US Virgin Islands

Friend wants to go to the US Virgin Islands. I know nothing about the place,
or the diving. Would appreciate some input from those who have first hand
experience with diving there.

--

Rudy Benner

I am not a Complete Idiot
Some parts are still missing.

Rudy Benner wrote:
>
> Friend wants to go to the US Virgin Islands. I know nothing about the place,
> or the diving. Would appreciate some input from those who have first hand
> experience with diving there.

To the best of my knowledge, the opinion is nearly unanimous that St Croix is the one
to visit for diving, though I don't have first hand experience there. The viz won't
be as good as places like Coz or Cayman, but there are walls and the diving will be
somewhat similar. Still, if the diving is the primary criteria for choosing a
destination there are better options.

From personal experience my opinion is that the only reason for St Thomas to exist is
so they won't have to build a new airport and the ferry to St John has a place to
start from. If shopping or seeing cruise ships and their passengers is important,
there may be opinions contrary to mine. St Thomas does have some very pretty spots,
and those who like larger resorts and lots of company may like staying there.

St John, two thirds of which is National Park, is largely undeveloped and less
crowded than St Thomas or many other Caribbean destinations, though Cruz Bay (at the
west end, where the ferries arrive) and Trunk Bay (the most popular beach, and home
to a marked snorkeling trail) can get crowded at times. The residential areas south
and souteast of Cruz Bay are built up quite abit, so staying htere will offer less
provacy than staying north or out east. There are plenty of opportunities for hiking
and sightseeing (the sights primarily consisting of natural features rather than
stores and tourist attractions), and plenty of pretty beaches. There is good
snorkeling, but not as good as a place like Grand Cayman, and with fewer places to
choose from. The diving is good, but viz and depth won't exceed about 60 feet (you
can find some deeper dives by using an east end operator, or by paying $130ish to go
dive the Rhone). The more limited viz is partly due to more runoff than arid places
like Cayman or Coz, and partly due to more plankton in the water. The latter seems to
result in a lot more filter feeders than in some of the places with great viz. You
should see plenty of good stuff on the dives, but you won't see it from far away. If
you're partial to tunicates and feather dusters you'll find plenty of them to look
at. I recommend Low Key Watersports, in Cruz Bay. The people we did a night dive with
also preferred Low Key, having done their first several dives with Cruz Bay
Watersports.

For those who like Mexican food I recommend dinner at Margarita Phil's (also in Cruz
Bay). For those who don't like Mexican, eat elsewhere and then stop at Margarita
Phil's for a Bailey's Banana Colada, known more simply as a BBC. The Maragaritas are
also supposed to be good, but the BBC's were far too good to allow for sampling the
margaritas as well.

Almost everyone who stays on St John takes a taxi to the ferry and then rents a
vehicle on St John. It's cheaper to rent at the airport and then take the car ferry,
but most rental agencies don't allow you to take cars off of St Thomas. Avis is an
exception. I thought Hertz prohibited talking their cars to St John but I saw quite a
few Hertz cars on St John. Double check, or take your chances. Every rental vehicle
available on St John is 4WD. You won't need 4WD capability, but the extra ground
clearance is useful as the roads have some very steep spots with tight turns. We
scraped the bottom of our Kia Rio in several places. If we'd had 4 people in it we
might have needed more power on some of the steeper hills, too. Despite pleny of time
on mountain roads in West Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama (and one unusually
impressive road in the Catskills) I never really saw a steep (public) road until I
got to the east end of St John.


--
Steve

The above can be construed as personal opinion in the absence of a reasonable
belief that it was intended as a statement of fact.

If you want a reply to reach me, remove the SPAMTRAP from the address.

Steve <SPAMTRAPglawackus@hvc.rr.com> wrote in message news:<3F5BE791.246C149B@hvc.rr.com>...
> Rudy Benner wrote:
> >
> > Friend wants to go to the US Virgin Islands. I know nothing about the place,
> > or the diving. Would appreciate some input from those who have first hand
> > experience with diving there.


I've dove in the area between the West End (Red Hook) of St Thomas and
St. John and the BVI.

The diving was good. lots of coral reefs with deep ledges
to swim in/out of. Good sea creature levels. Good visibility.
Diving was average price at about $55/2-tank dive.

