A Perfect Snorkeling Vacation
Written: May 17 '02 (Updated May 17 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fantastic snorkeling, unspoiled beaches, low crime, no passport needed from USA
Cons: lots of hills & stairs, rather expensive (esp. food), not much night life.
The Bottom Line: One of the best places in the world for a quiet snorkeling vacation.
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| dreamshark's Full Review: St. John |
My fantasy of a dream vacation has always involved turquoise water, palm trees, and beautiful but deserted beaches. I imagined myself waking each morning in a tiny, perfect little beach house just above the tide line and walking right out the bedroom door across 20 feet of white sand to wade in the gently breaking waves. St. John comes pretty close to fulfilling that fantasy. The beaches, the turquoise water and the palm trees are everything I had hoped for, but houses on the beach are hard to come by. Usually there are more stairs involved than I had in mind.
St. John is the smallest and most unspoiled of the US Virgin Islands, mostly because 2/3 of the little island is National Park land. The harbor is too small for cruise ships (thank God!) and there is no airport, probably because there isn't any place to put one. The island is about 3 by 9 miles, and consists almost entirely of mountain and beach. The town of Cruz Bay, a dangerously picturesque little tourist town, is crammed into the tiny crescent of flat land surrounding the harbor on the western end of the island. The settlement of Coral Bay (I was told quite firmly that it is NOT a town) straggles along the harbor on the east end. Pretty much everything in between is National Park beach or neighborhoods of little houses clinging to the mountain sides. The only way to get to St. John is by boat (typically, the ferry from St. Thomas) and the only cars you can rent are some variation on a jeep.
People vacation on St. John for lots of reasons. Some people like to relax in a mountain-top villa sipping rum and gazing at the spectacular "270 degree view." Some people anchor their sailboats in Coral Bay to go dancing at Skinny Legs Bar. Some come for the ecotourism (I may write about that in a separate review on Maho Bay Camps). But we came for the snorkeling, so in this review I'm going to focus on how to plan a great snorkeling vacation on St. John.
First of all - where to stay. You have 3 basic choices for accommodations: campground, hotel/condo or villa.
Campground: Obviously the cheapest route - but camping does not necessarily mean pitching a tent and sleeping on the ground. Cinnamon Bay offers a choice of bare campsite, tent or cabin. Both tents and cabins include 4 cots, a campstove, a cooler, a water container, kitchen equipment, a lantern (electricity in the cabins) and access to group bathhouses. Best thing about Cinnamon Bay - it's flat! Of all the places I saw or stayed in on St. John, this one came the closest to my fantasy of "roll out of bed and you're on the beach." Maho Bay Campground is not really camping at all - it's all cabins about the same size as the Cinnamon Bay ones, but perched on the side of a mountain. Everything is connected by wooden catwalks - and HUNDREDS of stairs. Maho Bay has its own special charms, but well, I warned you about the stairs! Cinnamon Bay and Maho Bay are two of the best snorkeling beaches on the island, and you can't get any closer to the beach than the campgrounds.
Hotels and condos: The one option I haven't tried, and I doubt I ever will. Caneel Bay is where you stay if you are rich, or are splurging on the honeymoon of your dreams. It's on the north side and has 7 beaches of its own, so it's probably great snorkeling. The Westin is on the south side of the island (least good for snorkeling) and looks like over-priced, over-manicured middle class hell to me. Gallows Point is supposed to be nice, but it's right in town and hasn't got a real beach. There are some run-down looking motels right in town, and quite a few pods of rental condos.
Villas: St. John is full of them. If you are traveling in a group of 4 or more, this is absolutely the way to go: the bigger your group, the better deal you can get per person. I found more than a hundred rental villas listed on the Internet, ranging from tiny honeymoon cottages to 8-bedroom resorts. Most of them rent by the week, but sometimes you can find shorter stays available. It's great to have your own shower and hot tub, but you'll probably have to drive to the beach, or hike down a treacherous goat path. You'll definitely need a car, which is expensive. We stayed in one in the Hart Bay/Chocolate Hole area. The house was nice enough, but the southwest location is not a good choice for snorkeling. The beaches in that area aren't so good, the waves are higher, and it's hard to get to the northside beaches without driving through town (a nerve-wracking experience).
Snorkeling
I had never been snorkeling before, but I doubt that it gets much better than this anywhere! The water is shallow near most of the beaches and the reefs are right near the surface. Even certified scuba divers throw away their tanks and just snorkel on St. John - it's so easy! You just put on a mask and stick your head in the water practically anywhere and you are surrounded by yellow-striped grunts, garish parrot fish, iridescent blue tangs, and rivers of twinkling silversides stalked by predatory tarpons and jacks. If you keep your eyes open you'll see rarer sights - octopi, eels, rays, sea turtles. Maybe the tail of a nurse shark or a puffer fish under a rock. But don't EVER walk around near a coral reef without looking at your feet! Not only are you too good a citizen to risk breaking the delicate coral, once you see your first long-spined sea urchin you will know that you don't want to step on one!
A few tips, if you're not an experienced snorkeler.
1) You can rent gear by the week at several shops on the island. The rental masks and fins seem to be perfectly adequate, but all the snorkel tubes are short and plain. I recommend buying a nice long snorkel tube with a ball-and-cage gizmo on the top and bringing it with. Masks are expensive, but you can get a nice snorkel for less than $20.
