Page 60 - Florida and the US Caribbean Isles

St. Croix offers both shore and boat diving. On the west end you can
dive the Frederiksted pier or dive on several shipwrecks. In Cane Bay
you can access the famous “Cane Bay Wall” right from the beach. His-
toric Christiansted and Frederiksted are where a number of St Croix
dive shops are based and many boat dives depart right from Christian-
sted and Frederiksted. St. Croix’s north shore wall features numerous
underwater caves, tunnels, and pinnacles. The 1,000-foot Salt River
Canyon off of St. Croix is very popular as well. St. Croix also offers
some of the best snorkeling in the world. Buck Island, famous for its
incredible natural beauty and its underwater snorkeling trails, is one of
only two underwater National Monuments in the United States.
It could be argued that no island on earth has more spectacular un-
derwater sites than St. Croix. The north side of St. Croix has famous
wall diving at its best. Divers start in relatively shallow water reefs, but
then go out to the drop-off, which goes straight down, down, down to
Davy Jones’ locker, thousands of feet deep, where no diver can venture.
Just looking downward into the deep blue abyss is a awesome, but the
incredible abyss view is from in front of a wall of colorful corals, bright
sponges of all shapes, and a myriad of tropical Caribbean reef fishes in
just simply too amazing to tell in a few words. Since this is open water
diving, pelagic species of fish, including the likes of large jacks, marlin
and sharks may cruise by. Every diver loves to see a huge and graceful
manta ray, and there are eagle rays as well. Once in a great while even
a whale shark is spotted as the behemoth glides by with his big mouth
agape feeding.