One of our FAVOURITE things to do, when traveling to warmer climate destinations, is jump into the water with our snorkeling gear! If you’ve ever been to the Caribbean, you know there are PLENTY of spots to jump in and marvel at sea life. We’ve snorkeled in Key West, St. John USVI, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Most recently, we spent a week traveling around St. Croix, USVI, and to call it a GREAT place to snorkel is an understatement! In this blog post, we combined our experience with some local intel to bring you the 10 best snorkeling spots on St Croix.
We’ll discuss the sites we visited, what we saw and additional tips we learned along the way. The list runs through the beaches on the map in a clockwise direction, starting on the west end of the island.
Traveling with your own gear
If you’re like us, you pack your own snorkeling gear. As budget travelers, we tend to pack light, but we always prioritize our snorkeling gear. Why? There are a few benefits to traveling with your own gear:
- you know it will fit/work well;
- you don’t have a time limit returning it;
- [if you snorkel a lot] it pays for itself which translates to money saved!
Visit the Local Dive Shop
So this means you don’t need to stop by a local dive shop right? WRONG! If the 10 best snorkeling spots on St Croix are on your agenda, this is one of the first things you will definitely want to do. Why, you ask…
- they’ll likely have a map of the local spots;
- they’ll know the conditions (currents and recent weather);
- they can educate you about the wildlife;
- they can guide you to sites that have what you’re looking for;
- good to know where they are in case you need to replace any equipment!
Travel Tip: If you don’t have a great understanding of marine wildlife and the ocean, we recommend inquiring with the dive shop as to any guided tours they may be providing. These generally range in price from $40-60 for various lengths of trip. There is a level of hazard associated with freely exploring the coastal ocean. So it’s good to have a lot of experience or be with someone who does 🙂
There are a couple dive shops on St. Croix and we stopped at both: Cane Bay Dive Shop (in Cane Bay) and N2theBlue (in Frederiksted). We obtained this map on our first day, from a visit to Cane Bay Dive Shop. The lovely woman behind the counter highlighted the best stops to spot sea turtles, lionfish, sharks, as well as various other types of wildlife. This map highlights the 10 best snorkeling spots on St Croix.
How Does Weather Affect Snorkeling
Rain – a light rain won’t affect much but a heavy down pours can affect your visibility.
Wind – depending on direction and speed, this can generate waves and a surface current that can interfere with your swimming. Additionally, a couple days of wind can stir up the sediment and affect your visibility.
Currents/swells – it’s important to understand what you are working with as far as water movement. Swimming in any kind of current (especially rip-currents) can be extremely dangerous, so it’s good to have a plan in the event you encounter some.
DID YOU KNOW? [Red] Lionfish are an invasive species. Native to the Indo-Pacific, there are a couple theories as to how they came to be introduced to the Caribbean and have been spotted as far north as New Jersey! As a result, many locals have taken their eradication into their own hands and sport fishing for them has become a popular pastime. You’ll even see them starting to pop-up on menus.
1) Dorsch Beach
This first spot on the west coast is a great one to start with! As you make your way along Veterans Shore Drive, you’ll notice a condo/resort on the road (Sand Castle on the Beach). If you’ve driven by it, you’ve gone too far. About a hundred meters north of the resort, there is a sign indicating that you are on Dorsch Beach. As you approach the water you should see what appears to be an ‘entry way’ between several rocks. If the water is clear, it is easily visible from the beach. This, is your entry point! As you gear up and get into the water, you may notice dive charter vessels sitting offshore, as there are several dive hot spots in the area as well.
This snorkel is a shallow one if you stay close to shore, with many rocky out croppings, where you’ll find plenty of fish hiding below. As you start to move north, the bottom gradually drops out and you’ll find yourself in 20-30ft depth of water. We were told about a couple lionfish that live about 100m offshore of this location but didn’t make the swim out to find them.
On this excursion we saw: honeycomb cowfish, lizardfish, spotted moray, french grunt, ocean surgeon, sergeant major and various wrasse. Tip: If you stop in the local dive shop, they’ll tell you to keep an eye out for ‘chaney’. A step-up from sea glass, chaney is shards of fine china that can be found along the shore. So keep an eye out! Read more about our day on the west coast here.
2) Frederiksted Pier
If you find yourself on St. Croix in the off season (ie. non-cruise ship season) you should definitely consider snorkeling the Frederiksted Pier. Not only does this spot have a beautiful, accessible parking lot, it also has alot of life to offer. The pier itself serves as the perfect subject for colonizing creatures and acts an artificial reef. There are a couple entry points here.
We made our way from the parking lot to the left side of the guard house and entered the water from the ramp before the pier starts. As soon as we entered, we were greeted by a grouping of squid and the diversity expanded as we moved along the pier. We started in a depth of about 20-30 feet and the end of the pier apparently drops off to about 90 feet! Unfortunately, we stopped our excursion mid-way due to encountering a field of tiny stinging jellies, so we headed back to shore. We saw: a hawksbill sea turtle (!!), a green moray, whitespotted filefish, and trumpetfish (among much else). This spot is supposed to be great for night swims as well with lots of activity if you’re into it! Read more about our day at Frederiksted Pier here.
