AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Waterlemon Cay is a small, green-topped island sitting just offshore from Leinster Bay on the North Shore of St. John, and it is widely considered the best snorkeling spot you can reach on foot in the US Virgin Islands. A healthy fringing reef wraps the cay in shallow turquoise water teeming with sea turtles, rays, starfish, parrotfish, and dense coral gardens — but getting there is part of the experience: a flat coastal hike followed by a short open-water swim.↗↗↗
What Makes It Special
The reef ringing Waterlemon Cay is remarkably rich for a spot you can walk to. Over the seagrass beds between shore and island, green sea turtles graze undisturbed and southern stingrays glide across sandy bottoms. Nearer the cay itself, brain coral formations and purple sea fans shelter clouds of blue tangs, parrotfish, French angelfish, and the occasional nurse shark resting on deeper ledges along the western edge. The shallow reef on the south and east sides drops into a world of living coral where octopuses hide beneath piled seashells and moray eels peer from crevices. Much of this underwater vibrancy is maintained by the parrotfish themselves — you can sometimes hear them crunching algae off rock surfaces, their waste forming the fine white sand that gives Caribbean beaches their glow.
