St. John water sports rentals, from paddleboards to snorkel gear

Snorkel gear rental in Cruz Bay, day or week

The cheapest mask on the island is a weekly one collected in town. Two shops a short walk from the ferry dock in Cruz Bay rent a full set for $10 to $12 a day, or $50 to $55 for the week. Virgin Islands Ecotours, at Mongoose Junction, packs its set in a backpack with a life jacket and a snorkel map, everything a family needs for the first morning, and it keeps its doors open into the evening, every day. Low Key Watersports, on Bay Street, is a dive shop and the place to ask for a prescription mask; it closes at 5 and on Sundays, so a late ferry or a Sunday arrival means Ecotours.

Collect the gear on the way from the ferry and it rides in the car all week, ready for whichever bay is calm; snorkeling on St. John rates them. At the beach the gear keeps beach hours, and the price depends on the stand: Maho Bay charges twice the town rate for a day, while the Cinnamon Bay desk matches it. Trunk Bay has a rental counter too, run with the park's facilities; ask the price at the window.

Paddleboards and kayaks: on the roof or at Maho

There are two ways to paddle. A weekly board or kayak from Cruz Bay goes on the roof of the rental car: Virgin Islands Ecotours sends its boards and kayaks out with a soft rack and delivers to the villa, and Low Key rents boards by the day or the week. Guided paddles, and where to launch on each shore, are on kayaking on St. John.

Or rent by the hour where you launch. Maho Bay is the one beach with two stands: Reef2Peak on the sand, from 10 to 4, and Maho Watersport Rentals across the road at the Crossroads bar, which adds clear-bottomed kayaks and the Air Buddy, a floating air supply it sells as the step between snorkeling and scuba. An hour on a board or in a kayak runs $30 to $40 at either. The desk at Cinnamon Bay keeps similar prices from 9 to 4, but the campground around it closes in September and October, so call before you count on it then.

One rule to know before you paddle: the park allows no kayaks or paddleboards within 200 feet of the west side of Trunk Cay, where the snorkel trail runs.

A jet ski on St. John means a guided tour

Nobody on St. John rents a jet ski to ride alone, and the park's rules are why. Personal watercraft are barred in Virgin Islands National Park and the Coral Reef National Monument, e-foils and motorized surfboards included, and so are water skiing and towing anything behind a boat, which rules out parasailing too. Federal rules allow jet skis in only 21 named parks, and this is not one of them.

The exception is Cruz Bay Watersports' guided tour from the Westin at Great Cruz Bay: one hour behind a guide across Pillsbury Sound, $149 for a single rider, drivers 18 and over with a license and a card deposit. It is sold as a rental, but the guide sets the route. To ride one yourself, or to parasail, the stands are a ferry ride away: see jet ski rentals on St. Thomas.

Cruz Bay Watersports, Wharfside and the dive boats

Cruz Bay Watersports, despite the name, is a tour company working from the Westin St. John and from two resorts on St. Thomas, selling catamaran snorkel sails, sunset sails, BVI days and the jet ski hour. Its Westin beach rentals are not bookable, so for gear, the shops above are the ones to call.

Wharfside Watersports, on the beach at Wharfside Village in Cruz Bay, rents the dinghies and Zodiacs you drive yourself, and it sits with the other self-drive desks on the St. John boat charters page. Low Key also runs dive boats, covered on St. John diving. For the week, a snorkel set from town and a car is most of what the water here asks for.

Featured villas on St. John