Six beaches for a swim this weekend, across five stretches of the island, from Vega Baja to Luquillo, and each came back clean on its latest water test, taken October 5 and 6. DRNA sampled again October 13, and its notice from that round does not list them.
Six beaches for this weekend
| # (Its number on the map above) | Beach (The beach as our guide holds it; the reading belongs to the DRNA station it sits on) | Town | What's there (Features mapped in OpenStreetMap within 350 m of the beach: presence, not a count) | Last reading (Clean: the latest published sample at the beach's DRNA station came in under the federal action value of 70 colonies of Enterococcus per 100 mL. The date is the day it was collected; each station's own number is on the beach water quality page) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Balneario Puerto Nuevo ✦ | Vega Baja | parking, food and drink and boat ramp | Clean · Oct 6 |
| 2 | Playa Rosada | Lajas | restrooms, showers and parking | Clean · Oct 5 |
| 3 | Balneario de Patillas | Patillas | food and drink and playground | Clean · Oct 6 |
| 4 | Balneario Condado | San Juan | parking and food and drink | Clean · Oct 6 |
| 5 | Playa de Luquillo | Luquillo | restrooms and parking | Clean · Oct 6 |
| 6 | Playa Isla Verde | San Juan | restrooms, parking, food and drink and playground | Clean · Oct 6 |
DRNA sampled again October 13. Its per-beach counts from that round are not published yet, and its notice from that round does not list any beach above.
✦ Balneario Puerto Nuevo carries a Blue Flag for the 2025-26 season, an international award for water quality, facilities and management, published for Puerto Rico by OPAS.
A balneario is a public beach with an operator (usually the Departamento de Recreación y Deportes or the town), which is where the restrooms, the gate and the parking come from. Four of the six here are.
What each coast offers
Balneario Puerto Nuevo in Vega Baja, on the North stretch, is the easiest family pick this week. It carries a Blue Flag for the 2025-26 season, it has the gate and operator that come with a balneario, and there is parking, food and drink nearby, plus a boat ramp if someone in the group would rather watch the boats. Over on the Southwest stretch, Playa Rosada in Lajas offers restrooms, showers and parking, which suits a long day with kids who need to rinse off before the drive home.
For a more relaxed day on the South stretch, Balneario de Patillas in Patillas has a playground and food and drink close by, with a municipal operator behind it. Anyone staying around San Juan has an easy choice: Playa Isla Verde has restrooms, parking, food and drink and a playground all mapped nearby, which makes it the better-equipped option for a crowd. Tropical Beach in Naguabo was on the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA) notice last time and is not on this one.
Off the list since the last notice
Tropical Beach in Naguabo was on the previous notice and is not on this one; it now reads above the action value from a sample taken October 6.
The weekend forecast
Saturday’s forecast is thunderstorms at four and drizzle at two, with highs of 85 to 89°F. Rain is likely at all six. Sunday brings thunderstorms at three, showers at two and drizzle at one.
| Beach | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| Balneario Puerto NuevoVega Baja | Thunderstorm88°F 88% rain | Thunderstorm88°F 92% rain |
| Playa RosadaLajas | Thunderstorm89°F 100% rain | Thunderstorm92°F 100% rain |
| Balneario de PatillasPatillas | Drizzle87°F 76% rain | Thunderstorm86°F 84% rain |
| Balneario CondadoSan Juan | Thunderstorm85°F 97% rain | Showers85°F 100% rain |
| Playa de LuquilloLuquillo | Drizzle87°F 84% rain | Drizzle87°F 78% rain |
| Playa Isla VerdeSan Juan | Thunderstorm85°F 97% rain | Showers85°F 100% rain |
Forecasts are Open-Meteo’s for each beach’s coordinates, read the morning this was published.
Before you go
Three beaches are under a DRNA advisory this week and best skipped until the next notice lifts it: Playa Cabullón (Ponce), Balneario Pico de Piedra (Aguada) and Balneario Cerro Gordo (Vega Alta). Tropical Beach (Naguabo) is not on the notice, but its own last number is above the action value: 504.
What a reading does and does not tell you
“Came back clean” means one water sample, taken at one station in the sampling run of October 5 and 6, came in under the 70-colony federal action value, what DRNA calls within limits. It is the strongest thing the monitoring program can say, and it is a description of that morning, not a forecast for Saturday. Rain is the variable that moves these numbers fastest: runoff after a heavy shower can put a beach over the action value hours after a clean sample was taken, and the next notice is a week away.
A beach the notice does not name was either within limits that round or was not sampled, and the per-beach counts that would say which are not published yet. An advisory is lifted by the next notice, not by the weather; DRNA’s notice is the only thing that puts a beach under one.
Every monitoring station, with its own number and its own date, is on the beach water quality page, and the official list is DRNA’s current beach notice (also a scanned PDF).
This is the 5th Where to Swim. Read the previous Where to Swim.