St. John

[Capt Tom McCarthy]

I'm going on vacation pretty soon to St. John in the USVI. I've been to St. John once before and I went out with a dive outfit that was pretty much a follow the leader deal. Even though i'm a dive master myself the crew still gave me a hard time about wandering off on my own. I'm not going to say which company however. I was wondering if anyone has had any good or bad experiances with dive outfits on St. John USVI. Or any general suggestions for diving on the island at all. Thanks in advance.

 

[DJG]

I had a great experience with Down Under Watersports in May. It's a fairly new operation that only takes out 6 divers at a time. They went to some great dive sites and we really enjoyed diving with Bill and Cindy. I also dove with Low Key and felt it was more a cattle boat experience, so we decided to try Down Under and we are glad we did.
Also, we went out one day with Cruz Bay Watersports and did the wreck of the Rhone in the British Virgin Islands which was a great dive.

I really enjoyed the diving there more than I thought I would, especially since Bill took us to some really great sites where the reef was in good condition and had plenty of life. Down Under was also the only operator that allowed me to stay down until I was at 500 psi. The other operators are on a very strict schedule but Down Under was very relaxed. You may also want to check out a post that is still active titled St John USV. It has several pages of good information. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. Good luck and enjoy St. John, we sure did!

 

[Capt Tom McCarthy]

Hey thanks a lot. I'll definately check them out.

 

[Capt Tom McCarthy]

Did down under let you go off and do your own thing?

 

[DJG]

I didn't really want to go off from the divemaster because I had never been to St. John before and was not familiar with the sites. But, there was a divemaster on the boat with us and he hung back and did his own thing for the most part. At the end of the dives, everyone just did their own thing until you were ready to get back on the boat. Give them a call and see what they say, I am sure they will accommodate you if they can. www.downunderstjohn.com is the website but it's new and doesn't really have a lot of information but at least you can get the number.

 

[Capt Tom McCarthy]

Mmmmm... too bad there's no location for the operation.... oh well

 

[redlipblenny]

You might also want to try St. John Dive Adventures out of Coral Bay. They are under new management and up and running again and have a solid rep for going to some more east end/out of the way sites that the big operators don't go to.