Going to St Thomas/St John -- where to stay, complete cert
Todd H.
Greetings!
On somewhat of a whim, I've chosen St Thomas as my winter vacation
destination--the airline tix are purchased! I'd been there once on a
cruise when I'd ferried over to St John and had a wonderful day at the
underwater marine park snorkelling.
I'm a certified diver, and my SO is pursuing certification inland
right now with a PADI shop. Given that we're in Chicago and it's
November part of the plan is to allow her to do her certification
dives in St Thomas/St John.
I'm seeking recommendations on dive shops, locations, and places to
stay while there. The thought of splitting the stay between St Thomas
and St John is intriguing to me...as is the thought of staying the
first part of the week someplace with nice shore diving/snorkelling.
Our flight itinerary has us arriving on Monday and leaving on Friday,
if that influences the recommendations any.
Thanks so much for any insight or advice!
Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/
Michael
I hate to be the one to break the news, but if you are a diver you will be
very disappointed in the condition of the coral at the "underwater marine
park" on St John. Every crews ship to visit this small island dump their
ignorant passangers on that beach for a day of standing on the coral. There
is very little of interest left to see at the "underwater park".
You might try Coki beach on St Thomas, it has a wonderful selection of fish
and the water is always clear. A dive master named Joe Vogel used to have
night diving right off the beach. Not sure if he's still around.
"Todd H." <ot...@toddh.net> wrote in message news:m0wua7r...@rcn.com...
Robert Dickson
during the Gulf War. He was not too happy that his son was over in
the Gulf disarming mines and the Navy wouldn't let him re-up to join
in the fun. Coki is ok; I have done some dives there when I wanted to
get wet and no one else was going out, but I recommend that you get in
touch with Blue Island Divers http://blueislanddivers.com/ at Crown
Bay Marina. Second is a tie between Chris Sawyer, Aqua Action and
Barefoot Adventures. I have dived with Blue Island and their
predecessor, Sea Trade, for over 10 years, and have found them to be a
great bunch of people and a really good dive operation. I like the
selection of dive sites that they have on the south side of the
island. Check out their web site for information on their dive sites.
I wouldn't hesitate to dive again with any of the other 3, but I have
come to like Aitch and Sean and the rest of the folks at Blue Island,
and am looking forward to diving with them again in March.
Enjoy your stay.
Todd H.
> Todd,
> I hate to be the one to break the news, but if you are a diver you will be
> very disappointed in the condition of the coral at the "underwater marine
> park" on St John. Every crews ship to visit this small island dump their
> ignorant passangers on that beach for a day of standing on the coral. There
> is very little of interest left to see at the "underwater park".
Oh, I agree--I've been there. But it was a nice day, and I'm sure
there are other places in the area! I'm hoping to ferret them out
here. :-)
> You might try Coki beach on St Thomas, it has a wonderful selection of fish
> and the water is always clear. A dive master named Joe Vogel used to have
> night diving right off the beach. Not sure if he's still around.
Cool--thanks for this tip--I'll look into it.
Todd H.
> I think that Joe has retired. I took a resort course from him back
> during the Gulf War. He was not too happy that his son was over in
> the Gulf disarming mines and the Navy wouldn't let him re-up to join
> in the fun. Coki is ok; I have done some dives there when I wanted to
> get wet and no one else was going out, but I recommend that you get in
> touch with Blue Island Divers http://blueislanddivers.com/ at Crown
> Bay Marina. Second is a tie between Chris Sawyer, Aqua Action and
> Barefoot Adventures. I have dived with Blue Island and their
> predecessor, Sea Trade, for over 10 years, and have found them to be a
> great bunch of people and a really good dive operation. I like the
> selection of dive sites that they have on the south side of the
> island. Check out their web site for information on their dive sites.
> I wouldn't hesitate to dive again with any of the other 3, but I have
> come to like Aitch and Sean and the rest of the folks at Blue Island,
> and am looking forward to diving with them again in March.
>
> Enjoy your stay.
Hey Robert,
Thanks for the info! Where do you like staying when you're there?
I'm looking for lodging too and would appreciate any hints/tips.
Todd
Michael Sutton
> stay while there.
