to the pier - 45 minutes free-flowing, closer to an hour in traffic. A rental car is effectively required for a water taxi; the catamaran operators sell a round-trip shuttle from San Juan hotels for about $50 a person with a six-passenger minimum, booked two days ahead, and one platform package drives you from San Juan to Las Croabas for $799 for the group.

For being empty. It is the largest uninhabited cay of the Arrecifes de la Cordillera reserve - about 160 acres of sand and scrub with a shallow reef off its west beach, no buildings, and the remains of a limestone quarry and its short railway on the south side. The name is usually traced to the icaco, the cocoplum bush that grows on it. It is the closest offshore cay to the Fajardo docks, which is why it carries the water taxis and most of the catamaran traffic.

Yes - from Las Croabas, and from nowhere else. East Coast Water Taxi and Puerto Rico Water Taxi both run from the Kayak Village pier: $60 a head direct, runs of 10 to 3 or 11 to 4, fifteen to twenty minutes across, year-round in daylight. The $95 beach-day package on this site adds umbrellas, a cooler with water, soda and local beer, a mask and snorkel, and an optional 45-minute walk with a guide; you bring your own lunch. Groups larger than six are split across two boats. The package, with the real reviews, is here.

Nothing. No toilets, no kiosks, no bins, no fresh water, no lifeguard, and no shade you can rely on - the inland scrub is not a canopy, and the one page that promises 'palm shade' is selling something. Use the toilets at the dock or on the catamaran, carry out every piece of rubbish, bring two litres of water a person and your own umbrella if you are taking the taxi (one operator includes one per group, another rents them for $30). Phone signal is patchy: agree the pickup time before the boat leaves.

A weekday morning in February or March, with April to June as the calmest-sea alternative. December to April is the dry season, but the winter trade winds make the crossings choppy and cancel the reef stop more often; late spring is calmer. Hurricane season runs June to November with a September peak, and sargassum reaches the east coast from April to October, worst in high summer, with 2026 forecast as a heavy year - check the Sargassum Watch System's monthly outlook and the CARICOOS seven-day forecast the week you go. Weekends and Semana Santa bring the flotilla between nine and noon; arrive by 10:30 on a weekday and the cay is quiet.