Brewers Bay

Brewers Bay at a glance

Verified Oct 9, 2026.

Conditions today at Brewers Bay

As of 7:00 AM on Oct 16, 2026, island time. Read each morning from the National Weather Service, DPNR and Open-Meteo; the bay opens southwest, by our read from the map.

Sea state

Sheltered. The swell is from the east at 0.9 m, period 5 seconds; Brewers Bay opens southwest, so the bay sits in the lee.

Open-Meteo wave model at the nearest ocean cell; the bay's opening is our read from the map.

Rip current risk

Low. Surf around 3 feet, east winds around 15 mph.

National Weather Service San Juan, surf zone forecast for St Thomas, St John and adjacent islands, issued 3:51 AM.

Water test

Met the standard, week of Oct 9, 2026. Met it in 69 of 69 weeks sampled since Aug 2, 2024. The advisory.

DPNR samples for Enterococci bacteria and turbidity weekly; a result after heavy rain can change within the week.

Rain

Dry through the day; the chance of rain peaks at 21%.

Open-Meteo hourly forecast at the pin.

The day

UV index up to 8; sunset 5:56 pm; sea 30 °C, 85 °F.

Open-Meteo.

Getting there

About 13 minutes by car from Charlotte Amalie. How to reach St. Thomas: Flights to St. Thomas, How to get around St. Thomas, St. Thomas airport, St. Thomas cruise port, St. Thomas map, St. Thomas weather by month, Things to do in St. Thomas.

The drive from town and the airport

Brewers Bay is 13 minutes by car from Charlotte Amalie, west past the airport, and 8 minutes from Cyril E. King airport, both measured on the road network. The University of the Virgin Islands gives its St. Thomas campus address as 2 John Brewers Bay, and the beach is reached directly off the road that runs through the campus.

Parking is on that road, roadside and parallel along the length of the beach, and nobody publishes a count as of October 2026. No Brewers Bay stop appears on the Virgin Islands Taxicab Commission's tariff of October 2022, still the one in force; the nearest it lists is the University of the Virgin Islands, at $11 for one person or $9 each for two or more from Charlotte Amalie. If you are staying on St. John, the ferry from Cruz Bay lands at Red Hook, at the opposite end of St. Thomas, 36 minutes from the airport by the same measurement.

What to expect at Brewers Bay beach

Brewers Bay is a wide, calm beach with hills on one side and the university campus on the other, an easy sloped entry and a seafloor that is mostly sand. Entry is free, and no public body posts opening hours, as of October 2026.

The facilities are a public bathhouse with flush toilets and outdoor showers, set behind the trees by the road. The St. Thomas Source covered its opening in August 2011: a $506,000 budget, $100,000 of it from the university, the rest from the Department of Housing, Parks and Recreation and the Virgin Islands Port Authority, with no money set aside for maintenance. Shade is at the back of the beach, under palms and sea grape, so sitting near the water means bringing an umbrella.

The tradeoff is that nothing is sold on the sand. No concession stands, no chairs, no snorkel rental. Lunch comes from food trucks parked on the road, usually two, selling pates, johnny cakes, fried chicken, rice and beans and cold drinks. No source gives their days or hours, so carry water and treat a truck as likely, not certain. Weekdays are quiet; weekends and holidays bring residents' picnics, and the road parking goes with them.

No current source lists a lifeguard, as of October 2026. The last notice we found is from Sep 20, 2016, when the Virgin Islands Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation said John Brewers Beach had none on duty for lack of staff and that hiring was being expedited. Swim as if no one is watching the water.

The other thing to know is the airport. A runway extension runs out into the bay and split it in two, so the runway is the southern edge of the water you swim in, and planes take off and land in view. The university's MacLean Marine Science Building stands at the far left of the beach, and the bay doubles as its field site.

Turtles the university has tagged since 2014

Sea turtles are what Brewers Bay is known for, and the evidence is the university's own. Its Center for Marine and Environmental Studies and a nonprofit sea turtle project began tagging turtles in Brewers Bay and neighboring Hawksbill Cove in the fall of 2014, expecting 40 to 50 animals at most, and documented their 100th in April 2017 across the two bays together, per the university's release of May 15, 2017. The US Virgin Islands has two resident species, the university says: the threatened green turtle and the critically endangered hawksbill. Few turtles nest on St. Thomas, so the juveniles a snorkeler sees here more than likely hatched elsewhere in the Caribbean.

From shore, swim out over the patches of seagrass, where the turtles feed. The floor is mostly sand, so this is a snorkel for animals, not coral.

The runway has its own population. The project's founder, writing in the SWOT Report in 2024, says the extension buried the reef under about 15 acres of boulders and concrete at depths of 8 to 27 meters, and that more than 70 hawksbills had been documented living in it through 2023. That is past snorkeling range.

Nobody can promise a sighting. The university's rule is the one to follow: it is against the law to harass, touch or hold a sea turtle without a federal permit.

A last swim eight minutes from the airport

No other number on this page changes a plan as much as the 8 minutes to Cyril E. King airport. A morning here fits before an afternoon flight, with showers on the beach to rinse off in.

Suits a family that wants calm water and a wide stretch of sand, a snorkeler who would rather look for turtles than a reef, and anyone with two hours to spare before a flight. Not a party that wants chairs, a bar and lunch brought to them.