Scuba Diving Vacation at Secret Harbour Beach Resort in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

The US Virgin Islands had been on our radar for a long time and with all the travel restrictions, organizing a dive vacation in St. Thomas seemed like the ideal plan. Since it’s a United States territory, no covid test was required to come back to the mainland. Perfect!

While the resort bills itself as one with diving on site, we would not really call it a dive resort in the truest sense. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled with resorts like Buddy Dive in Bonaire and Anthony’s Keys in Roatan where it’s all about the diving with rooms that are brightly lit and equipped with lots of hooks to hang gear.

Secret Harbour was more of a family resort-like atmosphere with a dive shop on site. There were only a few divers from the resort and the single dive boat from Aqua Action would sometimes pick up from other locations to fill up.

The dive package covers boat diving and shore dives for a single person, so diving couples like us must top this up with a second package. The dive center was kind enough to extend the unlimited shore diving for both packages and to give us the discounted room rate. Unfortunately, there was no additional discount for those bringing their own gear.

See our scuba diving vacation packing list and dive resort reviews

St. Thomas, USVI

We ended up renting a car at exorbitant rates as we wanted the freedom to visit the island. In retrospect, we didn’t really go out very much and a few taxi rides would have served us much better.

We enjoyed the Phantasea Tropical Botanical Garden, but many of the island attractions were closed. I suppose once the cruise ships start up again, the shops in town and tourist museums will reopen. We could still see some of the signs of devastation left by the two Category 5 hurricanes, Irma and Maria, that hit in September 2017.

Diving in St. Thomas

Aqua Action runs morning dives and occasional afternoon dives on their Ocean Express 30-foot dive boat. We did four 2-tank boat dives which were part of our package and got in an additional three shore dives.

The dive shop provided rinse bins and buckets and there were tanks outside for shore diving and weights. The crew took care of all the gear during the boat dives including setup.

The sites were shallow, most at 30-40 feet, with some as deep as 70-80 feet. We dove some of the more famous sites such as Cow Rock (which ends with a champagne corks pop up through swim-through) and the Cartanza Wreck.

The reefs were colorful and healthy. We didn’t see the amount of life we saw in Bonaire, Roatan, or Cozumel but we were pleasantly surprised with some nice treats: A gentle Hawkbill turtle, Caribbean reef sharks, a huge southern stingray with a 7-foot wingspan, tiny cleaner shrimps, arrow crabs, blennies and jawfish, to name just a few.

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We are somewhat lazy divers and enjoy macro photography, so we found that the dives were too fast-moving with the divemasters trying to cover too much ground. We rarely had a chance to stop to watch the many cleaner shrimps or roughhead blennies peeking out from their holes as we tried to keep up with the tour.

We were also forced to surface as a group, usually after only 40 minutes, despite having almost half a tank left. Other dive operators have often allowed us to remain under the boat to look around for a little longer, especially in the clear waters where you can easily see the boat from the bottom. Even with four outings we ended up duplicating a few of the sites.

Of course, we don’t want to seem ungrateful and we were happy to dive these wonderful sites and see what we saw. Perhaps going with a group and chartering the boat for 12 would be a way to lengthen the dive time and get out to different sites. The diving was easy with good 80-100 foot viz and little to no current. Water was a balmy 82-83°F in June.

The shore dives off the beach were more relaxed as we went at our own pace. We got to play with a friendly squid that followed us around for about 10 minutes and even found a resident octopus (who just winked at us from his hiding place!).

Secret Harbour Beach Resort review

Secret Harbour is more of a beach resort where you are close to a dive center. We brought our equipment with us and brought it back to our room daily to rinse and dry. The shop did offer to store it in their locker but with direct sun on our balcony all afternoon we actually preferred to hang the suits to dry. It’s a pleasure to have dry gear in the morning… and it also smells better!

The resort had an indoor dining venue and an exterior less formal patio dining. We went a few times but also used our car to go to other restaurants in the area. We also took advantage of our full kitchen and made some of our own meals. And staying in gave us the chance to watch the sunset from our balcony!

Overall condition

The resort looks good with fresh paint. Judging from many of the buildings we saw, the resort must have had substantial renovations after the hurricanes. Grounds were well kept and there were always beach chairs and towels available. The beach area is fairly small but secluded. There’s also a pool but it’s up the hill where some of the higher-level units are located.

Accommodations

Our room was like a one-bedroom apartment with a real kitchen and full-size fridge, stove, and dishwasher. It was nice to have the extra space and a nice balcony facing the ocean with spectacular sunsets views. There are also studios and multi-bedroom units available.

We were in one of the four oceanfront buildings, and we enjoyed our stay. The room was functional and comfortable with ample space. The kitchen was nice with granite counters and lots of seating. Our fridge, oven and microwave were all working great. All the essentials were there, including a coffee maker with daily supply topped up, and daily cleaning service was provided. The bed was comfortable and there was plenty of space to stretch out and manage our dive gear. Lots of plugs and a ceiling fan helped with charging and drying. The A/C worked well and kept the whole unit cool.

There was good high-speed Wi-Fi throughout the unit, but it was not working on the balcony. Likely because of the hurricane windows and doors. The local tap water is treated but it seemed to have a cloudy tint, so we used bottled water (as recommended by some of the locals at the dive shop!).

Conclusion

We were happy to have had the chance to travel to an exotic dive destination and to have done some nice dives. However, we did find that the US Virgin Islands was more expensive than some of the other dive vacations we’ve taken. This may be due to pent up demand after the pandemic, but we suspect that it is always the case.

Would we recommend it? Well for easy diving and for ease of entry during the pandemic we would say yes. The diving was good, but everything is more expensive in the US Virgin Islands when compared to other popular dive spots like Bonaire, Cozumel, Roatan or Grand Cayman. So, if you’re looking to have a taste of something new, then yes, splurge and check it out.

Overall, we are happy to have been and enjoyed our scuba diving vacation in St. Thomas. We missed out on some of the better sites like Navy Barges and Miss Opportunity. Perhaps we will return one day with a cruise ship for more diving, and we would not hesitate to dive with Aqua Action again.

Our DRYFOB waterproof car key container even found a home in St. Thomas!