St. Croix Dive Shop Update?

[wcwilson]

Hi,

We will be going to St. Croix in July and wanted to determiune the best dive shop for our needs. I have searched the archive and found several threads on the subject, but as some are a couple years old, I thought I might ask for more current info (of course being in the computer field 2 years seems like a long time - on St. Croix things may not change that fast). We will be on the eastern end of the island (Shoys). We don't have a ton of diving experience, 13 dives each, and don't have our own equipment (yet - after running out of air in GBI whne my gauge said 570 PSI I might get my own - we only go once every other year or so).

In our area, the following shops have been discussed:

St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures (S.C.U.B.A.) - mostly good feedback
Dive Experience - a little feedback
Cane Bay Dive Shop - some good, some bad
Anchor Dive Center - some good, some bad
Bubble Makers, Inc. - no feedback, bad name ;-)

Then there are those in Frederiksted. Not sure if the drive is worth the dives. We hope to do at least 4 trips. We have 12 days.

Any more current advice?

Thanks in advance,

--Wayne

 

[wcwilson]

BTW - has anyone used the "Dive the Island" passport? Feedback?

--Wayne

 

[Antony]

Enjoy St. Croix, we sure did.

We just got back from a visit 4/20 thru 4/27/05. We dove with Anchor Dive out of Salt River Canyon. The 4 of us average about 200 dives experience each. We were very happy with this operation. They were friendly, safety conscious and fun. Overall, I'd say they are among the best operators we've gone with. They took us for some great dives both in Salt River Canyon and beyond such as Cane Bay wall. For the most part the boat rides are short (about 10 minutes) and the boat returns to shore for surface intervals. There is a small restaurant and restrooms right there by the dock. The boat was never crowded and a divemaster is supplied with every 6 divers. This was not a "forced march" however, and you could explore on your own within reason.

We especially like being able to leave our gear in the secure lock-up between dive days for the convenience. As we all have our own gear, it is hard to comment on their rental equipment. Based on their staff, I bet it is in good condition though. We did 8 dives over 4 days with Anchor and would use them again next time in St. Croix. I'm sure the other shops are good also. Have a great time.
Tony

 

[wcwilson]

Thanks for the info Tony. I read some posts that rate St. Croix fairly low (and USVI in general) for diving (5 on a scale of 10). Did you find that to be the case? I liked the diving in St. John, so if it is not considered good I have a lot to look forward to...

--Wayne

 

[colo_diver]

we were there in Feb and dove with Scuba Shack, great people and a good time.... highly recommend them...... we are looking at going back this summer and will dive with them again.....

 

[Mark Vlahos]

Hi,

We will be going to St. Croix in July and wanted to determiune the best dive shop for our needs. I have searched the archive and found several threads on the subject, but as some are a couple years old, I thought I might ask for more current info (of course being in the computer field 2 years seems like a long time - on St. Croix things may not change that fast). We will be on the eastern end of the island (Shoys). We don't have a ton of diving experience, 13 dives each, and don't have our own equipment (yet - after running out of air in GBI whne my gauge said 570 PSI I might get my own - we only go once every other year or so).

In our area, the following shops have been discussed:

St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures (S.C.U.B.A.) - mostly good feedback
Dive Experience - a little feedback
Cane Bay Dive Shop - some good, some bad
Anchor Dive Center - some good, some bad
Bubble Makers, Inc. - no feedback, bad name ;-)

Then there are those in Frederiksted. Not sure if the drive is worth the dives. We hope to do at least 4 trips. We have 12 days.

Any more current advice?

Thanks in advance,

--Wayne

I just returned from my first trip to St. Croix last night.

I dove with SCUBA, I was generally pleased with the experience, I used my own gear but I did look at their rental gear and it looked fine. Most of the other divers were using the rental gear and I heard no complaints about the stuff. Their boat leaves from the Christiansted boardwalk. The boat is roomy enough, I had no complaints. Water entry and exit is simple, again no complaints. The staff is pleasant and diving was fun, again no complaints.

