How's St Thomas?

[Barrod]

I dont see many trip reports on here! Ill be there January 3-8 and my lovely cousin is putting me up. She is a radiologist on the island. No hotel money!!!

If anyone wants to let me in on how great the diving is there thatd be awesome. Ill be diving with Blue Island.

 

[cb5150]

Just back from St. Thomas. Did my dives at Coki Point...can't speak for the rest of the island.

All I can say is "Bad diving is still better than not diving."

 

[Barrod]

Yeah I wont be there. Blue island does a lot of wrecks and reefs on the south side.

Anyone dove the Shoal wreck?

 

[cbm32]

St Thomas is LOVELY..............but, in my experience, the diving pretty much sucks. Only spent a week there but didnt have any dives that were notable at all.

 

[oly5050user]

All depends on where the operator is willing to go..A lifetime ago I worked for a short time with an operator out of Secret Harbor (Aqua Action owned by Palmer Williams) on St Thomas..We dove Caravel rock/cow and calf/Rhone wreck off Salt island..really cannot remember the rest of the sites. Rhone wreck is where some scenes for The Deep" with nick Nolte jacqueline bisset was produced. Really a very pretty wreck. Cow and calf good swim thru if I remember and good chance for nurse shark there. Caravel rock had loads of Tarpon there.
Really need a boat to get any decent dives in. Coki beach is a shore location mostly for cruisers to snorkel at.

 

[PACKRMAN]

I loved St Thomas and Blue Island. They will pick up cruise divers every day. Be patient and a little helpful and they will make sure they take care of you.

 

[Barrod]

Wouldnt mind diving the Rhone too

 

[drrich2]

On Tapatalk and I don't know how to access your profile from it, so I don't know your frame of reference.

I've done 4 dives at St. Thomas. My impression was good reef diving (1 dive was at the Navy Barges site, another at Renaldo's (? spelling) Paradise, and I don't know about the other 2. Dives tended to be fairly shallow (not over 50 feet) and around 50 minutes (the last 2, which are what I recall). I dove with Admiralty Dive.

In a nutshell, based on very limited experience, I wouldn't pick St. Thomas as my best option for a dive vacation (I'd be looking at Key Largo, Cozumel or Bonaire first), but if I were going to be on St. Thomas anyway, I'd turn it into a dive vacation and have a fine time.

Richard.

 

[jimw]

I've been to Coki Beach and shore dove with Coki Beach Dive Club twice while on cruises. I thought it was a very nice shore dive. My home shore dive is Blue Heron Bridge near West Palm Beach. I'm not familiar with boat diving in the St Thomas area but judging by this shore dive, it should be good!! I do know with certainty, that if the same shore dive was available in Florida; we would be there quite often. There is some coral, lots of tropicals, and last time there we saw 2 Lemon Sharks.

 

[Rhone Man]

St T has some pretty good dives and some pretty crap dives, like any tourist spot. The good dives are definitely worth doing. Maybe it is just because I am a wreck guy, but the wreck dives tend to be the stronger ones. WIT Shoal, WIT Concrete and Miss Opportunity are all solid dives. Reef dives are a bit patchier, but there are still some decent ones: Cow and Calf and Sprat spring to mind. It ain't Bloody Bay Wall, but it is decent Caribbean diving.