2) Bring a little tube of vaseline to smear around the edges of your mask to keep it from leaking. A leaky mask can ruin your day.
3) Bring a HUGE tube of 50 SPF waterproof sunscreen. If you buy it on St. John you will pay 4 to 5 times what it would cost at home. And believe me, you don't want to be without sunscreen! Buy it new. We made the mistake of bringing some old sunscreen with us. Apparently the stuff wears out after a few years in the cupboard - we got terribly sunburned the day we used the old tube.
4) Wear a t-shirt and shorts when snorkeling in the hottest part of the day. Even slathered with sunscreen, you can easily get burned if you're floating around face-down in the noon day sun.
5) You don't have to wear fins. Frog-kicking around the reefs and paddling with your hands is not considered proper snorkeling form, but I felt much more in control when I could use my legs the way I'm used to. Fins are indispensable for swimming out to a cay (offshore island) but I usually left 'em off when I was exploring rocks along the shore.
Where to Snorkel
First of all, YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO TRUNK BAY! Sure, it's a beautiful beach. But you know what? Every beach along the north shore of St. John looks just like that, except that they aren't filled with wave after wave of day-trippers from St. Thomas. The much-vaunted underwater snorkeling trail is kind of a disappointment. Not only is it crowded, the signs are in black and white (or maybe blue and white), which seems kind of silly when the fish are all in color. If you do visit Trunk Bay, go early in the morning (before 9) or after 4 pm to avoid the crowds.
When you arrive in Cruz Bay, go to the ranger station (turn left when you get off the ferry and walk 1/4 mile along the harbor). Pick up the 2-page handout on the counter that looks like it's been photocopied about 200 times too often. It's called something like: "Snorkeling on St. John." It was written by Ranger Don, and tells you everything a snorkeler might want to know about each beach on the island. You may also want to buy a book or two, or at least a waterproof fish chart. And if Ranger Don is still doing his weekly nature walk at Leinster Bay, sign up for it. You'll learn a lot.
The best beaches are along the north side. Definitely best in terms of white sand, and good generic snorkeling. However, if you get tired of seeing the same old things over and over again, move on to Haulover Bay, or Hurricane Hole or Salt Pond Bay. The climate is actually different on the southeast end of the island, and so is the sea life.
I absolutely recommend taking at least one snorkel cruise. The basic idea is: you get on a boat, they haul you out to an offshore island or otherwise inaccessible reef and dump you in the water. You snorkel around for an hour or two, then climb back on the boat. There are half-day and full-day trips, sailboats and catamarans and great big speed boats. My favorite was a day-long trip that included lunch and an open bar. Big fun! And no sand in your flippers.
When To Go
Pretty much any time except fall, judging from the weather data. August and September are both hot and hurricane prone. September through December seem to be the rainiest. But it's partly a matter of luck - we had sunshine and very few bugs on both our trips (June and January), but nothing is guaranteed. There's only about a 5 degree difference in temperature between winter and summer, but it's surprisingly noticeable. It's always very humid, which makes 88 degrees seem unbearably hot and 70 degrees seem kind of clammy.
SUMMER Less crowded than in high season, and lodging is 30-50% cheaper. Never too cold for snorkeling. No winter swells on the north beaches. On the down side, it was too hot to be comfortable during the day anyplace except on the beach, and nights would have been tough without at least a fan (A/C better). I would not want to be sleeping in a tent in summer.
WINTER Airfare may actually be cheaper than in summer (more competition). Rarely too hot, even in town, and pleasantly cool nights. Good time NOT to be home, where it's dark and cold. On the other hand, the sudden change from winter-dry air to constant dripping humidity can be a shock to the system, and not an entirely pleasant one. Evening snorkeling is definitely chilly, everything on the island is more crowded and more expensive, and "north swells" may ruin the snorkeling.
Get a Car?
Like I said, it's all jeeps at the rental car places, and they're expensive, starting at $350/week. The roads look like paved roller coaster tracks, and you drive on the left side. This is either tons of fun or a nightmare, depending on your temperament. On our first trip, we rented a jeep and had a blast driving the Centerline Road through the mountains and exploring Coral Bay. On the second trip we stayed at Maho Bay Camps, which is kind of a self-contained world of its own, and never missed having a car. We went on a lot of day trips, by boat and taxi. One day we rode the public bus from one end of the island to the other, which was an adventure in itself (ask me about the guy with the limes!)
"Taxis" are really jitneys - big pickup trucks with seats and a canopy in the back. Since there are only 3 main roads on the island, the taxis just run back and forth along more or less pre-determined routes, but without pre-determined times. The drivers won't leave until they figure they're "full," so it can be frustrating trying to get anywhere by taxi within a given time frame. And they're not cheap - $5-10 per person, depending on where you're going. On the other hand, riding along the North Shore Road in one of these things is fun - kind of like being in Disneyland.
So, do you need a car? If you're staying in a villa, almost certainly yes. If you're staying some place on a taxi route, it's up to you.
Writing this is making me wish I had the money to hop on a plane for St. John right now. It's been fun remembering, though.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Epinions.com ID:
dreamshark
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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 2 members
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