which place to dive ST THOMAS OR ST JOHN IN JANUARY FEBRUARY

[lynnemari]

Hi,

We are planning a vacation very soon with our time share so options are limited. The choices that are comming up are St.John and St. Thomas, which one is better diving and which is easier to take a day trip to the British virgin islands, I have herd that the BVI is the best diving in that area. How is the water temp and visibility in January-February? St. Martin is also a choice. I haven't dove in over a year so I will probably be happy just to get in the water.
Thanks
Lynnemari

 

[CptTightPants21]

Dove St. Thomas this past May. If you do end up going to St. Thomas I recommend Duane and Admiralty Diving, he is an ex-commercial diver, super knowledgeable and runs a great operation.

There are almost hourly ferries to all of the BVI and St. John's from St. Thomas (I assume other islands are similar since every ferry needs to make a return trip) and doing day trips is very easy.

In terms of diving, I snorkeled in BVI and what I saw there was similar to what I dove in St. Thomas. Vis ranged from 20 ft after a storm to 90 or so. St. Thomas is a good combination of ship wrecks and reefs and most of the diving days would be deep wreck for dive 1 and then a relatively shallow reef for dive 2.

Recommended dive sites on St. Thomas

Miss Opportunity-Nice wreck, decent swim throughs, lot of fish
WIT Concrete-really nice wreck, it got cut in half so there are some cool swim throughs going from one deck to the next
Eastwind reef--a famous yacht was ship wrecked here, but I can't remember the name. Best description I ever heard of the reef was "Willy Wonka on Acid"
Kennedy Barges--nurse sharks, sting ray, Duane has a pet sting ray here that always comes up to him and says hello
Supermarket/Sprat reef

I inquired about diving the HMS Rhone while in St. Thomas, but the boat didn't get enough people and I have heard that the Rhone is no longer as good as it was 10 years ago and has started to really deteriorate (like the Andrea Doria).

On St. Thomas there are a few other dive operators, but the ones who consistently do the deeper wrecks are Blue Island Divers and Admiralty. They will pick you up from your hotel and the boat is docked in the downtown area.

If you are further northeast there is St. Thomas Diving Club, but I got the feeling they did a lot more training of new divers and stuff around the shallower reefs. Nothing wrong with them, but I make it a habit of finding small dive operations that are run by super experienced locals that allow a greater degree of freedom and person options.

 

[Freewillow]

Forget Saint Martin. St Croix is the best with the BVI. MAx A couple of hours trip from Saint Thomas to the BVI, depending on where you want to go in the BVI's.