My wife and I just returned from our trip and I wanted to offer some thoughts for anyone interested in going there. We picked up a sailboat on St. Thomas and sailed down, which is not the normal way to go. We had intended to split mooring time between Christiansted and Fredericksted, but once we got there is was clear that we were better stay moored in Christiansted. We did a number of dives on St. John too as part of the trip and I will report on those separately.
We spent 3 full days on STX and we did 7 dives with SCUBA and 2 dives with Cane Bay -- both top-notch. First of all, SCUBA was absolutely great. They were all laid back and we spent a lot of time with the DMs and the divers we met on the boat each day. We didn't meet Ed -- he was at DEMA -- but he provided us GPS coordinates of the dives sites so we could dive on our own. Never seen that before, but it really impressed me. As it turned out, we didn't use them because we enjoyed the SCUBA team so much. We did 3 dives along the wall with SCUBA, 2 in Salt River, which had very good marine life and spectacular scenery. The second dives were all along the reef outside of Christiansted and were generally very good too. Unfortunately, the lionfish are well established. The shops are actively killing them, which has some interesting consequences. It is kind of cute to see mutton and yellowtail snappers following you around looking for a treat, but the reef sharks are also into the game. Normally stand-offish in my experience, we had a large number who seemed unusually interested in us. I'm not sure what the answer is because the lionfish have to go, but on the other hand it is clearly changing the behavior of the big predators. We also did the Fredericksted pier at night, which lived up to its billing -- lots of seahorses! Special thanks to John, John and Lauren our fabulous DMS.
We also did 2 dives at Cane Bay -- one guided (thanks, Ashley!) and one on our own. We took a taxi from Christiansted and arranged for the same one to come back and pick us up -- not a problem at all. As billed, we were able to just kick out to the edge of the wall and drop down. Spectacular geography and very easy navigation. The water goes from 25-30 feet to thousands in a very short distance.
All told, diving on St. Croix was a very nice surprise. The wall is really unique for that area, which tends to be dominated by reefs and rocky mounts. Now that the refinery is closed and the government is looking for additional sources of revenue, there is a great opportunity to promote diving tourism in the way that a number of other islands have. St. Croix is a sleeper, but not for long. Thanks again to everyone!
We spent 3 full days on STX and we did 7 dives with SCUBA and 2 dives with Cane Bay -- both top-notch. First of all, SCUBA was absolutely great. They were all laid back and we spent a lot of time with the DMs and the divers we met on the boat each day. We didn't meet Ed -- he was at DEMA -- but he provided us GPS coordinates of the dives sites so we could dive on our own. Never seen that before, but it really impressed me. As it turned out, we didn't use them because we enjoyed the SCUBA team so much. We did 3 dives along the wall with SCUBA, 2 in Salt River, which had very good marine life and spectacular scenery. The second dives were all along the reef outside of Christiansted and were generally very good too. Unfortunately, the lionfish are well established. The shops are actively killing them, which has some interesting consequences. It is kind of cute to see mutton and yellowtail snappers following you around looking for a treat, but the reef sharks are also into the game. Normally stand-offish in my experience, we had a large number who seemed unusually interested in us. I'm not sure what the answer is because the lionfish have to go, but on the other hand it is clearly changing the behavior of the big predators. We also did the Fredericksted pier at night, which lived up to its billing -- lots of seahorses! Special thanks to John, John and Lauren our fabulous DMS.
We also did 2 dives at Cane Bay -- one guided (thanks, Ashley!) and one on our own. We took a taxi from Christiansted and arranged for the same one to come back and pick us up -- not a problem at all. As billed, we were able to just kick out to the edge of the wall and drop down. Spectacular geography and very easy navigation. The water goes from 25-30 feet to thousands in a very short distance.
All told, diving on St. Croix was a very nice surprise. The wall is really unique for that area, which tends to be dominated by reefs and rocky mounts. Now that the refinery is closed and the government is looking for additional sources of revenue, there is a great opportunity to promote diving tourism in the way that a number of other islands have. St. Croix is a sleeper, but not for long. Thanks again to everyone!
