Virgin Gorda / St. John
 

We've been to St. John twice and absolutely love it, but we do want to venture out and visit other places. The main activity on our vacations is snorkeling and St. John has so many great places to snorkel from shore. Went to Anguilla this last year and were very disappointed in the snorkeling. The beaches were beautiful, but the snorkeling didn't come close to St. John. We're pretty active, so I'd have to say that we were a bit bored on Anguilla... although definitely relaxed!<BR><BR>I've read posts that say that snorkeling from shore on Virgin Gorda is great, and I've also read some that say the only way to get to good snorkeling is from a boat. The Baths might be great, but if there isn't alot more to snorkel from shore, we'd like to know that. <BR><BR>Can someone advise who has been to both St. John and Virgin Gorda?

Cathy,<BR> I have snorkeled at both. Around the Baths are really neat to snorkle. It is very difficult to walk down the main path from the Baths into the snorkeling area- you get deeper and are suddenly standing on slippery rocks which makes it nearly impossible to get your fins on!I suggest you take the path from Top of the Baths to Devil's Bay and snorkle around them, then walk through later. If you go you to VG, you must take a half-day sail to the Caves and Norman island- that was really incredible!Go to the baths really early or really late to avoid cruise ship and resort crowds- always check the cruise ship schedules!

I guess to boil down what I'm asking is, will be bored or disappointed with Virgin Gorda, if our primary goal is to snorkel from shore, as we can on St. John.

My experiences with the BVI is that if you want to snorkel and your expectation is nice coral formations, lots of fish, etc., then one needs to take a day trip with one of the many snorkeling day and half day charters.<BR>That said, given that St. John is so much more heavily touristed than the BVI (having been to both quite a few times), I'm unsure what your standard for good snorkeling is. The bays that I snorkeled on St. John some years ago were clearly good once-upon-a-time, but had long been ruined.

The best snorkeling for us in in St. John was Haulover (east end), Francis (all the way out to the point), and Waterlemon Cay. Salt Pond, Cinnamon Cay, and Hawksnest were pretty good too, but we generally went there very early before anyone was there.