Snorkeling in Zakynthos: 7 Spots and the Marine Park Rules

Snorkel in Zakynthos between May and October at Laganas, Kalamaki, the Keri Caves, Gerakas, Dafni, Marathonisi and Capo Marathia, seven places you can get in the water, plus Sekania, which you cannot. The whole southern end of the island is the National Marine Park of Zakynthos, so the water is clear and full of fish, and there are real rules about boats, fishing and how close you may get to a turtle.

I spent eight days here in 2009, on the island also known as Zante, with a hire car and a snorkel. The car was what made it work: it turned a beach holiday into an island of small coves where the fish are and the crowds are not.

Turtles and snorkeling in Zakynthos

Turtles and snorkeling in Zakynthos come as a package, because the same shallow, protected bay that suits loggerheads suits swimmers with a mask. Zakynthos sits in the southern Ionian Sea, most of it mountainous, with olive groves, lemon groves and vineyards inland and a coastline of cliffs, sea caves and sandy bays.

Zakynthos also holds one of the most important loggerhead nesting grounds in the Mediterranean. The National Marine Park of Zakynthos was set up by presidential decree on 1 December 1999, the first management agency of its kind in Greece, and it covers Laganas Bay together with the islets of Marathonisi, Pelouzo and the Strofades further out. Three Natura 2000 areas sit inside it.

Protection is why the snorkeling is good. Trawling, purse-seining and recreational fishing are banned inside the park, which leaves the fish where you can see them, and motorised water sports are banned year-round, which leaves the water quiet. The park counts more than 170 marine plant species and more than 300 marine animal species between the shallows and the deep seabed. The Mediterranean monk seal lives here too, though seeing one is luck rather than planning.

We did one boat day that reached caves you cannot walk to, and spent it swimming between fish and jellyfish. On the other days our hotel had a small beach of its own, which is a perfectly good way to snorkel an island. With a car you get the rest of it.

When to snorkel in Zakynthos

Snorkel in Zakynthos from May to October, when the sea is warm enough to stay in and the visibility is at its clearest. The sea reaches roughly 20°C (68°F) by late May and stays comfortable into October, and outside those months the island is quiet in a way that is charming on land and cold in the water.

Time of day matters more than most people expect. Mornings are calmer, which means clearer water and fewer boats, and the beaches in the park open at 07:00. Afternoon wind stirs up sand in the shallow bays, and the boat traffic peaks in the middle of the day.

August is the busiest month on the beaches and also the tail end of the nesting season, so if you want space and you want to see turtles in the water, June or September will serve you better than August.

Rules for being around the turtles

The rules for being around the turtles are set by the National Marine Park of Zakynthos and enforced by its rangers, and they are stricter than most visitors expect. They apply to the nesting beaches and to the water, and ignoring them is the fastest way to ruin the thing you came to see.

In the water and on a boat, the park’s own guidance is as follows.

• Distance: keep a minimum of 15 m (49 ft) from a turtle, and never approach it from the front.
• Time: limit observation to 15 minutes when the turtle is below the surface, or 10 minutes when it is near the surface, then leave it alone.
• Contact: do not feed or touch a turtle, do not shout, and do not make abrupt movements. If it looks stressed, back off and find another one.
• Boat speed: boat speed inside the park must not exceed 6 nautical miles per hour, and mooring is only permitted in Zone C.
• Fishing and engines: spear fishing, rod fishing, long lines, nets and commercial trawling are all banned inside the park, as are jet skis, waterskiing and every other motorised water sport, year-round.

On the nesting beaches the rules are these.

• Hours: the beaches are open to the public from 07:00 until sunset, and closed the rest of the time.
• Where to sit: keep to a strip of about 5 m (16 ft) from the water. Further up the beach there are nests, whether or not you can see them.
• Marked nests: nests near where people go are covered by a wire cage. Stay away from them.
• Sandcastles: build them 1 to 2 m (3 to 7 ft) from the water and flatten them before you leave, because a sand wall is a wall to a hatchling.
• Umbrellas: umbrellas are not allowed at all on Gerakas, Dafni or Marathonisi, apart from permanent furniture the park has approved. This is the rule most older guides get wrong.
• Vehicles and animals: cars, motorbikes, bicycles, horses and dogs are not allowed on nesting beaches.
• Souvenirs: do not take sand, shells or pebbles from the beaches, or sea urchins and starfish from the water. On Gerakas the clay pinnacles called the Glines are a protected geological feature: do not touch them.
• Hatchlings: if hatchlings come out of a nest while you are there, do not touch them. Tell a park ranger straight away and do what they tell you.

Rangers are on the beaches and in the water, and each beach has its own additional measures depending on conditions, so follow what they say over anything written here.

Zakynthos snorkeling spots

The Zakynthos snorkeling spots worth a trip run along the south coast, from Laganas in the middle of the bay round to Keri in the west and Gerakas at the eastern tip. Seven of them are open to swimmers, and the eighth, Sekania, is closed to everyone but researchers.

Laganas

Laganas is the busiest resort on Zakynthos and the easiest snorkeling entry in the park. It sits in the middle of the south coast on Laganas Bay, the bay the loggerheads swim in and out of, and its beach is long, sandy and shallow a long way out.

Laganas suits beginners and children for exactly the reasons it does not suit anyone chasing solitude. The sandy bottom keeps visibility good, the water is warm and stays shallow, and the beach is crowded through the summer. The town is the island’s nightlife strip, which is worth knowing whichever way your preferences run.

Walk east along the sand and it thins out. The stretch between Laganas and Kalamaki, where the crowd has run out but the facilities have not quite, is the fair compromise on this beach.

