My husband and I and our two dive buddies ventured for the first time to St. Croix to experience the diving and the island. We arrived on June 18 and departed on June 25. First of all....by the end of the trip we all asked ourselves: Why didn't we book a longer trip!!!!!!
Accommodations: We booked a two-bedroom, two-bathroom fully furnished condo through VRBO. It was very clean, well-appointed, and comfortable. The best thing was it had a washer and dryer so we could do laundry each day after diving! The dive boat was harbored about 10 minutes from the condo...nice! The condo was on the ocean with a beautiful view. The drive into Christiansted took about 15 minutes.
Dive Shop: After much research on SB and Trip Advisor, we ended up diving with Cane Bay Dive Shop. I can't say enough great things about their operation. Our first dive day was Sunday and we had to meet at the dive shop to fill out paperwork, give credit card info, show c-cards, etc. After that we had about a 15 minute drive to the dive boat. (Didn't have to go back to the shop....just met at the dive boat each day.)The boat is a 36" Newton that can carry about 20 divers. Several of the days there were only 4-6 divers....until the OW students showed up to do their open-water dives. That was fine...they were with their instructor and we were with our DM (yes, you have a DM in the water with you). Captain Ricky got us to the sites in stellar time; DM's Mikey, Danielle, and Conner gave us good briefings and showed us interesting critters. Rick and Mike are a hoot and the jokes they tell are priceless! Everyone is professional but fun and laid-back. During the SI we had homemade cookies and pineapple. There was a water cooler, camera bucket, showers, and plenty of space to put stuff you didn't want to get wet. When we go back to St. Croix, we'll definitely book with Cane Bay Dive Shop!
Dives: We did two morning dives each day. On some days the sea was a bit rough because of wind and off shore storms. I'm prone to seasickness, but one Bonine kept me from feeding the fish. Capt. Rick always took us to dive sites that he felt were calm enough for us to get off the boat (giant strip off the platform on the back of the boat), but more importantly....calm enough for us to get back up the ladder at the end of the dive. On all but two dives the boat was anchored and on a mooring line. They throw a tag line out for divers to use when coming back to the boat. Fins must be removed before climbing the ladder and there's always someone to help you.
The reef system is beautiful with tall coralheads, plenty of tropical fish, turtles, sharks, etc. My deepest dive was 100 feet. When finishing a dive at most of the sites, the safety stop is just diving to the shallower water where the boat is anchored. Many times the DM would board the boat and told us we could stay in the area by the boat as long as we wanted....but watch our gauge. Most dives were at least 60 minutes. There were always lots of little stuff to see in the shallow water. Our favorite dive was the Frederiksted Pier! We did three wrecks on the first dive and the second dive was the pier. OMG, we saw five seahorses on just one dive! The colors on the pier pilings are beautiful. It looks like a painter came through with purple, orange, red, yellow, and green paint. The coolest thing we saw (which was on our bucket list) was a Batfish! I wish we would've gone to the the pier at the beginning of the week, because I know the four of us would've gone back several times on our own to dive it. One of our dive buddies did a night dive at the pier and saw nighttime critters that we didn't see during the day. We are definitely going back to St. Croix and plan on spending a lot of time at the pier!
One of the coolest experiences we had was with a green turtle on one of our dives. I volunteer at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, FL, so turtles are my thing! Anyhow, I'm going to try and upload the video my husband took of "St. Croix Turtle." It was unbelievable!
Food: We did most of our cooking in the condo, but we did go to a few restaurants on the island. Un Amore, Blues BBQ, No Bones Cafe, and the Turtle Deli. Each was recommended to us and none disappointed. I did a review on Trip Advisor of all of them except Blues BBQ.
We shopped for food a Food Town and Pueblos. Food is more expensive than it is here in FL. We felt we saved money by cooking in the condo and not going out for every meal.
Will we go back to St. Croix? Absolutely and probably next June or July and stay for at least 10 days. There are still plenty of dive sites to see and things to do. I do want to say we never felt unsafe on the island. The people are so friendly and helpful. We didn't venture out at night, and based where our condo was located, there was no place to go anyway unless we drove into Christiansted. We were happy to just chill out in the condo after a great day of diving!
