DIVING IN ST THOMAS, US VIRGIN ISLANDS.

by Mik Carr

We travelled to the USVI in late August/early September 2002, which falls within the annual hurricane season. Consequently prices for flights and accommodation were cheaper, and the islands were relatively crowd-free. Flights were with Air 2000, direct from Gatwick. We took the upgrade option, which got us a wider seat, more legroom, a choice of in-flight entertainment, and 'free' drinks. The legroom alone was worth the extra cost.

Accommodation in St Thomas was at the Emerald Beach resort. This is within easy walking distance of the St Thomas International Airport, but we took the free transfer offered by Hayes and Jarvis' local representative as we had lots of luggage. The room was air-conditioned, the balcony opened directly onto the beach, the bed was comfortable, and there was plenty of space for drying our diving equipment, so that covered the basics. The house restaurant was good, with an excellent Caribbean banquet once a week, and the beach was pretty secluded. We never even had time to use the pool.

We had booked through Hayes and Jarvis, who in turn had arranged a ten-dive pack with Blue Island Divers at Crown Bay Marina. Sean McKenna of Blue Island Divers had answered our emailed questions in advance, and he seemed genuinely keen to ensure we enjoyed our stay in the USVI. Both Sean and his business partner, "Aitch" Liddle, are British, and both hold BSAC National Instructor tickets, along with a plethora of other agencies' instructor and technical qualifications. As ex-pats, they are always happy to see British divers.

On the advice of Keith Lawrence, who had visited the USVI earlier in the year, I had asked Sean to book us a hire car for the duration of our trip, which saved us a lot over the cost of hiring one ourselves on arrival. Make sure you get a car with air conditioning - the heat and humidity can be pretty tiring. The car we had was a couple of years old, but still in very good condition, and the money we saved was used to pay for diving! Oddly enough, the USVI uses American, left-hand drive cars, but they drive on the left.

As well as a dive pack, we had also booked training courses for our two-week holiday. Blue Island Divers do a full range of BSAC, PADI, and DSAT training courses, and is both a BSAC Centre of Excellence and PADI 5 Star IDC Centre. We opted for the BSAC Extended Range Diver course, alongside the PADI/DSAT Nitrox and Trimix blender course. Both courses had a practical bias, and worked well together: mix the gas on one day, and use it on the next. The clear warm Caribbean water was ideal for learning new skills without too much stress. Tuition was at our own pace, and we both really enjoyed the training.

Sean was keen to show us that hire equipment from Blue Island Divers is excellent. The day-to-day rental equipment is mostly Mares, and is replaced on an annual basis, so you are sure to get low-mileage kit that works well. The ERD equipment that we borrowed included wings, backplates, twinned 11 litre cylinders, front- and side-mounts for deco gases. All was modern and in very good condition.

Blue Island Divers were careful to ensure that the ERD dives took place on appropriate wreck sites that merited the additional dive time. Their boat, the "Island Diver", is a US Coastguard Inspected Vessel, carries Oxygen and a radio, and is licensed for 17 divers. However, Sean and Aitch prefer to take fewer divers; they allow a maximum of 8 divers on the boat to ensure quality and comfort is kept at a high standard. This means in practice that you have plenty of space to kit up on the boat, and the dive site is pretty sparsely populated. They aim to provide a high quality service in the belief that this will result in repeat business.

Following a thorough dive briefing by the day's Dive Master, we were allowed to sort out our own dives, although we could have joined the guided dive that the others on the boat followed had we wanted. Certainly they went out of their way to ensure that we visited all of the area's finest wreck sites during our stay, and were most attentive to our needs.

Sean and Aitch spend their off-duty time researching new wreck sites, and they seem to be doing a good job of finding un-dived wreck sites. They found a total of 8 new wrecks in the period 2001 to 2002, increasing the number of regular wreck sites to 21 within a 35-minute boat trip from the marina. These wrecks are generally in a good state of preservation, with interesting life. Depths allow for reasonably long dive times, and we took advantage of this on our ERD dives. We saw plenty of turtles, a few sharks, many rays, and the usual fish suspects for the Caribbean, including several schools of big barracuda. Some of the wrecks permit deep penetration and multi-level dives; Blue Island Divers' website gives pretty detailed information of their favourite sites, including some very professional photography.

Costs
Two weeks accommodation plus flights around £1154 (The original price was higher, but we got a BSAC discount of £185 each).
Supplement for flight upgrade £250.
10 dive pack incl. tanks and weights £260.
Meals from $10 cheap to $100 at the most expensive restaurants.

Follow the link to www.blueislanddivers.com for further details of Blues Island Divers' dive sites, courses, and equipment hire, and general information on the US Virgin Islands.
Visit www.hayesandjarvis.co.uk for details of flights and accommodation at Emerald Beach Resort.