Vote island best offshore snorkeling

[nancyr84]

St John has great off shore snorkeling. No boat required to see the amazing underwater world. What are some of the other islands that compare . Walk right in and an amazing coral reef is right there.
Nancy

[jayseadee]

Virgin Gorda has some great snorkeling. We spent a week on Spring Bay and never tired of the "view". It's also fun to see the huge boulders underwater. Anegada is also supposed to have great snorkeling; but it was too rough the day we visited.

[sea-nile]

Good topic! I'd like to know that myself. I would just keep going back to STJ, but others in my family have different ideas. Does anyone know about Hawaii and offshore snorkeling?

[SRT]

We tried Bonaire last year, and liked it so much we are going back in November (after SJ in August). Great off-shore snorkeling on the whole island, plus drift snorkeling off Klein Bonaire. We are going to try Curacoa for the first time for a week before a week on Bonaire. Great food also. Give it a try. SRT

[jayseadee]

Hi Sea-Nile,

There is some good off-shore snorkeling in Hawaii.

Poi-Pu on Kauai was very good. There is a bay on Oahu (south of Waikiki, I believe) that was good and popular - but the name escapes me.

The best we saw was at a beach south of Kona on the Big Island - it was the 2nd or 3rd beach after passing through the center of town. The abundance and variety was amazing.

I remember the fish, but I don't remember the condition of any coral. The last trip was about 7 years ago.

janet

[alw1977]

sea-nile - which Hawaiian island? We went to Maui in 2006 and the snorkeling was decent at Black rock off of Ka'anapali (but get there early) and there were good spots in Wailea too. Wailea has lots of little cove beaches with rocks at either side. I went scuba diving there, but not snorkeling. However, there were lots of snorkelers down in Wailea.

[Ron_L]

There is a bay on Oahu (south of Waikiki, I believe) that was good and popular - but the name escapes me.

Hanauma bay

[papabou]

while hurricane of couple yrs ago may have messed up, the best shore snorkel and dive spot i've encountered is eden rock area just south of georgetown grand cayman. you really need to free dive to get down into valleys and grottos so better for shallow scuba but was awesome for both day and night dives/snorkels.

also while the variety of coral was not as great as stj, some 20 yrs ago, bermuda's south shore had some awesome rock and lime stone formations and wonderful "surges" with the world's largest black parrott fish. water's a little cool though!

papabou

[FlaGeorge]

Grand Cayman - especially out on the east end.

[Grace]

Providenciales in Turks and Caicos. Grace Bay. Beautiful sea life, turtles and even some shark. Smith Reef near Turtle Cove.

Cozumel had some wonderful off shore snorkeling but I think the hurricane (Wilma) hurt some of the reefs but I hear it's coming back.

This is a good posting. thanks everybody.

[ScottB]

We also enjoyed Grand Cayman. Eden Rock was definitely one of our favorite there, along with Cemetary reef, and the reef out from Treasure Island Resort. The clarity in GC is almost surreal. Just wish the island wasn't so busy....Hence why we fell in love with STJ!!