#89
diver9744 - 8/23/2013 8:16 AM
I am moving to St Thomas USVI next June. Do you know which island you are going to? I’ve been to the 3 US islands to many times to count. By far St John has the most breath taking beaches (lots of celebs have homes there also). But you really cant go wrong with any of them... GREAT DIVING! Lots of reefs and plenty of wrecks off St Thomas (look up the Miss Opportunity, AWSOME WRECK!!) let me know more details and I might can advise better. We always rent a condo from individuals instead of a resort or hotel. Prices are about the same but you have all the conveniences of home... check out the website vrbo.com to see condos, rental houses, as well as hotel. Great dive shops to deal with are Red Hook Dive Center (mostly does reefs) and Blue Island Divers (my favorite). Blue Island does lots more wrecks than other shops since they are on the other side of the island. The owner DJ will make sure you have some great dives!! My 2nd favorite is Coki Beach Dive Club. Directly on Coki beach in St Thomas. They are awesome! Peter the owner has a small 6 diver boat (I hate those large "cattle" boats) and goes out of his way to make sure u have a good time. His prices are slightly less expensive than other shops as well. Since they are right on the beach you can also do shore dives (with or without guides) 2 reefs are just several yards from the beach. Awsome night dives there as well! Next to Coki Beach is "Coral World" (like a smaller version of SeaWorld). Its a good place for families to visit. You can swim with the sea lions (highly recommend) and do a shark encounter (not worth the $ for the tiny sharks they have) feed/pet rays etc... Google Coral World to see all they have, to much to list... Hope some of this helps. I am leaving Oct 5th for 2 weeks to St Thomas. Cant wait!!

I’ve done the puddle jumper over to Puerto Rico also (just to see the rainforest and to zipline) but in my opinion I preferred the diving around St Thomas. PR is nice to see all the historic sites (mentioned in above post).