Dive #238 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

Island Birds charter planes are without question the best way
to travel around the Virgin Islands
Photograph by Rich Torkington in the USVIs 2006

Dive Journal: Following our pampered week on the dive liveaboard Cuan Law, we head back to Beef Island and hook up with Island Birds, this time taking our charter plane to St. Croix.

Linda has found a killer rental house on the north side of the island called 2DIVE4, owned by Dave and Sue Mickley from Pennsylvania. The house sits perched atop a crusty beach facing the almost ever-present winds streaming in from the northeast. The views from the house and deck are gorgeous.

The deck extends out towards the water and contains its own pool and hot tub. The living room is fitted with large picture windows and sliding doors that exploit the great ocean views.

A stairwell descends from the primary deck down to a beach level room complete with air tanks, rinse tanks, showers, changing area, and gear lockers. There are notebooks inside the house that describe many good shore dives out front, and there are even large maps of the dive sites painted as murals on many walls. Hard to believe after the Cuan Law, but we find ourselves in divers’ heaven for another two weeks!

Soon enough, Linda and I suit up for our first dive attempt in front of the house. We hoof it a hundred yards east of the house to get to a sandier entry, and slowly try it. The winds are really moving and the surf is fairly strong. With effort, I manage to get out past the breakers, but Linda’s shorter height makes this more difficul. She makes a good effort of it, but in the end she loses a fin she hasn’t fastened yet, and it starts floating away in the surface currents.

We both come back in from the water and finally locate the fin. It has floated westward carried in the wind, and is now surging in the craggy rocks in front of our house, still traveling westward. With this much surf, there is no possible safe entry off these rocks, and we both watch in vain as it continues on its journey. We check further down the beach but there is no safe entry to be found in sight. Goodbye fin.

No problem, though. There are extra fins at the house, and Linda and I decide to try the shore entry at Cane Bay since it appears more protected. We drive down there, park our beat up rental car, and visit the dive shop there for some pointers. They give us a mini-briefing on the dive and we are soon donning our equipment out in the parking lot.

Cane Bay is completely protected from the prevalent winds today, and our entry is extremely easy onto a graded sand flat in calm waters. There is a long surface swim north out over the sandy bottom, which very slowly descends from 10 to 20 feet in depth, and we take our time.

Visibility is poor at first, but once we reach a steeper dropoff, it improves considerably. Once in about 35 feet of water, we submerge and decide to head west. There are tons and tons of juvenile fish, creole wrasses, longnose butterflyfish, and a number of white spotted morays. There are many beautiful sponges, barrels and tubes.

A splendid turtle soon crosses our path – great! There are also lots of flamingo tongues to be seen, and we enjoy a honeycomb cowfish near the end of the dive.

We love the shore diving routine – on our own schedule and our own terms!