St. Thomas water sports: jet ski rental, parasailing and gear

Jet ski rental in St. Thomas, launch by launch

Choose the launch before the company. On the south side, Lindbergh Bay has two desks on the sand by the airport: JetskiVI rents from Emerald Beach Resort and runs guided rides past Water Island and Honeymoon Beach, and Funtime Jet Ski Rentals rents by the half hour or the hour, guides one-hour tours and tows riders on a tube. Cruz Bay Watersports guides from The Westin Beach Resort & Spa at Frenchman's Reef, out past Hassel and Water Islands. On the East End, Tropical Adventure rents from Compass Point Marina and runs a jet ski shuttle to the floating pizza boat at Christmas Cove, and Coastal Water Sports rents freestyle hours from Sapphire Marina, closed Saturdays, and will bring WaveRunners to a beach house.

A first-timer is better off on a guided ride than a freestyle hour: the guide leads the slow run out of the bay and sets the pace beyond it. JetskiVI, Funtime and Cruz Bay Watersports all guide, and Tropical Adventure sends a safety boat in and out of the marina with its rentals.

Cruz Bay Watersports, Tropical Adventure and Coastal Water Sports all ask for a credit card and a photo ID, and Tropical Adventure turns away a booking whose card and license do not match. Bring the card you booked with.

What a St. Thomas jet ski tour costs per person

The price is a ski, not a person, so two on one ski halves it. Each ski's price, and the share for two riders:

Cruz Bay Watersports' guided tour is from $149, a sale price on a $169 list, and caps rider and driver together at 250 pounds, so most pairs ride one to a ski. Funtime quotes its tours when you book.

Jet ski rules in the Virgin Islands, in plain words

The territory's rules keep jet skis away from swimmers. Free riding starts 500 feet off the shore, cays included, and 200 feet beyond any reef. Inside the bays the skis launch from, Lindbergh Bay, Frenchman Bay and Jersey Bay among them, a ski runs out in a straight line at a slow, no-wake speed, so part of a rented hour is the trip to open water. The Mangrove Lagoon behind Compass Point is closed to motorboats.

To drive alone a rider must be 18; at 14 to 17 a rider needs a parent's written consent and the boating course that the Department of Planning and Natural Resources requires of anyone 14 to 18 who drives a jet ski. Every rider wears a life jacket. The rental desks set their own floors as well: 18 at Cruz Bay Watersports; 18 alone at JetskiVI, or 15 to 17 with an adult 21 or over aboard; and 16 at Tropical Adventure, where a driver under 18 still needs the course and a parent's consent.

The two rules posted where you can check them are the Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation's ban on jet skis in swimming areas and the sign at the Magens Bay gate, which keeps them out of that bay altogether.

Parasailing in St. Thomas, from Sapphire Marina

One company flies parasails off St. Thomas with a site of its own: Parasail Virgin Islands, from Sapphire Marina on the East End, over Pillsbury Sound with St. John and the British Virgin Islands in view. A flight is $120 a parasailor, singly, in pairs or in threes, and the boat holds up to 15, so plan on an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half on the water for a flight of minutes. Riders go up from age 4 and land back on the deck, dry unless they ask for a dip.

The weather and the scale decide the day: the captain needs a combined weight of at least 160 pounds and no more than about 550, and a non-refundable deposit holds the seat; a weather cancellation is refunded, one of your own inside 24 hours is not. Its Havensight launch near the cruise pier is closed for now; call before planning around it.

Surfing on St. Thomas: Hull Bay on a north swell

Surfing on St. Thomas is one beach and one season. Hull Bay, the fishing-boat cove west of Magens on the north shore, opens to the north-northwest, and when a winter swell comes down from the Atlantic it is the island's break; the rest of the year it is usually flat enough to snorkel. Those swells run from about November to March, the months the one shop at the bay calls its best.

That shop is St. Thomas Scuba and Snorkel Adventures, at 10-1 Hull Bay. It rents a surfboard or a paddleboard by the day or the week and teaches a two-hour lesson, board included, with a minimum of two and strong swimming asked of beginners; it will also run a private surf charter to breaks around the islands, priced by the day. Surfboards are hard to rent anywhere else on the island, so a surfer who is particular about a board brings one.

Be honest with yourself about the scene. It is small: one break, one shop, no lifeguard, fishing boats moored off the same sand and using the ramp, and a week without a north swell has no wave at all. Ask the shop what the swell is doing before you drive over the hill, and on a flat day take the snorkel along the western point instead.

Snorkel, paddleboard and kayak rentals on the beach

Every beach in the territory is open to the public by law, so a resort's sand is yours to swim from even where its rentals are not; Bolongo Bay keeps its kayaks and boards for its own guests. The gear rents on the sand at five beaches. At Lindbergh Bay, Water Action VI, the hut on the sand that JetskiVI books through, rents kayaks and paddleboards by the half hour and tows riders on a tube, walk-up with no booking, and takes e-foil sessions by reservation. At Secret Harbour, Aqua Action Dive Center rents snorkel sets by the day and kayaks and paddleboards by the hour. The Sapphire Beach Club rents snorkel and mask sets through Naia Boutique. WoW Water Sports rents kayaks, paddleboards and Sunfish at Magens Bay, past the park's gate fee. Dinghy's, on Honeymoon Beach across on Water Island, lists paddleboards, kayaks and snorkel gear without prices.

Lindquist Beach, whose rentals the Magens Bay Authority runs, has closed for sargassum in recent summers; check its status before you go. At Coki Beach the vendors rent snorkel gear and floats with no prices posted; ask before you sit down. To be taken to the reefs instead, St. Thomas snorkeling tours lists every boat and guided swim.