Little Lameshur Bay Beach

Little Lameshur Bay Beach is a sandy beach on St. John’s south shore, the second stop beyond rocky Great Lameshur. It’s a good pick if the water and a more remote stretch of coast are the point of the trip. The access road is rocky: the National Park Service recommends four-wheel drive and says many rental companies prohibit driving it, so check your rental terms before leaving pavement. A Bordeaux Mountain Trail approach is another option, but it’s a steep, rocky hike rather than a quick walk.

For the best snorkeling, aim for the tip of Yawzi Point, the spit between Little and Great Lameshur. Rocky coral shoreline there shelters fish and other marine life. At Little Lameshur itself, the easiest water entry is near the middle of the sand, where the beach meets the bay. Shallow coral is easy to damage, so stay off the reef; the water and what you see change with conditions.

Shade, picnic tables and grills make this a good place to settle in between swims. Plan to bring your own food and drinking water; no food vendor is known at the beach. A restroom is reported nearby, but its current condition and running-water availability aren’t confirmed.

Lameshur Plantation’s remains sit just inland from the beach, a separate historic layer to the visit. By 1780, owner Octavius Nibbs had about 100 acres under cultivation and basic sugar-making facilities. An 1789 estate notice called it a cotton plantation; later the property shifted toward cattle, then bay-oil and lime-oil production around the turn of the twentieth century. The roughly 60-foot horsemill platform and a surviving fragment of the cane-juice gutter give a sense of how the sugar works were laid out. The remains are scattered rather than one intact mill.

For a beach photo, leave some pale sand in the foreground and keep the wooded ridge across the water in the shot. That gives the picture the shape of the bay and a sense of where you are, instead of turning it into another frame of open water.