Snorkeling St John USVI Trip Report – March 2025

By Doug Finney

Here is my snorkeling St John USVI trip report. While planning our March 2025 trip, along with downloading Galen and Nicole’s St. John eBook, we really appreciated the updates others had posted, so I want to pay it forward with our own take. It was quite a change from our previous snorkel trip in Indonesia, with its endless colorful corals and huge quantities of fish at every turn! But the Caribbean is a heck of a lot easier for us to get to and St. John still made for a wonderful snorkeling vacation.

The St John Snorkeling Sites We Hit and Our Favorites

From shore:

• Kiddel Bay
• Grootpan Bay
• Hansen Bay / Pelican Rock
• South Haulover
• Francis Bay
• Great Lameshur Bay
• North Haulover

By boat:

• Booby Rock
• Eagle Shoal
• Reef Bay
• Honeymoon Bay

On St. Thomas:

• Secret Harbor
• Sapphire Bay

A combination of timing, conditions, and wanting to avoid longer hikes to reach the water kept us from hitting popular sites like Waterlemon Cay, Salt Pond, and Yawzi Point. Given that, our favorites were:

• North Haulover – Amazing expanse of gorgonians along with a very good number fish.
• Francis Bay – Turtles and rays over the sea grass, then a wonderful variety of fish, particularly lots of juveniles, amongst the rocks and coral outcrops.
• Kiddel & Grootpan – A rare low-wind day so we were able to snorkel all the way around the point from Kiddel to Grootpan and on almost to the next point. Not a lot of coral but interesting topography, lots of fish and a fun octopus encounter as we arrived back at Kiddel.

St Thomas Snorkeling Experience

We began our trip with a few nights on St. Thomas for unrelated reasons, but we had fond memories of snorkeling there 20 years ago and of course had to get in the water anyway. I did not have high expectations but was still quite disappointed! There was nothing special about either location, other than briefly seeing probably the largest eagle ray we have ever seen out near the mouth of Secret Harbor. Some mildly interesting topography, a few cute fish, but ultimately skippable.

Snorkeling St John USVI Trip Report Details

Our base on St. John was a rental overlooking Coral Bay, a great central location if you’re planning on snorkeling everyday as just about all the best sites are within a 15-20 minute drive.

We usually seem to be cursed with winds even stronger than normal whenever we visit the Caribbean but our first two days on St. John afforded some of the calmest conditions we have ever snorkeled in. Day one we drove our (very necessary!) rented Jeep to Kiddel Bay. There were a couple people on the beach at Grootpan but otherwise we had both bays entirely to ourselves. Great fun.

We happened to have a boat trip planned for day two with Island Roots Boat Charters, so were again very lucky with the lack of wind. We circumnavigated Booby Rock twice, enjoying a large variety of fish and a few soft corals. The highlight of Eagle Shoal was a large nurse shark swimming around rather than just resting on the bottom.

Living up to its name, the reef at Reef Bay must run a mile or more. The soft coral was second only to North Haulover and there were lots of fish, including a couple large schools of tangs and surgeonfish. Highly recommended, if you can reach it. Honeymoon Bay was skippable, at least that day. A strong north swell had churned up the sand so much we could barely see the couple of turtles.

There were more turtles (and clearer water) the next morning at Hansen Bay. There is a parking lot at the far east end of the beach with attendants who also put out beach chairs. Donations are welcomed but not required. Brilliant red sponges out around Pelican Rock were the most colorful we saw on the trip.

The wind had picked up considerably by day four so we opted not to swim out to Blinders Rocks but both sides of South Haulover Bay were still very nice. Highlights included a small school of reef squid, a number of angelfish and a bridled burrfish.

We didn’t see much if any live elkhorn or staghorn coral around the island but Francis Bay had some decent sized clumps of brain and star corals. Another family of reef squid, a porcupine fish, and the numerous turtles and rays were fun but the juvies! Assorted angels in various sizes, a whole school of small grunts, blue tangs still in yellow phase, lots of little goatfish, a small barracuda, so much fun! I also saw the only eel of the entire trip here but failed to get even a bad photo of it.

The Jeep proved its worth again getting us to Great Lameshur Bay. We maybe should have hit this one earlier in the week while the winds were down, as swimming out to Yawzi Point wasn’t an option this day. The rest of the bay was just okay, though we did see yet another batch of reef squid, a yellowline arrow crab, and the only queen triggerfish of the trip.

North Haulover turned out to be a splendid finish to a very fun trip. The expanse of sea fans and sea plumes made this by far the prettiest location, at least under the surface. Above the water, it seems every cove on St. John is more beautiful than the last! Fish-wise, there were plenty around but nothing too unusual.