> From personal experience my opinion is that the only reason for
> St Thomas to exist is so they won't have to build a new airport
> and the ferry to St John has a place to start from. If shopping or
> seeing cruise ships and their passengers is important, there may
> be opinions contrary to mine. St Thomas does have some very pretty
> spots, and those who like larger resorts and lots of company may
> like staying there.

The above statement is pretty much correct. The large resorts
are nice, but the island ifself is pretty blah. It's not really
safe to be downtown at night. lots of crime. You'll notice
all the HUGE locks on ALL the shop doors to reflect this.

Lots of cruise boat shopping. But the food had no island
character or culture. Of course the food isn't cheap either
as it all has to be shipped in. If I had to go back AND
was staying in St Thomas the whole time I pretty much wouldn't
leave the resort except for half day shopping trip.


> St John, two thirds of which is National Park,
[snip]
> you can find some deeper dives by using an east end operator, or
> by paying $130ish to go dive the Rhone).

The main reason the Rhone cost more is it's a longer trip and
requires a commercial dive boat to go thru Customs going and
coming. (the Rhone is in BVI waters.) That and it's the
'big premeire dive' there and they charge more for it.

[snip]
>
> Almost everyone who stays on St John takes a taxi to the ferry and
> then rents a vehicle on St John. It's cheaper to rent at the airport
> and then take the car ferry, of time.... [SNIP]

Most people do take a taxi over to Red Hook to take the ferry over.
I definately wouldn't rent a car and take it. The taxi should
run about $20 from the airport at the most. Car rental will be
much more than that. Ferry is/was about $3-$5pp. I think to
take the car across was $75-$125 each way. If you are going to
rent a car, then rent it on St John. The car ferries also
don't run as often as the passenger ferries do.

Personally I would suggest not renting one for the entire week.
Just rent it for a day or two. Taxi's are cheap and easy. you
can walk anywhere you go in town it's so small.

Other option would be to take the ferry to BVI. much nicer
than St Thomas. If you do that wait to do you shopping
on your trip back to St Thomas so you don't have customs
issues with it coming back in.

If you are going to stay in St Thomas, then check out
the resorts outside of town. you'll like those much
better than staying in town.

mike

"Rudy Benner" <benner@bogus.personainternet.com> wrote in
news:vlk5rh79h8i632@corp.supernews.com:

> Friend wants to go to the US Virgin Islands. I know nothing about the
> place, or the diving. Would appreciate some input from those who have
> first hand experience with diving there.
>

I was in St. Thomas in mid-August. There was a time when we went to St.
Thomas twice a year and as a result we have quite a few friends there. On
almost all of our trips we have gone diving. In 2001, we dove St. Croix.
The diving is different on both islands. But one thing that I can say is
that a lot depends on who you dive with.

In St. Croix we dive with Dive Experience (http://www.divexp.com/). This
operation is owned by Michelle Pugh. Great lady and now a friend as well.
She runs a great operation! There is wall diving in St. Croix that is
similar to Grand Cayman. However, the trip to the wall from
Christianstead is longer than the trip to the wall from most Cayman
operations. The wall in St. Croix is stunning! Last time (2001) we were
there we saw a free swimming moray moving along the wall and lots of
other fish life on a beautiful wall.

Hotels are cheaper in St. Croix than in St. Thomas, but there is a lot
less to do in St. Croix than in St. Thomas. Unemployment has recently
gone up in St. Croix and there are parts of St. Croix that can be
depressing. If you stay downtown you won't see much of it though. We
always rent a car and travel around the island. Food is also very
reasonable in St. Croix. If you dive with Dive Experience, just ask
Michelle to make hotel arrangements for you and you will probably be
surprised at how reasonable the rate is.

As to St. Thomas... Since 1980 we have always dove with the St. Thomas
Diving Club (http://www.st-thomasdivingclub.com/). They are located at
the Bolongo Bay Resort. This is a small family owned hotel that is a ways
out of town. The St. Thomas Diving Club had a boat when the other
operations were only doing shore dives. The dives here are much shallower
than in St. Croix, but on this last trip the coral seemed to be healthier
than we have seen it in a long time. Fish life is also much better. One
day was beautifully calm and we dove French Cap. Frence Cap is an
offshore pinnacle where the larger pelargics congregate. It was a flat
calm day and so we were able to dive this rare site. Very nice.

