Where Playa Mamón is
Playa Mamón is the beach immediately outside our main gate, on the southern shore of Tierra Bomba, facing the open sea. We're in Bocachica, at the southern end of the island, about 25 to 30 minutes by boat from Cartagena. It's a short walk from the gate to the sand, and a sandy track of roughly 200 metres links us to the dock where boats come in.
It is not one of the beaches you see on a Cartagena postcard, and we'd rather tell you that now than have you find out on arrival.
What the sand and the sea are actually like
The sand here is volcanic, so it reads grey rather than white. It's natural and it's clean, and it isn't the Rosario Islands. What Playa Mamón has instead is the open ocean: no sheltered bay, no line of anchored day boats, a horizon with nothing on it.
The sea changes with her mood. Plenty of days it's flat and easy. In windy weather it gets a chop on it, and the same wind that makes the afternoon bearable is the wind that puts a swell on the water. Getting on and off our boat takes a bit of agility on those days, which is worth knowing if you're travelling with anyone unsteady on their feet.
We should be straight about access too: we're at the end of a boat ride and a sandy track, and the place wasn't built with wheelchairs in mind. We're not accessible, and we're sorry about it.
Swimming, and why you shouldn't pack a snorkel
You can swim. You can't usefully snorkel. Our beachfront leads out to open ocean, and while we do have a house reef, it sits at six metres down, about eight minutes' swim from the sand. From the surface you'll see very little, and on a choppy day you'll see less than that.
The better move is to go down to it. A one-hour discovery dive on the house reef is $90 and needs no previous experience at all. We're a PADI Dive Resort, so if the first one lands well, the Scuba Diver course runs two days at $320 and Open Water four days at $460.
Weekdays and weekends are two different beaches
During the week it's quiet. There's always music, but the volume of the place is low and most people spend the day between a lounger and the water.
Fridays, weekends and holidays are livelier, with locals coming out from the city for the day. Our Saturday pool party runs 1 to 5. If you want the quiet version of Playa Mamón, come Monday to Thursday. If you want the other one, you know which days to book. Neither is a mistake, but turning up on a Saturday expecting silence is.
Your sun lounger is reserved for you for every day of your stay, so there's no towel-on-the-lounger ritual at eight in the morning. Poolside puts you near the music. The beach loungers are quieter and further from everything. A beach cabaña is $30 and a VIP daybed in front of the pool is $50.
What else there is to do off this beach
Bocachica village is five minutes away by motorbike taxi, and it's the thing we'd push you towards if you have a spare couple of hours. No running water, no paved roads, and more character than anywhere else on the island. Go with the expectation of island life rather than restaurants and bars, and it will stay with you. The San Fernando fortress guards the channel there, and our village tour walks it on foot after the ride in.
For the best view on Tierra Bomba, there's a walk up to the Angel San Rafael fort, which we pair with a session making traditional Bocachica sweets alongside our foundation. And if you'd rather cover ground, mountain biking on the island trails runs up to an hour with a private motorbike escort. Do that one early, before the sun is at full strength. We are not going to pretend midday on a Caribbean island is the time for a climb.
Getting to Playa Mamón
By boat, and only by boat. There's no bridge to Tierra Bomba, so a car gets you as far as the dock and no further. Our boat leaves Muelle de la Bodeguita in Cartagena at 10am, 11.30am and 5pm and heads back from us at 4pm and 5.30pm, and the crossing is calmer than the run out to the Rosario Islands. If you have your own boat there's a dock about 200 metres from our gate. When the tide is very high or the sea is rough we use the village dock instead, around a mile away, and you ride pillion on a motorbike taxi for the last stretch.
One more thing worth planning around: there's no phone signal on the island. The wifi is excellent most days and handles video calls, and on the days it isn't, it isn't. Bring a towel, and reserve the boat before you come.