By Captain Colin, JVD Scuba & Eco-Tours 

Twenty one years ago the BVI Government allowed me to be the first person to discover, explore and chart potential commercial dive sites in the North West British Virgins around Jost Van Dyke and surrounding islands. I mapped out and named 41 sites and opened Jost Van Dyke Scuba & BVI Eco-Tours. Since then we’ve enjoyed diving with many of the most elite underwater photographers in the world who have continued to return to dive the BVI’s “off the beaten path” Northside dive sites we nicknamed “The Pelagic Super Highway”. Jost Van Dyke is located 11 miles from the World Famous Sport fishing area called “The North Drop” where world record Marlin have been caught for over 40 years. This Drop is the beginning of the ‘Puerto Rican Trench’ which, farther out, has the second deepest ocean depth in the world. Many of the big animals who love the deep water, are called in near Jost from the Drop by the billions of bait fish present on the north shore and it’s fishing banks, pinnacles and seamounts that surround the island. 

Diving the North West side of the BVI has never been better. Already remote dive sites have had zero traffic for over a year and the non working fishing boats also added up to big animal marine life never been seen before in the BVI!  Even SCUBA Instructors from other islands are coming to JVD to dive and see this. Dive sites like No Man’s Land, the Blind Side, the Playground, Twin Towers, Rocks and Beans, Mercurious Rock, and the Kingfish Banks, are just a few of the dives that are ‘going off’ like a National Geographic video every single dive! Imagine dropping down and having multiple sharks with you every minute of a dive with no one ever baiting or feeding them? At the same time, see numerous giant spotted eagle rays, turtles, porpoises as well as large schools of feeding fish crushing bait balls like rockets. Even Manta Rays swim with you, a sight rarely seen inside the BVI. There is no better time dive here and experience an underwater symphony words cannot describe. The Covid shutdown, however brutal for humans, was a delight in what it’s done for marine life here on the North side and most specifically ‘The Pelagic Super Highway’...  Big Animal Diving in the BVI!