Spanish Wells
 

We are planning on a family vacation next November; We are looking to do nothing but go to the beach and snorkel. Spanish Wells looks really nice, I'm looking for some feedback about house/cottage rental and grocery shopping.

If you are looking for relaxing and not much more then Spanish Wells would be a perfect location. It is one of the sleepiest islands and beautiful. Lots of interesting history to the settlers there.

There are a few houses 2 restaurants, 1 hotel, 1 grocery store and that's about it on island.

Fly into N. Eleuthera and take a cab over to the water taxi to the island, it will take about 20 minutes.

For a day's outing you might head over to Harbour Island, and try some of the restaurants and see the amazing beach there as well.

Island Realty on Harbour Island rents out houses on HI, Eleutehra and Spanish Wells so you also might check there for availability.

The website for N. Eleuthera and HI is www.briland.com.

Have a great trip.

harleysmom -
If you end up going to Spanish Wells please post a report when you get back. We looked into SW last year but found very little reviews and ended up not going.
Thanks.

If we do go I will post feedback.....did you wind up going to another island?

travelbuff-thanks for the info. Would you recommend a different island for snorkeling?

I may be wrong about this, and please correct me if I am, but over the years I have gotten the impression that Spanish Wells is a very private community that does not cater to tourists. Unlike Harbour Island and Eleuthera, which are very welcoming.

Any thoughts, travelbuff or others?

Read the comment I found on Trip Advisor (and I know, I know, take it all with a grain of salt!):

http://tinyurl.com/2qmrj4

You are right about the private community, but within the last 5 years Spanish Wells has become welcoming to tourists, probably because of the impact tourism has had on Harbour Island.

As I mentioned earlier Spanish Wells has a very interesting history, and alot like St. Barth all the families on island are related.

The settlement were origianlly I believe Dutch settlers, and now the island accent is a very specific English with a clipped accent. I posted this a LONG time ago, but I met a couple here in NYC from Spanish Wells, on vacation and recognized the accent immediately and knew they were from Spanish Wells and they were just as shocked that I knew about the island.

The island depends more on boat building and fishing than tourism but visitors are welcome to share the island now. It really is a slice of paradise.