IMPORTANT: Be careful of fishermen here! If you think about the biodiversity the pier’s structure has to offer, it’s no surprise that there are fishermen interested in these waters. It’s a good idea to keep a heads up on activity on the surface and an eye out for any fishing line in the water.
3) Rainbow Beach
The next best snorkeling spot on St. Croix is Rainbow Beach. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Rainbow Beach, other than to check out Rhythms for dinner and bucket bevys (pictured below).
4) Davis Bay
We snorkled in between Davis Bay and Cane Bay, but mostly in Cane Bay, so continue reading below.
5) Cane Bay
The Cane Bay Dive Shop is right across the road and an excellent resource for your adventure! Cane Bay is one of the more widely known dive/snorkel destinations on the island. More specifically for it’s ‘Wall’, which is accessible from the beach and drops down to 3,200 feet! We started off aiming for it, just to catch a glimpse, but ended up abandoning the idea due to poor visibility as we moved nearer. It’s a couple hundred meters off the shore. We did however, get far out enough to explore the staghorn coral farm, which was very cool to see! On this excursion we also saw: sea fans, common Atlantic shore octopus, southern stingray, elkhorn coral, brain coral and various of the common fish (wrasses, sergeant major etc.). For more about our day at Cane Bay, start here.
6) Protestant Cay
We were told this is a great place to see sea turtles, as the island is surrounded by sea grass. Home to ‘Hotel on the Cay’, this little island can be accessed by the ferry that runs regularly from the Christiansted Boardwalk. For $5 per person, you get a roundtrip ride, and access to the hotel beach. From here, you get a beautiful view of Christiansted Harbor.
We entered the water to the north side of the break water and made our way clockwise around the island. This is a nice shallow swim if you stay close to shore. It’s a good idea as the harbor can be a little busy with boat traffic. On this excursion we didn’t see any turtles but we did see quite a variety of fish species. This is due to the changing bottom type as you make your way around the island. You’ll encounter grass beds, sandy bottom, rocky bottom and many ‘architectural’ obstacles which give way to so many habitats. On our snorkel we saw: barracuda, silversides, damselfish, various angelfish, conch, spotfin butterfly fish, blue tang and anemone. More about our day in Christiansted here.
7) Tamarind Reef
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to check this spot out. The day we had planned to do so, the visibility was quite poor due to a couple windy days and a two foot chop stirring up the sediment. So, we decided to chill on the Chenay Bay beach instead. The colour of the water and the beautiful layout of the beach made for a great afternoon in the Caribbean.
8) Green Cay
This is a National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately we didn’t get around to checking out this spot either (same reasoning as above). It also came as a recommendation for sea turtle sightings.
9) Buck Island Reef
This National Monument is one of the main snorkeling spots that vacationers venture to when visiting St. Croix, which is why it was on our list! Unfortunately, being that we were visiting during the ‘off season’, tours were limited. The day we had planned to check it out, we were the only two! There are a couple of companies that offer trips to Buck Island. We were pretty bummed because SO MANY people spoke so highly of it! But, we came to terms with the fact that “we’ll just have to do it next time we come!”
10) Isaac’s & Jack’s Bay
Travel Tip: As you make your way to Issac’s Bay, look back towards Point Udall. You’ll notice a beach between you, this is East End Bay. This is a popular sea turtle nesting location in the late summer/early fall. Depending on what time of year you find yourself here, you may catch a glimpse of a turtle. During our trip, we saw hundreds of tracks that lead from empty nests out to the sea.
We had full intention of checking out both bays the day we were there but only ended up snorkeling Isaac’s. We started on the east end of the beach and snorkeled west, as a light current carried us along. Unfortunately we overshot our exit point and ended up having to maneuver over some urchin laden rocks to exit. Phil made it out unscathed, but Kat had a run in with an urchin which left spines in the left thumb. So, we cut our day short and decided to head back into town in search for a pin to pull them out. While snorkeling at Isaac’s we saw: tarpon and several of the aforementioned common fish species. More about our day on the east end here.
Sunrise Bonus!
You’ll want to pair your trip out to these beaches with the sunrise. ‘America’s First Sunrise’ to be exact. An early start to the day isn’t a bad idea for these two spots. After taking in the sunrise at Point Udall, the eastern most part of the US, head back down the road a couple hundred meters. Here you’ll find the entrance for the Jack & Isaac Bay Preserve. You can park here and make the approximate 20 minute hike to Isaac Bay, the first of the two beaches. During the time we were there, we had the entire beach to ourselves! It pays to be the early bird 😉
We had an absolute BLAST exploring all of these snorkel stops. We can’t wait to go back and explore the rest of the 10 best snorkeling spots on St Croix.
Want to read more about our trip to St. Croix? Start here.
Do you have a favourite place to snorkel? We’d love to hear about it below!
