Good dive shops in St Croix

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dolesorchard

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Messages
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Location
Maine
# of dives
500 - 999
St Croix dive shops.
My grandson just finished his pool work and we are hoping to take him to St Croix in February. Looking for recommendations for a shop to do his open water dives. Probably not going t be staying in Frederiksted or Christiansted, but definitely want to dive both sides of the island.
 
St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures (SCUBA) is who I went through when I did my diving last March, awesome time they have a shop in both Frederiksted and Chistiansted. Stayed in Christansted when I went and the drive to the other side of the island was enjoyable. Also, Freedom City Service station & Deli Cafe has the cheapest fuel prices I could find by like 20 cents per gallon off...
 
You will/should get recommendations from several people, including a few who live in St. Croix.

Looking for recommendations for a shop to do his open water dives.
There are a handful of dive ops to choose from. If you do a search here on SB, you will be hard pressed to find anything negative about any of them.

With that said, I am partial to Nep2une Scuba in Frederiksted - although I haven't been to St. Croix for several years, Nep2tune still has several of the same people running the business. They work with and certify young (and old) divers and still get great reviews. Dive groups are small which gets you a little more personal attention. They are located right by the Frederiksted pier which would be great, easy shore dives for you and your grandson - both day and night. The pier dives can be guided or unguided - nighttime brings out some pretty neat stuff. Cruise ships are the only thing that get in the way of diving the pier, but the chances are very good that you will see few cruise ships during any particular month - night dives can happen anyway as the ships will be gone.

I haven't been to St. Croix during the month of Feb. (closest months have been Dec. and Mar.) but if it's like other times of the year, Frederiksted, being on the west side generally has calmer water than the north (Christiansted) side. This may be an important consideration for your grandson having a great experience - I'd suggest that you have him do his OW referral dives on the west side. Boat rides to dive sites are also short, 5-10 minutes. The west side has the pier, reefs, and small wrecks. The north side has the walls and some different topography. Cane Bay (still north but closer to west) has a wall that can also be done as a shore dive.

One other consideration, for some, is price. A quick check between a couple of the dive ops shows a huge difference in price for OW referral dives (SCUBA, for example, has $550 listed as the price for 4 referral dives while Nep2une has $320); a slight difference for boat/shore dives.

Don't hesitate to also email/call the dive op to see if they will give you a different or better deal. Hope you both have a great experience.
 
Looking for recommendations for a shop to do his open water dives.
St. Croix is a great place for your grandson to be certified. All of the dive shops here have great reputations, so you can't make a wrong choice. If you know where you will be staying on the island, that will help you narrow down your choices as you don't have to choose a dive shop on the other side of the island as you'll have good choices no matter what area you stay in .

St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures (SCUBA) has dive shops and boats in both Christiansted and Frederiksted giving you flexibility no matter where you are staying. I've dived with them many times and continue to do so (I live on the east end, so Christiansted dive shops/boats are the closest to me.

Cane Bay Dive Shop is located in Frederiksted, but they have their boat at Salt River which is convenient to some of the best diving on the north/northwest side of the island.

Sweetbottom Dive Center is located at Cane Bay and conducts their certifications via shore dives from Cane Bay right outside their shop. Water entries are easy, as is the diving at Cane Bay, so could be a good choice for a new diver who may be nervous about the experience as its about as easy diving as you can get.

Dive Experience is another Christiansted based dive shop who also has their own boats. I have yet to dive with them yet, but they also have a good reputation and loyal following.

As mentioned earlier, Nep2une Scuba is another good option based out of Frederiksted.

The diving in February is great, as it is pretty much year round here. Water temps will be in the upper 70's and while weather is unpredictable, its generally very nice this time of year and not so hot like it is in the summertime.

If you can, try to dive different parts of the island. When in Frederiksted, I prefer shore diving at the pier as its commonly listed as one of the best shore dives in the world and I can normally see every species of marine life you can find elsewhere from sea horses to large schools of tarpon. Also like shore diving Cane Bay, as its an easy dive and you can swim out to the wall. When diving around Christiansted and the north reefs and walls, its boat diving. Boat rides are generally easy and short (less than 30 minutes). Weather is rarely an issue or consideration when diving. Rarely are dives canceled due to weather and when they are, shops can often accommodate you with diving at another spot on the island the same day.

Since we still live a world of Covid, here is a link to the latest travel requirements to get here - USVI Update | Your Source of news from the U.S. Virgin Islands. We currently require a negative covid test within 72 hours of travel to the USVI's. Not a big deal, but may take some coordination with some mainland testing sites backed up. We also are still required to wear masks in businesses and when entering/exiting restaurants. We were one of the hardest hit places in the world with the latest strain, but our positive cases appeared to peak a week ago and things seem to be headed back in the right direction.
 
+1 for Nep2tune. We used them to dive the pier for both a day and night dive. Had a guide for the night dive. Everything worked out fine except we parked under a tree for the night dive and when we came back the rental car was covered in 2 inches of chicken poop. Seems they roost there at night. The pier would be a great place for you grandson to do a checkout dive or two as it was a safe area with tons of stuff to see. I could have spent the entire week diving there. We also use Sweet Bottom dive center to do a shore dive at Cane Bay. Bit of a swim to the wall, otherwise an easy dive. Read the reports from @Regulatrix , @mwall04 , @drrich2 and others for more information. Good luck and let us know how it goes. Be safe
 
We have been to St Croix twice and both times used Cane Bay Dive Shop. We do series of dive boat and shore dives. Hal the owner has always been easy to work with.
 
We stayed near Salt river and used Cane Bay Dive Shop for our boat dives and used their Fredricksted shop for our tanks at the pier. Very friendly and laid back, very good operation thumbs up. When we shore dove on the north we worked with Sweet Bottom Dive shop located at Cane Bay. Laura and her group were fantastic to work with. Very open on where and how to dive many sights. While there my wife and I got our AOW with Jeff at Sweet Bottom. Great instructor that I would recommend to anybody. You might check out Tritons Realm on You Tube for more info on STX. Heading there this week
 
Thank all for the input! Booked our flights yesterday, still haven’t decided which shop to use but it sounds like there is no bad choice!
 
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