The name is the signpost: the entry sits by the eighteenth palm along the southern boulevard. It is a flat, shallow site used mainly by dive schools for training dives. Good for those after practice, less so for those after spectacle.
18th Palm is a beginner shore dive at Kralendijk: a shallow seagrass sand strip at three to five metres, a slope to twenty-eight metres, used mainly for training dives.
A broad shallow sand strip at three to five metres with seagrass and scattered coral heads, then a quiet reef top. The slope runs to twenty-eight metres with sponges and soft corals. Southern stingrays forage on the sand, and now and then a turtle.
In light wind, when the shallow strip stays clear. In the morning, before the training groups arrive.
Little to see over the first two hundred metres, so a long swim for not much. In wind the sand stirs up and visibility drops fast. Parking is on the boulevard verge. No shade, no water, no toilet.
Decisions on diveability, technique and health belong with STINAPA, a dive school or a doctor. This page only describes the conditions.
The numbered palms along the boulevard are an old divers' convention: before there were signs, the coast was divided up this way. A number of names on the map still date from then.
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