Buck Island off St Croix USVIs

Lying 1.5 miles off the northeast coast of St. Croix, Buck Island and its reef is an 880-acre National Maritime Park.  The 176-acre island is surrounded by 704 acres of water and coral reef system which we read, “is a paradise for snorkelers, and the deep grottos and labyrinths are perfect for experienced scuba divers to explore”.  It seemed like an opportunity not to be missed.

Buck Island from the west

We found that there are quite a lot of restrictions on what we could do but the priority for us was to apply for a permit to visit the island because that could take up to 5 working days to be processed.  As it turned out, by talking face to face with one of the Park Wardens in the office at Fort Christiansvaern in Christiansted, we were able to submit the right form and get our permission back the next day.

The permit allowed us to anchor in just one area, off Turtle Beach at the western end of the island, and that turned out to be a beautiful spot.  However, having received our permission to anchor we had to obtain an additional permit to spend the night off the island.  That permit was easily obtained, though.  All we needed to do was to speak to the Park Ranger at Fort Christiansvaern and our request was agreed.

We left Christiansted mid-afternoon on 25 April for the 5-mile passage to Buck Island where we joined 2 other yachts in the anchorage.  A tripper boat trimaran was moored right up on the beach and, at the other end of the beach was a small motorboat; it was hardly busy.  The beach looked pristine and so we made up a sundowners picnic and took the dinghy ashore to explore.

There was no-one on the beach except for a couple of people from the motorboat…

… and around the corner we had a beach to ourselves other than some pelicans diving into the surf to catch fish. It was a beautiful place to enjoy our sundowners cocktails.

Our permit allowed us to anchor off Buck Island for 2 nights and so in the morning we took advantage of the fact that our new outboard was now fully run in and had a fast dinghy ride around to lagoon inside the reef at the eastern end of the island.  We had read that in the shelter of the reef there is a snorkelling trail and so we left the dinghy tied to a mooring buoy and set off to try to find it.

Nicky’s little follower: a Bar Jack

Barracuda circling nearby

Almost as soon as we were in the water we found a new friend.  A small bar jack with a distinctive blue strip on its back took an immediate interest in us and followed us closely for the next half hour.

Slightly spookier was the barracuda circling about 10 metres away.

Stoplight Parrotfish (bottom left with initial colouring)

A shoal of Blue Tang

The snorkelling trail was not immediately obvious but that hardly mattered because there was more than enough to keep us entertained looking at the mass of colourful fish feeding off the coral.

Cleaning the signs on the snorkelling trail

We’d read that each of the trail sign was marked by a buoy on which swimmers could take a rest if needed, but we saw no sign of any such buoys.  Eventually, we did find the snorkelling trail plaques but they were all covered in sand and needed a clean so that we could read them.  I guess that with tourism numbers down after the hurricanes, sorting the trail out for this season had not been a priority.

All the same, once we were in the right area, we had lots of fun finding the plaques and some were quite informative such as the one for the Brain Coral head which is apparently over 150 years old.

After about 45 minutes we both felt that we had explored inside the lagoon enough but were tempted by the odd gap in the reef that we had seen.

These gaps led to the deeper area outside the inner reef which was marked on our park diagram as the scuba diving area.  Most of the gaps that we had seen were too small for us to swim through but we took the dinghy to the western area of the lagoon on the northern side of Buck Island where there were mooring buoys laid for dive boats.  Close by we found what we were looking for and swam out through a slightly wider gap into the deeper area.

We found the outer wall to be covered in live coral, far more so than in the shallower part of the lagoon which had been affected by hurricanes.  You just needed to be able to dive down deeper to see the best of it…

… and to keep your eyes open. Nicky spotted a huge lobster walking along on the seabed about 10 metres below us and we were also spoilt by the fabulous sight of a stingray cruising past.

So, with both of us satisfied that we had seen the best of the snorkelling, we returned to BV to kick back and relax. Our guide book suggest that Turtle Beach is one of the prettiest in the Caribbean and we could not help but agree.  What a great place to be at anchor.

Sadly, after 2 nights our permit to stay ran out and so we left Buck Island at 9am on the 27^thand sailed back towards Christiansted.  The original plan had been to sail further on to Frederiksted on the western end of St Croix. However, we’d read that there was a ‘Jazz in the Park’ event planned to take place in Christiansted and so we thought we’d listen to that before moving on.

Buck Island off St Croix USVIs