St Croix Turtle
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Accommodations: We booked a two-bedroom, two-bathroom fully furnished condo through VRBO. It was very clean, well-appointed, and comfortable. The best thing was it had a washer and dryer so we could do laundry each day after diving! The dive boat was harbored about 10 minutes from the condo...nice! The condo was on the ocean with a beautiful view. The drive into Christiansted took about 15 minutes.
Dive Shop: After much research on SB and Trip Advisor, we ended up diving with Cane Bay Dive Shop. I can't say enough great things about their operation. Our first dive day was Sunday and we had to meet at the dive shop to fill out paperwork, give credit card info, show c-cards, etc. After that we had about a 15 minute drive to the dive boat. (Didn't have to go back to the shop....just met at the dive boat each day.)The boat is a 36" Newton that can carry about 20 divers. Several of the days there were only 4-6 divers....until the OW students showed up to do their open-water dives. That was fine...they were with their instructor and we were with our DM (yes, you have a DM in the water with you). Captain Ricky got us to the sites in stellar time; DM's Mikey, Danielle, and Conner gave us good briefings and showed us interesting critters. Rick and Mike are a hoot and the jokes they tell are priceless! Everyone is professional but fun and laid-back. During the SI we had homemade cookies and pineapple. There was a water cooler, camera bucket, showers, and plenty of space to put stuff you didn't want to get wet. When we go back to St. Croix, we'll definitely book with Cane Bay Dive Shop!
Dives: We did two morning dives each day. On some days the sea was a bit rough because of wind and off shore storms. I'm prone to seasickness, but one Bonine kept me from feeding the fish. Capt. Rick always took us to dive sites that he felt were calm enough for us to get off the boat (giant strip off the platform on the back of the boat), but more importantly....calm enough for us to get back up the ladder at the end of the dive. On all but two dives the boat was anchored and on a mooring line. They throw a tag line out for divers to use when coming back to the boat. Fins must be removed before climbing the ladder and there's always someone to help you.
The reef system is beautiful with tall coralheads, plenty of tropical fish, turtles, sharks, etc. My deepest dive was 100 feet. When finishing a dive at most of the sites, the safety stop is just diving to the shallower water where the boat is anchored. Many times the DM would board the boat and told us we could stay in the area by the boat as long as we wanted....but watch our gauge. Most dives were at least 60 minutes. There were always lots of little stuff to see in the shallow water. Our favorite dive was the Frederiksted Pier! We did three wrecks on the first dive and the second dive was the pier. OMG, we saw five seahorses on just one dive! The colors on the pier pilings are beautiful. It looks like a painter came through with purple, orange, red, yellow, and green paint. The coolest thing we saw (which was on our bucket list) was a Batfish! I wish we would've gone to the the pier at the beginning of the week, because I know the four of us would've gone back several times on our own to dive it. One of our dive buddies did a night dive at the pier and saw nighttime critters that we didn't see during the day. We are definitely going back to St. Croix and plan on spending a lot of time at the pier!
One of the coolest experiences we had was with a green turtle on one of our dives. I volunteer at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, FL, so turtles are my thing! Anyhow, I'm going to try and upload the video my husband took of "St. Croix Turtle." It was unbelievable!
Food: We did most of our cooking in the condo, but we did go to a few restaurants on the island. Un Amore, Blues BBQ, No Bones Cafe, and the Turtle Deli. Each was recommended to us and none disappointed. I did a review on Trip Advisor of all of them except Blues BBQ.
We shopped for food a Food Town and Pueblos. Food is more expensive than it is here in FL. We felt we saved money by cooking in the condo and not going out for every meal.
Will we go back to St. Croix? Absolutely and probably next June or July and stay for at least 10 days. There are still plenty of dive sites to see and things to do. I do want to say we never felt unsafe on the island. The people are so friendly and helpful. We didn't venture out at night, and based where our condo was located, there was no place to go anyway unless we drove into Christiansted. We were happy to just chill out in the condo after a great day of diving!
St Croix Turtle
Attachments area
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