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This page is about our dive trip to St. Croix in March of 2019.

St. Croix 2019

First Trip to the Virgin Islands

This was my first trip to the Virgin Islands.

We dove with Cane Bay Dive Shop. Great bunch of people. Nice boat. The boat was never crowded. Their web site needs to be updated. It shows that they have 4 locations on the island but they now have only one. It is in Fredriksted, across from the Pier. We dove 5 days. The first two days, Monday and Tuesday, the boat went out of Fredriksted. That was about a 45 minute drive from our bed and breakfast. The last three days the boat went out of Salt River Marina, which was only about a quarter of mile from where we were staying. We made two boat dives each morning and did two shore dives afterwards. I did one night dive at the Fredriksted pier but the rest of our shore dives were done in the afternoon or at dusk.

The diving was absolutely great. We saw dolphins and sharks on multiple dives. We saw lots of Black Durgon Triggerfish on most dives. Flamingo tongue snails and red barrel sponges were also more commonly seen than in most places I have been diving. We also saw thousands of garden eels in the sand on the dives. When diving on the north side of the island we saw sharks on some dives at about 75 to 120 feet below the surface.

We saw dolphins on three dives. Once on a dusk dive at Cane Bay, it was getting dark, so Kim and I were getting ready to head back to shore when an adult dolphin and her baby buzzed me. The mother came up from behind me, turned and swam just a couple of feet in front of my face with the baby just on the other side of her. They surprised me and by the time I got my camera up they were swimming away. It was dark so the video and pictures did not come out very clearly.

Two days later, on a morning boat dive, not far from where we had seen them two days earlier, the same two dolphins swam right through our group of divers. There was another adult dolphin that followed them but did not come as close to the divers. He was probably with them two days earlier, but we didn’t see him since the darkness of the evening decreased the visibility.

While we were back on the boat and heading to our second morning dive, we saw the dolphins following our boat. On the next dive the three dolphins visited us again. The mother and baby come over and swam a circle around Kim. Unfortunately, she was so excited that she must have hit the wrong button her camera and I was off by myself filming a yellow headed jaw fish, so neither of us got pictures or video of the dolphins but one of the divemasters got some great video of the two dolphins circling Kim and rejoining the third dolphin.

Dive Log

Kim and I got in 20 dives in 5 days. I spent 19 hours and 39 minutes underwater.

We used air on one dive but dove with nitrox on all the other dives. The Cane Bay Dive Shop was good about having 80 and 63 cu ft tanks ready for us as long as we let them know a day ahead of time how many we needed. They even delivered them to our bed and breakfast when we needed them to.

Here is my dive log for the week.

Trip Logistics

Dates: March 17, 2019 to March 24, 2019

Airline: American TPA to MIA to STX

Accomidations: Arawak Bay Inn Bed and Breakfast

Dive Operation: Cane Bay Dive Shop

Gas: Nitrox

Booked through: The Travel Shop

Driving

One of things that I did not expect was that they drive on the left side of the road in the US Virgin Islands. I would have expected that they drove on the left side in the British Virgin Islands but I didn’t expect that in USVI. Kim had to remind me a few times to get on the left side of the road. The only other place where I have driven on the left side of the road was in St. Kitts when I used to lecture at the veterinary school on that island. Other than that, I always take public transportation when I am in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Australia and Great Britain.

My Dive Statistics

Video

Soon (or maybe later) you will be able to Click on the Thumbnail picture below to see a short video of some of the things we saw diving on this trip to St. Croix.

Dining

I had a list of restaurants that were recommended by other Donkey Divers who had been to St. Croix and some friends who live on the island. Unfortunately, some places were still closed due to damage done by hurricanes Irma and Maria. And the health department had just shut over 20 restaurants a few days before we arrived so those were closed to make repairs. Sunday we ended up eating at McDonalds, which wasn’t on my list but the first 5 places we went weren’t open. We managed to find some great places to eat the rest of the week. Monday night we drove into Christiansted and had dinner at Nauti Bar and Grille. Tuesday evening we ate dinner at Flyers which is at Salt River Marina. We also had dinner one night at Blues Backyard BBQ and enjoyed dinner at La Reine Chicken Shack the last two nights on the island.

On Monday we ate lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Fredriksted after our boat dives so that we could stay there and dive the pier in Fredriksted that afternoon. Tuesday, we stopped at a roadside food vendor on our drive from Fredriksted back to the Cane Bay area for our afternoon shore dives. Eat @ Cane Bay was closed the first few days we were there but after they reopened, we ate lunch there on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Their menu selections improved each day as they got the kitchen back up to full speed. On Saturday, Off the Wall (also at Cane Bay) was open for lunch and we had a great lunch there. Both places had good food with a great view.

Monday and Tuesday we had to eat breakfast in Fredriksted so that we could be there early enough to catch the dive boat. The rest of the week we were able to take advantage of breakfast at the Arawak Inn since the drive to the boat was only a couple of minutes down the road.