We stayed at Saphire Beach Club, located on St Thomas right up
from the Red Hook area, which is where you catch the ferry
to BVI and St. John.
It's a nice resort. We really like the rooms which were
huge and a had a great balcony overlooking the water.
Each room had a King bed and then a small kitchenette
area (stove, fridge, maybe a microwave), and a couch
and chair and TV area that was seperate from the Bed
by a sliding dividing wall. We really liked their
screened louvered security door on the other side of
the unit. It allowed you to open the balcony sliding
door and the other door and the trade winds gave a
great breeze right through the area.
The beach is very nice here and it had coral for snorkleing
right off the beach. The resort had several resturants
also, but they were all about "average" (except for their
high prices). This place was nothing fancy but was nice
for relaxing.
Now for the diving. They had an onsite dive service that
operated out of the watersports hut. The resort had
it's own marina and they had an about 30-35' newton type
dive-special boat. The nice thing about this was it
was a quick 50-100 foot walk from our room to the dive boat.
2 tanks dives which included equipment was about $55-$65
in fall of 1997. Most of their gear was Sherwood I think.
They would do a "guided" shore dive over at Coki Beach
for a little less (can't remember price).
Now there are nicer places to stay on the island, but this
place wasn't all that bad or anything. I can't say that
I would reccomend St Thomas as a destination though, unless
you were using it as a fly in point to catch the ferry
to BVI. St Thomas has just been over-run by cruise boats
and fast food and chain stores. It really has no "culture"
left to it. All the shopping is cruise boat orientated.
It's one of those places that there isn't much reason to
leave the resort unless you are catching the ferry to
BVI or St. John or need to do you "one day of shopping"
in town. Given all of this, you can find better islands
in the sea to visit. For diving you can definately find
better places to dive, though the diving here wasn't terrible
by any means.
Other than that I can't say anything bad about the resort
or the island except that Saphire beach was a "closed"
or gated resort that you went through a security guard
gate at the property fence. I guess this was to keep
out all the "non wanted people". But this didn't seem
to deter the guard from letting anyone in. This wasn't
a problem during the day, but anytime they had a "local band"
plan at the bar, it was so overpacked with locals that
you had a hard time getting service. This was during the
slow season on November, so maybe they were trying to break
even since they hotel couldn't have been 20% booked, but
hopefully they don't do this practice during the "tourist
season" or if they did, then I wouldn't reccomend staying
there if you wanted to enjoy the nightly entertainment.
As for places to stay on St John, there are alot of nice
resorts there and most are full service. about 75% of the
island is National Park so it's not delveloped at all.
You don't have all the fast food type places over there.
It an about $3 ferry ride from Red Hook and is only maybe
a few miles away.
make sure to pick up several bottles of Cruzan Rum while you
are there. It's the local rum. It's pretty cheap and
can be bought for about $3-$4 per regular bottle (5th).
It's not bad, but bring back a case as it makes great
gifts to give friends, etc. BTW, you can buy it at
the airport when you depart just as cheap as anywhere
else, so you don't have to bother with carrying the
stuff around town buying it.
Hope all that helps. email if you have questions. (remove the no-spam)
-mike
Robert Dickson
step-daughter's spare bedroom. That's how I've been able to go there
14 times in 14 years and why I haven't dived anywhere else in the
Caribbean.
Todd H.
Thank you Michael--this is very helpful! Yeah, St Thomas is short on
culture, and St John is much more secluded based on my day there.
BVI...I'm not familiar with, but given my plan tix to St Thomas, I
suppose I still have the freedom to pin down and stay there or St
John. Hrmm. Something I'll sure think about.
I'll definitely check out Saphire though and go from there. Good tip
on the case of rum too!
Michael Sutton
> Thank you Michael--this is very helpful! Yeah, St Thomas is short on
> culture, and St John is much more secluded based on my day there.
> BVI...I'm not familiar with, but given my plan tix to St Thomas, I
> suppose I still have the freedom to pin down and stay there or St
> John. Hrmm. Something I'll sure think about.
>
> I'll definitely check out Saphire though and go from there. Good tip
> on the case of rum too!
There are nicer places to stay than Saphire. I'd read some
recent trip reports on tripadvisor.com or something similar
as it's been 6 years since I've been there.
>
> Best Regards,