Kalamaki

Kalamaki is the quieter end of the same bay, where the hills come down to the water. It is a nesting beach like Laganas, subject to the same 07:00-to-sunset rule, and the water is noticeably clearer than at the Laganas end.

Kalamaki is a 20-minute walk east along the sand from Laganas, or a short drive. Rocks at the eastern end give you something to look at underwater, which the open sand of Laganas does not.

Keri Caves

The Keri Caves are the clearest water on Zakynthos and the only spot on this list you cannot reach on foot. They sit off Keri Cape at the western corner of the bay: a run of sea caves of different sizes cut into white limestone, reachable by boat from Keri or Limni Keriou.

Boat trips from Keri run half-day or full-day, usually crossing Laganas Bay and rounding the headland to the caves, often continuing to Marathonisi. Most stop several times so you can get in, and the limestone walls drop straight down to the seabed where the light does strange things on the rock.

On the way you pass under the Kamares, two natural stone arches with deep water beneath and bats overhead, and the Myzithres, two cone-shaped rocks named after a Greek cheese of the same shape. The Keri lighthouse sits on the cliff above with the view back along the coast.

Gerakas beach

Gerakas is the most protected beach on Zakynthos and the calmest water on this list. It is the island’s southernmost beach, at the tip of the Vasilikos peninsula, almost undeveloped because building on it is not permitted, and it is one of the main loggerhead nesting sites in the park.

Gerakas has consequences attached to that status. Part of the beach is roped off for nests, boats are kept out, umbrellas are not allowed except the permanent ones the park has approved, and access runs from 07:00 to sunset. What is left is shallow, calm, sheltered water with no engines in it, which is close to ideal for snorkeling and for children.

Hatchlings emerge at night, so the odds of seeing them are low and the beach is closed when it is most likely. If it does happen in daylight, stand back, do not touch them and tell a ranger. Earth Sea & Sky runs a free sea turtle information and rescue centre at Gerakas, open daily through the season, and half an hour there tells you more than any sign on the sand.

Dafni beach

Dafni is a sandy nesting bay on the Vasilikos coast with rockpools at the edges, which is what makes it interesting to a snorkeler. It is one of the more important nesting grounds in the park and is monitored accordingly, with loungers kept back from the nests and the same umbrella ban as Gerakas and Marathonisi.

Dafni takes some getting to. The track down from the coast road between Argasi and Vasilikos is unsurfaced, bumpy and steep in places, and it is hard work on a scooter, so a car is the sensible way in. The park runs an exhibition centre at Dafni covering the turtle’s life cycle from mating to hatching, with photographs, posters and video.

Turtle Island/ Marathonisi

Marathonisi is the uninhabited islet in the middle of Laganas Bay, and it is the most likely place on Zakynthos to snorkel near a turtle. It is called Turtle Island for two reasons: its outline is said to look like one, and it is a protected nesting beach.

Marathonisi has two beaches, one pebble and one white sand, a wooded interior and sea caves around the edges. Boats run out from Keri, Limni Keriou, Agios Sostis and Laganas. Take a small boat rather than a large one if you can: it gets closer to the caves and coves, and it makes the 15 m distance rule easier to keep than a crowded deck does.

There are usually turtles in the water off the island, and there are places you can swim. Watching a nest hatch here is not something to plan for: hatchlings come out at night, the beach closes at sunset, and umbrellas are banned. Bring water and food, because there are no shops on the island.

Capo Marathia

Capo Marathia is the promontory near Keri with the small, quiet beaches, and it is the easiest of the western spots to reach under your own steam. The road down is fine for a car or a scooter, and you can hire a lounger and an umbrella at the beaches there.

Capo Marathia is also a departure point for boats to Marathonisi, so it works as a morning snorkel and an afternoon boat trip from the same car park.

Sekania

Sekania is the beach you cannot go to, and it is the reason the rest of the park works. It is closed to the public year-round, with access only for researchers holding permission, and it holds roughly half of all the loggerhead nests laid in Laganas Bay on a very short stretch of sand.

WWF Greece bought the land behind Sekania and it has been monitored ever since. Nothing about it is visitable, and that is the point: it is the one nesting beach on Zakynthos that carries none of the pressure the others do.

About the Caretta caretta

The Caretta caretta, or loggerhead sea turtle, is a reptile that grows to almost 1 m (3.3 ft) long, breathes air, and spends nearly all of its life underwater eating jellyfish, molluscs and other invertebrates. It is the largest hard-shelled turtle in the world and it is endangered.

The loggerheads reach Zakynthos in early spring, migrating in from foraging grounds across the central Mediterranean to mate in Laganas Bay. They nest on the beaches from mid-May to late August. At night a female comes ashore, picks a spot and digs an egg chamber 40 to 50 cm (16 to 20 in) deep, lays a clutch of about 120 eggs the size and softness of ping-pong balls, and repeats the whole thing three or four times over the summer.

The eggs incubate for 42 to 70 days, and 60 to 70% of them hatch. Sand temperature decides the sex: above 29°C (84°F) the hatchlings are mostly female, below it mostly male, which is why a warming beach is a problem and not just a discomfort.

Hatchlings come out at about 5 cm (2 in) long, almost always at night, and find the sea by starlight and by moonlight reflecting off the water. Lights from hotels, restaurants and torches send them the wrong way, which is why the beaches close at sunset and why the island builds low and dim along this coast. As they crawl down the sand they appear to record the place with a magnetic sense, and years later they come back to the same stretch to breed. The park’s own Caretta Odyssey research programme tracked Zakynthos-bred turtles dispersing across the whole Mediterranean.

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