Accessibility: this website, and the place it describes

Part one: what was measured on this website

None of what follows is a policy statement. It is what a sweep of the built pages reported, printed so you can disagree with it.

Colour contrast, on every text element of every page

Each element’s computed text colour is measured against the nearest opaque background behind it, with any opacity folded into the foreground first — because reducing opacity is a change in contrast, and a checker that ignores it reports on a page that does not exist. The floors are the WCAG 2.1 ones: 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for text at 24px and above or bold text at about 19px and above.

One value failed and was changed. The cobalt that works as link text on a pale page measures 3.55:1 as text inside the dark bands, which is under the floor. A lighter tone of the same hue is used there instead and measures 6.64:1; it is scoped so it cannot be applied on white, where it would measure 2.79:1. One token, one surface, and the wrong pairing is not reachable.

The hairline colour used for dividers measures 1.29:1. That is far below any text or control threshold, and it is deliberately restricted to decorative rules: the edge of anything you can click uses the grey above, at 6.77:1. An earlier site built with this kit shipped 1.32:1 borders on interactive chips by reaching for the divider token, which is why the distinction is written down.

Text on top of photographs, measured from pixels rather than colours

This is the check most sites never run, and the one an automated colour sweep cannot do for you. A colour-based checker walks up the document looking for an opaque background colour, finds the dark fallback behind the hero, computes a comfortable ratio against it, and never once looks at the photograph painted on top.

So the hero text here is measured differently: hide the text, screenshot the background as it actually renders, and take the 99th-percentile luminance inside each text box — the brightest part a reader really meets, rather than the average. The difference is not academic. On the previous site built with this kit, one line of hero text measured 7.23:1 against the average pixel behind it and 2.09:1 against the brightest one. The average passed. Nobody reads the average; they read the line where it crosses the bright part of the picture. This site’s hero is open sky over water, which is the worst case there is for light text, and the darkening layer behind it is set by that pixel measurement rather than by eye.

Keyboard, pointer, motion and text

• Focus is visible. Every link and button takes a 3px outline, offset from the text so it is not swallowed by the letterforms, in a lighter tone where it falls inside a dark band. The stylesheet this site was forked from had no focus styling at all, which makes a site unusable by keyboard.
• Tap targets. Below 860px, navigation links are at least 44px high and buttons at least 46px.
• Motion. If your system asks for reduced motion, every animation and transition is cut to effectively nothing and smooth scrolling is switched off.
• Text size. The root is set to 17px rather than left at the browser default, so body copy renders at about 16.15px instead of the 15.2px the design tokens would otherwise produce. The reading column is capped at 760px.
• Zoom is not disabled. No page here blocks pinch-zoom or pins the text scale.
• Images. Every image carries a real width and height read off the file, so text does not jump down the screen as pictures load, and every image carries alt text describing what the photograph actually shows. The build sweep lists any image missing either.
• Structure. One h1 per page. Frequently asked questions use native disclosure elements rather than scripted accordions, so they work from the keyboard without any JavaScript. The language switcher marks the current language with aria-current and renders it as text, not as a link to the page you are already on.
• Horizontal overflow. Every page is measured at phone width for a document wider than the window. Wide tables scroll inside their own box instead of pushing the whole page sideways.

What was found and is not fixed

• There is no skip-to-content link on the built pages. The stylesheet defines one and the page template does not emit it, so a keyboard user tabs through the header on every page. That was true when this page was written, and naming it here is how it gets fixed.
• Nothing here has been tested with a screen reader, and nothing has been tested with disabled users. Everything above is measurement of a rendered page. That is a useful thing and it is not the same thing.
• A contrast ratio is arithmetic. It tells you two colours are distinguishable. It does not tell you a page is comfortable, and it says nothing at all about colour vision deficiency, dyslexia or cognitive load.

If you hit something on this site that does not work for you, tell me. A specific report beats a specification.

Part two: the place, which is harder

Flamenco Beach is reached by sea or by air, sits at the end of a hill road, and is made of sand. None of that is fixable and all of it is plannable, and the most concrete material available is what the boat operators publish about themselves.

Every boat operator’s stated exclusions, in their own words

These are the operators’ own “not suitable for” lists, product by product, quoted rather than summarised. They are broader than most people expect, and it is far better to read them now than at a dock at eight in the morning:

Read the last rows in particular. One product excludes people over 300 lbs (136 kg) and names vertigo and epilepsy; two exclude wheelchair users outright; six of the seven exclude pregnant women. I have no view on whether those terms are reasonable and it does not matter what my view is — they are the operators’ own conditions and they will be applied on the day. If any of them describes you or somebody in your group, ask through the booking panel before you pay rather than after. All seven products, with their prices, are on the tours list.

Getting to the beach, which is the real barrier

• Walking from the ferry is not realistic. The beach is about 2.5 miles from the dock in town, a ten-minute drive, and the route is a hot road with no pavement. Nobody local walks it and you should not plan to. How far it is covers the alternatives.
• Taxis and públicos from the dock charge a few dollars per person each way. They are ordinary vans. Nothing published describes ramps, lifts or securement on any of them, so this site says nothing about boarding in either direction; ask at the dock.
• The roads are hill roads. The photograph on this site labelled as a Culebra road shows what that means: a patched single-track lane climbing over a cactus hill with the sea beyond. That is one road rather than all of them, but it is the kind of ground this island is made of.
• Parking at the beach is a few dollars per vehicle, and bicycles and e-bikes park free. Getting around has the rest.

The ferry, where the published rules are unusually good

This is the one part of the journey where the rules work in your favour, and hardly anybody knows it.

• Priority boarding is published, and it names you. The operator’s own FAQ lists priority boarding for pregnant women, seniors, people with disabilities and veterans, and then for bona fide residents of the island municipalities, ahead of other visitors.
• The fares are concessionary. A couple of dollars for an adult one way; about half the adult fare for ages 60–74 and for children 4–12; free at 75 and over, and under 4. The ferry page has the reservation system, which is the genuinely hard part.
• Camping is half price for people with disabilities. The standard rate at Flamenco is a modest nightly fee per tent, up to six people per tent. The camping page has the rules, including that you must reserve.

None of that helps with boarding a vessel, and this site publishes nothing about ramps, lifts or wheelchair spaces on the ferry itself, because no source I checked states it and guessing would be worse than useless. If boarding is the part that decides your day, ask the operator directly.

On the beach itself

• There are lifeguards, and the swimming area is marked with buoys. Swimming at Flamenco has what that does and does not mean.
• Restrooms, showers and changing areas exist, and local guides describe their cleanliness as inconsistent. So do I. That is not a reason to stay away; it is a reason not to be surprised.
• Around six food kiosks, plus chair and umbrella rental. Bring cash. Food and kiosks has the detail.
• The gate, the car park and the restrooms run roughly 7 AM to around sunset. Sources disagree on the exact hours and I will not invent a single authoritative one.
• It is a mile of sand with very little shade, and the wristband is a couple of dollars per person however you arrive. What to bring is mostly about sun and water for that reason.

The last honest thing to say is that a beach is a beach. Soft sand defeats most wheels, no beach wheelchair at Flamenco is documented by any source I could find, and I would rather write that sentence here than have you discover it at the gate.

Frequently asked questions