Guy Carrier
Contributor
My wife and I just returned from ten days of diving in St. Thomas. It was really quite good. We stayed in a reasonable priced condominium at Sapphire Beach ($150 a night). And did three dives a day for eight days with the Red Hook Dive Center (formerly Chris Sawyer). The managers of the RHDC are the former employees of Chris Sawyer's operation and have a ton of experience diving in the area.
I was surprised that the weather was very good allowing us to dive both north and south of the island at different times, so the sites were very different from day to day. We also did a number of sites that we had not done before and saw some vertical structure that I did not realize was available in the St thomas area (Packing Rock and Jaws are the two sites that stand out in this regard). We did Cow and Calf, Stragglers, Ledges at Little Saint James and Arches and Tunnels, all great dive sites. We also did a site they call White Castle and saw multiple nurse sharks and a spotted eagle ray on that dive. Lobsters are abundant at many of the dive sites and during the early part of the trip we saw multiple octopus out in the open during the day which is something we had never obsewrved before.
All in all a great dive trip and a good chance to get a break from the cold. It's supposed to be in the 20s for highs later this week so its payback time. I would also recommend traveling on New Years day; the traffic was minimal, the airports empty and the airplane was about 30% full.
Guy
I was surprised that the weather was very good allowing us to dive both north and south of the island at different times, so the sites were very different from day to day. We also did a number of sites that we had not done before and saw some vertical structure that I did not realize was available in the St thomas area (Packing Rock and Jaws are the two sites that stand out in this regard). We did Cow and Calf, Stragglers, Ledges at Little Saint James and Arches and Tunnels, all great dive sites. We also did a site they call White Castle and saw multiple nurse sharks and a spotted eagle ray on that dive. Lobsters are abundant at many of the dive sites and during the early part of the trip we saw multiple octopus out in the open during the day which is something we had never obsewrved before.
All in all a great dive trip and a good chance to get a break from the cold. It's supposed to be in the 20s for highs later this week so its payback time. I would also recommend traveling on New Years day; the traffic was minimal, the airports empty and the airplane was about 30% full.
Guy
