The Ultimate Guide to Cane Bay

There are places on St. Croix that you make a point of visiting. Cane Bay is different. It’s a place you settle into.

The beach is beautiful, but that’s only part of the appeal. Cane Bay is also home to extraordinary snorkeling and diving, wonderfully casual places to eat and drink, and some of the best sunsets on the island.

It’s also our neighborhood. Oceans sits directly on the water just east of Cane Bay Beach, so this is the part of St. Croix we know best.

Our favorite way to experience it?

Don’t over-plan it.

Start at Cane Bay Beach

Cane Bay Beach is the center of this little corner of the North Shore: a curve of sand backed by palms and sea grapes, with clear Caribbean water just steps away.

Come in the morning, when the water is often at its calmest. Bring a mask and snorkel, find some shade and give yourself permission not to do very much for a while.

Cane Bay is pleasantly informal. People swim, snorkel, meet friends, wander across the road for something to eat and eventually find their way back to the beach.

That’s part of why we love it.

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What Lies Just Offshore

You don’t need a boat to have a memorable underwater experience at Cane Bay.

A reef lies offshore, with tropical fish, rays and the occasional turtle. Swim east beyond the first reef and you can find an area locals call the Fish Hotel, a nursery where you may see hundreds of juvenile fish along with pufferfish and other reef residents.

Then there’s Sea Biscuit.

Yes, Sea Biscuit is a carousel horse.

It sits upright on the sandy bottom in roughly 40 feet of water. Divers can swim right up to it, but on a clear day snorkelers can see the horse staring rather incongruously up from below.

It’s exactly the kind of slightly strange discovery that makes St. Croix St. Croix.

FROM OCEANS

Go early. The water is often at its calmest in the morning, and Cane Bay before the day gets going is one of our favorite times to be on the beach.

Then There’s the Wall

Cane Bay is known throughout the diving world for something much bigger.

Offshore, the Caribbean seafloor drops dramatically at the Cane Bay Wall, creating one of St. Croix’s signature dive experiences.

From Oceans, we regularly watch dive boats cruise past the villa on their way to the Wall, tanks lined up and divers aboard.

Certified divers can explore it with local operators, while snorkelers have plenty to discover closer to shore.

For dive operators, snorkeling spots and more underwater favorites, see our Snorkeling & Scuba Diving Guide.

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Come Out of the Water Hungry

One of the pleasures of Cane Bay is that you can spend the morning in the Caribbean and walk to lunch without ever really leaving beach mode.

The Landing is one of our standbys, casual and open-air just across from the beach. Win, the owner, has also always been wonderfully generous, providing beach chairs and WiFi at the beach—so if you’re staying at Oceans, there’s no need to lug chairs down with you.

SpratNet Beach Bar is decidedly unfussy and right on the sand. Farther along the North Shore, Off the Wall is another favorite place to sit beside the Caribbean and let lunch run longer than expected.

There’s no need to pack up and “go somewhere” for the afternoon.

Lunch simply becomes the next part of the day.

Find these and more of our favorites in our St. Croix Dining Guide.

Leave Some Time for Nothing

This may be our most important Cane Bay recommendation.

Don’t turn the day into a checklist.

Go back into the water. Read under a sea grape tree. Have another drink. Watch the pelicans work the shoreline.

Bathing suit turns into lunch. Lunch turns into another swim. Afternoon turns into sunset.

There are plenty of days to explore St. Croix.

Let Cane Bay be the day you don’t try so hard.

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Stay for Sunset

Whatever else you do, don’t leave Cane Bay at four o’clock.

Late afternoon is when the whole place changes. The heat softens, the water changes color and everyone seems to start looking west.

Then the sky starts doing its thing.

Watch from the beach, from one of the bars along the water—or, if you’re staying at Oceans, from the pool or terrace with nowhere else you need to be.

We’ve watched a lot of Cane Bay sunsets.

We still stop what we’re doing for them.

And Then, Dinner

For a completely different version of Cane Bay, make a reservation at AMA at Cane Bay.

Set directly beside the water at The Waves, AMA feels worlds away from the barefoot beach day you’ve just had—even though you’ve barely gone anywhere.

Try to time dinner around sunset.

There’s something wonderfully Cane Bay about spending the morning barefoot on the beach and ending the same day with dinner beside the waves.

Our Perfect Cane Bay Day

If friends were visiting and asked us how to spend their first day here, we wouldn’t give them much of an itinerary.

Head to the beach while the water is calm. Snorkel. Look for the Fish Hotel. Dry off in the sun.

Have lunch nearby.

Do absolutely nothing ambitious for a couple of hours.

Swim again.

Then find somewhere you want to be as the sun gets low—whether that’s a beach bar, dinner at AMA or back at Oceans with something cold in your hand.

It doesn’t sound like a particularly complicated day.

That’s precisely the point.

A Few Things to Know

Cane Bay is casual, and that’s how we think it should be experienced. Bring a swimsuit, sunscreen, water, snorkel gear if you have it and something to cover up in when you wander across the road for lunch.

Water conditions change, so use good judgment before snorkeling offshore and check with a local dive operator if you’re unsure.

Restaurant schedules and live music change frequently on St. Croix, too, so check before building a day around a particular place or event.

And don’t schedule yourself so tightly that you have to leave before sunset.

Why Cane Bay?

There are more famous Caribbean beaches. There are larger resort towns and places with rows of matching umbrellas.

Cane Bay isn’t trying to be any of those things.

It’s a beach, a reef, a handful of places to eat and drink, extraordinary water and a community of people who genuinely enjoy being here.

We came to Cane Bay because it was beautiful.

We fell in love with it because of the way life feels here.