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St. Croix Diving at Salt River Canyon

© Linda Gettmann

The submarine canyon at the entrance to Salt River Bay, together with the sheer outer wall with its diversity of deep water corals, caverns, grottoes, and ledges descending thousands of feet, is one of a few such geologic features found worldwide. The Bay encompasses the single largest mangrove system remaining in the Virgin Islands. The mangroves and the bay’s seagrass beds provide some of the most important foraging, nesting, and breeding habitats for resident wildlife and marine life in the territory. The site of Columbus’s landing in 1493, Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve is located on the north-central coast of St. Croix, approximately 6 miles from Christiansted. The area joined the National Park system in 1992 and is managed by the National Park Service and the Virgin Islands government, along with Buck Island Reef National Park, just offshore.

St. Croix is home to the largest living reef in the Caribbean. The coral gardens begin in very shallow water, great for snorkeling, just off the north coast of the island. The Ultimate Wall drops to over 13,000 feet, but we only covered the top 100 feet or so! The variety of dive sites range from dramatic walls to pinnacles, reefs to wrecks, underwater plateaus, and ledges with caverns and caves to explore. Although most of the sites are suitable for divers of any experience level, there’s plenty of action for advanced divers. Opportunities to make deep pinnacle dives and brave the current to access some of the more challenging sites reward advanced divers with a thrill ride. The north shore reef is close in, so boat rides are short and there are over 20 mooring buoys marking different dive sites, so you won’t be going to the same place twice, unless you want to.

The most requested boat dive on St. Croix is the steep and ruggedly textured West Wall forming the western edge of Salt River Canyon. The countless pinnacles, ledges and recesses suggest the geologic formations of the American southwest. Divers will find exhilarating swim-throughs between innumerable pinnacles. It’s easy to get lost in the complexity of this landscape, so stay with your buddy. Long passages under ledges and between pinnacles appear like an engrossing maze. You’ll probably see lots of black durgons, grunts, snappers, and creole wrasse school at the upper edge of the wall only 20 feet below the surface. On occasion, mantas glide in to feed in plankton rich waters. Cruising the wall will be schools of ceros, barracuda, and large green morays. This is a top night dive where a wide variety of crustaceans march out to join basketstars, octopus and turtles foraging for their dinner. Watch your fingers—just below the boat mooring live “Killer 1” and “Killer 2”, biting dusky damselfish that will charge any diver that gets too close to their home.

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