Frederiksted Pier: Diving and Sunset Views in St. Croix

Posted on January 25, 2025November 6, 2025 by jim

Diving or snorkeling at the Frederiksted Pier is one of the highlights listed in every single St Croix travel guide.
There are multiple dive shops along the Frederiksted waterfront that you can rent snorkel or scuba gear from if you come unprepared, and there were no shortage of customers the several times we visited town.
Because the pier itself is only open to cruise ship passengers when they are in port, you have to enter the water along the rocky shoreline while trying to avoid stepping on spiny sea urchins and then swim out to the pier from there.
We were skeptical on our first visit to Frederiksted with Jason and Barbara as the waves were pounding and we couldn’t imagine trying to enter and exit the water here, much less maintain a safe distance to the pilings without the wave action slamming you into one.
That day we bailed and went elsewhere.
Lucky for us we stopped back by on a perfectly calm day and decided to try our luck.
Not the greatest photos and videos since I brought the GoPro not a big rig, but it does a good enough job showing the highlights.
We stopped counting turtles after the tenth one, and we had two turtles and seven spotted eagle rays swim beneath us all at once! Very, very cool.
Most divers pass the pier as they are headed out to dive the wall, and most snorkelers stop after the first few pilings due to the swim distance.
If you put in the effort, you end up with nobody around, and all of the larger marine life was around all of the furthest pilings.
If you’re here on a calm day when no cruise ship is in port, we can’t recommend this one highly enough.