My only criticism was that the visibility was less than I hoped for, but this was certainly not the fault of the shop, in fact we searched for sites where the vis was better rather than just jumping in at the site that was planned. If anything they worked to make the situation better and recieve praise for there efforts. Vis was typically from 50 to 75 feet, but was at worst around 35 feet and at best approached 100 feet. Visibility will almost certainly be different in July than it was last week.

If you are doing a "package" deal with any dive shop to save money that is understandable, if however you are not, you might want to mix up the diving and try different operators. The boats out of Christiansted run as far west as Cane Bay for the most part, try a boat based in Fredericksted for a few dives to see the west end sites.

I was quite impressed by the wonderful healthy reef system on the North side of the island, I am told that the coral on the West end is not quite as good, but there are more critters to look at. I don't look at this as comparing negatives, but rather as comparing positives.

I was very happy and plan on returning to dive in St. Croix in the future. I found that most things on the island were reasonably priced (when compared to Hawaii) and the people are nice.

Have lots of fun!

Mark Vlahos

 

[Antony]

We dove St. John back in 2002 and liked it more than I expected to. IMHO St. Croix is even better diving. St. John has the best beaches I've seen anywhere, buy St. Croix is better diving I think. I will say we were blessed on the St. Croix trip with flat seas and that allowed Anchor to take us to some sites they especially like, but often don't do because of conditions. So we possibly got to see the underwater scene at St. Croix at it's best. On a 1-10 scale I'd give it a 7 or 7.5. Happy planning.
Tony

 

[DivingGator]

I was in St. Croix in January for a week but was unable to dive because the seas were too rough. We stayed at Divi which has an Anchor Dive Shop. Every afternoon I went by their shop to check on the days conditions and they told me that they were just not good enough. They didn't try and sell me on going out. I heard some other folks at the resort complaining about another op that took them out in those conditions and had to abort their dive. I really like the staff at anchor and if I go back to St. Croix I will use them. On my last day I wasn't sure about the conditions and by that time my wife was no way going to take a chance on diving in bad conditions so I went to Buck Island with a group of non divers. I highly recomend this. I heard the night dive at the westend pier is awesome. Something you might want to check out.

 

[_Bella_]

I've lived on Stx part time for the past 12 years. I stay there from January to March.
Although I have personal loyalty to Cane Bay dive shop, I recommend others to tourists for different reasons. I believe the Cane Bay boats are too small and uncomfortable, but their boat dives the widest selection of the best sites on the north shore. There is an amazing variety between Salt River and Hams Bluff and the Christiansted shops simply don't explore enough of them, I think they fall into going to the same two or three sites over and over again.
I would also recommend you go to Frederiksted where the visibility will be consistently better and conditions are almost always good. The north shore conditions are variable and often unreliable. Scuba Shack, Scubawest, or N2the blue are all good, friendly operations and I personally dive as often as possible with N2 the Blue when I'm on island and want to get to the offshore Frederiksted sites.
The only operation I wouldn't recommend is Bubblemakers, simply because they are way more expensive than everyone with no added benefits.

 

[bpzdiver]

I too was looking at a trip to STX after reading about it in Scuba Diving's April magazine. So I called the travel agent for Divi Carina (I liked Divi Tiara on Cayman Brac plus Carina has a casino). The best package she could get in June, airfare from Jacksonville-Miami-St. Croix, 7 nights, 10 dives and without food was $1,882.58 per person. Add food and you're well over $4,500 for the week for 2! Without the diving it was $1,181.15, so $700 for 10 tanks? How can they compete?

Divi Tiara on Brac had a special $777 each for 7 nights, 12 dives, breakfast and dinner included. Now it might have gone up, but even if it's $1,000, all you have to add is airfare, which runs about $300-500 on Cayman Air. I've found that aside from Cozumel, a week dive trip for the two of us with everything is usually around 2,500-$3,000.

Is this typical for St. Croix?