We have also dove around St. John and the BVI. All nice, but more remote
than St. Thomas. Depends on what you want. This last trip, on the advice
of friends, we took our rental car over to St. John on the ferry. No
problems. It was cheaper than each of the 5 of us paying separate fares
on the passenger ferry. The only downside was that the car ferry was
slower and the last ferry returned to St. Thomas at 6 pm. (The last
passenger ferry is at 11:30pm).

We have dove the Rhone based out of St. Thomas and out of the BVI.
Needless to say, its a long run from St. Thomas to the Rhone, but it is
done regularly.

I don't work for Dive Experience or St. Thomas Diving Club.

If you have more questions, just ask.

I go to St. thomas fairly regularly (my step-daughter lives there) and
have dived with most of the shops on the island. My favorite by far
is Blue Island Divers http://blueislanddivers.com They have a lot of
dive sites with a lot of variety. Check out their web site. They
dive the one of my favorite dives, the WIT Shoal, regularly. I
recommend them highly. And I don't work for them either.

>"Rudy Benner" <benner@bogus.personainternet.com> wrote in
>news:vlk5rh79h8i632@corp.supernews.com:
>
>> Friend wants to go to the US Virgin Islands. I know nothing about the
>> place, or the diving. Would appreciate some input from those who have
>> first hand experience with diving there.
>>
>
>I was in St. Thomas in mid-August. There was a time when we went to St.
>Thomas twice a year and as a result we have quite a few friends there. On
>almost all of our trips we have gone diving. In 2001, we dove St. Croix.
>The diving is different on both islands. But one thing that I can say is
>that a lot depends on who you dive with.
>
>In St. Croix we dive with Dive Experience (http://www.divexp.com/). This
>operation is owned by Michelle Pugh. Great lady and now a friend as well.
>She runs a great operation! There is wall diving in St. Croix that is
>similar to Grand Cayman. However, the trip to the wall from
>Christianstead is longer than the trip to the wall from most Cayman
>operations. The wall in St. Croix is stunning! Last time (2001) we were
>there we saw a free swimming moray moving along the wall and lots of
>other fish life on a beautiful wall.
>
>Hotels are cheaper in St. Croix than in St. Thomas, but there is a lot
>less to do in St. Croix than in St. Thomas. Unemployment has recently
>gone up in St. Croix and there are parts of St. Croix that can be
>depressing. If you stay downtown you won't see much of it though. We
>always rent a car and travel around the island. Food is also very
>reasonable in St. Croix. If you dive with Dive Experience, just ask
>Michelle to make hotel arrangements for you and you will probably be
>surprised at how reasonable the rate is.
>
>As to St. Thomas... Since 1980 we have always dove with the St. Thomas
>Diving Club (http://www.st-thomasdivingclub.com/). They are located at
>the Bolongo Bay Resort. This is a small family owned hotel that is a ways
>out of town. The St. Thomas Diving Club had a boat when the other
>operations were only doing shore dives. The dives here are much shallower
>than in St. Croix, but on this last trip the coral seemed to be healthier
>than we have seen it in a long time. Fish life is also much better. One
>day was beautifully calm and we dove French Cap. Frence Cap is an
>offshore pinnacle where the larger pelargics congregate. It was a flat
>calm day and so we were able to dive this rare site. Very nice.
>
>We have also dove around St. John and the BVI. All nice, but more remote
>than St. Thomas. Depends on what you want. This last trip, on the advice
>of friends, we took our rental car over to St. John on the ferry. No
>problems. It was cheaper than each of the 5 of us paying separate fares
>on the passenger ferry. The only downside was that the car ferry was
>slower and the last ferry returned to St. Thomas at 6 pm. (The last
>passenger ferry is at 11:30pm).
>
>We have dove the Rhone based out of St. Thomas and out of the BVI.
>Needless to say, its a long run from St. Thomas to the Rhone, but it is
>done regularly.
>
>I don't work for Dive Experience or St. Thomas Diving Club.
>
>If you have more questions, just ask.

Bob Dickson

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does Knowledge." Charles Darwin