St. Croix trip report

[edpdiver]

I went to my first trip to St. Croix with my wife (who dives) and mother-in-law (who doesn't dive) last month. We stayed at the Carambola Beach Resort for 8 nights, and dove with Cane Bay Divers on 5 days. It was a very nice trip. The resort was wonderful, and the island was gorgeous. The dive operation was also very good. The diving was good (not great). In part, we chose this destination for the mix of diving, resort, and natural setting.

The restaurant at the resort was okay, but not anything special. Two restaurants in the Cane Bay area that we ate at (a lot) were Rowdy Joe's and Eat at Cane Bay. Both of those restaurants were surprisingly excellent. I would recommend both of them very highly. One thing that is worth mentioning is that when the conditions around Cane Bay are rough, the dive boats leave from the Fredericksted Pier, and it is about a 30 minute drive from Carambola to Fredericksted (at least for me, allowing time for getting lost). In general, the dives around Cane Bay were better, but the wrecks around Fredericksted were pretty fun, too.

Here are a few pictures from the trip.











and the rest of the set is here: St. Croix set on Flickr

 

[Brodydog]

Your macro shots are outstanding! Thanks for sharing them and the trip report.

 

[Rescue Diver68]

Nice! Thanks for sharing. Can you compare the diving in St. Croix to other destinations you have been?

 

[edpdiver]

Nice! Thanks for sharing. Can you compare the diving in St. Croix to other destinations you have been?

Thanks. @Rescue Diver68, it is always a little difficult to compare places, but here goes. I thought that the diving was good, but not great. I should mention that I only dove for 5 days, and 3 of those days were restricted to the Fredericksted area because of rough weather making the north side (including the Cane Bay wall) a bad choice for diving. I thought that the reefs were healthy, and the dives were good. The best diving overall was along the Cane Bay wall, were I did 4 dives. It was not spectacular, mainly because there were not the dramatic features that would make it memorable (such as lots of swimthroughs, like Little Cayman, for example). It was not as colorful as Cozumel (lacking the density of sponges, probably). It was definitely better overall than Roatan, which I am not that fond of. Also better than St. Vincent (healthier reefs overall). It was pretty similar to the British Virgin Islands, although it lacked the underwater boulder fields that one finds around the BVIs with all of their colorful encrusting corals. I hope that this gives you a little perspective. I would return, because the diving was definitely worth doing. Moreover, I thought that the island was really gorgeous. I guess that there are other places I would rather go to first, if diving were the only consideration. I would also check the weather patterns before my next trip and find out if it the weather is more forgiving in the spring, because I would definitely prefer to do more dives on the north side. I know that the weather is better in the spring and summer for a number of Caribbean dive destinations, such as the Cayman islands and the BVIs.

 

[jc60625]

just curious... when you did dive the north side was it a shore dive or does cane bay divers do those as boat dives? thanks.

 

[edpdiver]

just curious... when you did dive the north side was it a shore dive or does cane bay divers do those as boat dives? thanks.

All of our dives including the north shore dives were boat dives. For the north shore dives, I think that we used the little inflatable boats.
-Erwin

 

[reghunnicutt]

A shame you couldn't have dived Sugar Beach, or Salt River but if the weather is rough you did best to stay on the West end.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[ScubaDubaDave]

The East and West walls out of Salt River have great diving when the surf is reasonable and only a 5 minute boat ride with Anchor Dive. I've always had good diving weather there in July.

 

[markdiyvfd]

we just dove there cane bay st. Croix sep 7 to 14 cane bay dive boat and the bed and breakfast antawok spelled wrong sorry agree need car to get around if in north bay area food was top line to great more due my slim food likes dinners at off the wall, above the cliff, eat a cane bay now at time we were there and 1 weeks + & - food places close days at time for vacations on a whim due hurricane season its their prime time to get hit those 3 weeks there we got lucky the recurring joke was kept having flat tires I was finding pot holes and nocking rubber of the rim so ihop and mc donald's centerline area for lunch more times than not the tropical storm that was stuck off FL caused chop all week think they wanted to go west but us being die hard they stayed salt river and the wall for us there was no complaint on their part they just stated they normally head west in conditions like we had but they admitted the ells and sharks and other high lights are easier to find or find us they said went to w end for car huller and tug for change one day and a night dive on pier but due cloud cover pics from video and video dark local dive shop here sold us video unit said it’s the islands don't need light ops that said I would dive there again some of the best people I’ve met in long time on vacation your pics are way better but well here some of ours look dead center hard for small moray in coral and sea horse other all had fun either terminating lion fish or watching

 

[Tool Belt]

markdiyvfd. Just saying, due to the lack of punctuation your report was very difficult to read.