Scuba Diving at Coco Cay

[sea-jay]

Has anyone been scuba diving at Coco Cay? Is there a reef or just sand bottom? I will be cruising on Freedom May 9th and will be in Coco Cay, St. Thomas and St. Martin.

 

Already dove at St. Thomas a couple of times and DW and I have other plans for there. I have also heard that St. Martin is not really a good location. At my age, I don't want to go deep and a one tank dive to 40 feet (as RCL provides at Coco Cay) is fine with me.

[golfer1966]

I never did scuba ( not yet ) but Ive snorkeled there a few times. There is some nice reef a little to the left of the one beach and there are also two other things... a sunken plane and and some old cannons. I myself love Coco Cay, especially the snorkeling. We were there different times and it seemed the cooler the water the more fish we saw. We also saw a few spotted rays, baracuda and many different kinds of fish. I made the mistake to take a small roll ( bread ) in the water with me. All it took was one piece and I was surronded and I mean surrounded. I was actually kinda scared, so I threw the roll and when it hit the water they all took off like a rocket. Since then I dont feed the fish anywhere, plus I hear its not good for them. Have fun.....:D

[sea-jay]

Keith - Thanks for your reply. I also have snorkled and seen the plane and cannons.

[PH8]

Hi SeaJay........been awhile..........hope you and C are doing ok.......:)

[crookedhalo]

DH scuba'd @ cococay and was not impressed. Not a lot of sea life to see. The plane was neat, but was sunk on purpose, so not to interesting:( It's also a walk-out trip, so keep that in mind.

[iamkidc]

Do your diving in another port. It is a shore dive with a long surface swim, and the max depth is only around 35 ft. You would be much better off snorkeling or freediving at Coco Cay.

 

To the left of the big rock it drops to about 25-30 ft. You might see 2 Eagle Ray in that area. I have also seen an eel hiding in the rocks over there. To the right of the big rock, out by the floating dock is the sunken plane. The lifeguard will throw dog food in the water to get the fish to swarm the area.

[mdrobtx]

DH scuba'd @ cococay and was not impressed. Not a lot of sea life to see. The plane was neat, but was sunk on purpose, so not to interesting:( It's also a walk-out trip, so keep that in mind.

 

Do your diving in another port. It is a shore dive with a long surface swim, and the max depth is only around 35 ft. You would be much better off snorkeling or freediving at Coco Cay.

 

To the left of the big rock it drops to about 25-30 ft. You might see 2 Eagle Ray in that area. I have also seen an eel hiding in the rocks over there. To the right of the big rock, out by the floating dock is the sunken plane. The lifeguard will throw dog food in the water to get the fish to swarm the area.

I agree with these posts. Surface swim against a strong current kicked our ass and ruined the dive. RCL used a jet ski to drag us back to shore after the dive.

[mark290]

Last Novemeber when on FOS I dove St Thomas, booked on my own.

I wasn't going to dive in St Martin because I kept hearing how bad it

was. At the last minute I figured some diving is better than no diving so

I used the RCI excursion in St Martin. I enjoyed the dive, reef/wreck.

Plenty to see and a shallow dive.

 

I snorkeled in Coco Cay because the scuba trip was full. You have to go

through RCI. Lots of sea life. I don't know if you scuba in the same area

but the swim out to the plane was not bad, lots of people do it.

[sandytoes03]

Husband did it and liked it. I think they sank a plane to see. Have fun!

Edited April 9, 2010 by sandytoes03

[PretenderFishing]

I know that this is an old thread, but I often come across these via search engines and like to read the posts. So I figured that I'd add my account for the next person who's searching this topic.

 

My wife and I did the CocoCay scuba trip. Having grown up in S. FL and having dove the the Isaac's and Bimini in the Bahamas and in Australia, I wasn't to hyped about this dive.

 

We came out of the water very glad that we did it. We saw plenty of fish. In particular, I was impressed with the large mutton, grouper and permit that we saw. At many places in the Caribbean, these fish aren't around much any more, especially this size. I suspect that there's not much fishing pressure at these private islands.

 

We also appreciate the little things, so the many invertebrate creatures we spotted were enjoyed. Neither of us are of the mindset that a dive has to be "deep" to be worthwhile. The shallow reef dive just gave us more bottom time, which we appreciated. And to us, the long swim out was just bonus snorkel time. Some of our best sightings were during that part!

 

It's not a wall dive in GC, or a reef dive in Bonaire, but was still better than sitting on the beach wishing that we were diving.

 

All that said, it was a serious workout. We are both in good shape and were very glad to see that they had jet skis to take us back in. We didn't know that until we surfaced and weren't looking forward to swimming all the way back. We allowed the more fatigued divers to head in first (they had also run out of air first, accordingly). If you aren't up for swimming hundreds of yards from shore, then don't do it.

 

Pics from our dive:

http://s51.photobucket.com/user/pretenderfishing/library/Mariner%20of%20the%20seas/CocoCay

Edited January 31, 2015 by PretenderFishing