A Minted Location day guide
Dock & Dine in St John
St John's dock-and-dine answer is the dinghy, and the National Park Service publishes the infrastructure for it.
The Cruz Bay Finger Pier is one of the park's named fee stations, which tells you what it is: the park's front door on the west end, and the landing that puts you in Cruz Bay's shops and restaurants on foot. Take a mooring or anchor in the bay, pay before the night, and tender in.
The other five named stations — Caneel Bay, Francis Bay, Leinster Bay, Saltpond Bay and Great Lameshur Bay — are the park's serviced anchorages, and they are the reason to come. They are not dining destinations; they are the thing the dining elsewhere is a break from.
Dining here works the way it always has: take a mooring or anchor, and go in by tender. Cruz Bay's waterfront is a ferry terminal and a small-boat landing rather than a guest dock, and Coral Bay is a shallow, well-used anchorage rather than a berthing basin.
And the fee applies to anchoring as well as mooring. Bringing the boat in for lunch and leaving before dark is fine; staying the night puts you inside the park's fee and its seven-night-per-bay clock either way.
So the working instruction for St John is: moor or anchor, pay at the station, tender in at Cruz Bay. The chart below runs the island west to east — Cruz Bay and the finger pier, round the north-shore bays the park names, and out to Coral Bay and the BVI border.
The stops, as their own docks describe them
| Spot | Where | Arriving by boat |
|---|---|---|
| Cruz Bay Finger Pier — the park's front doorThe mechanism for eating ashore on St John. Take a mooring or anchor in the bay, pay at the station before the night, and tender in — Cruz Bay's shops and restaurants are on foot from the pier. | Cruz Bay, west end | An NPS fee station; tender landing for the town |
| The St John waterfrontDining here works the way it always has: moor or anchor, and go in by tender. Cruz Bay's waterfront is a ferry terminal and a small-boat landing rather than a guest dock; Coral Bay is a shallow working anchorage rather than a berthing basin. Note that the park fee applies to anchoring as well as mooring, so an overnight stop is a park transaction however you lie. | Cruz Bay and Coral Bay | Moor or anchor and go in by tender |
Dockage notes are what each restaurant publishes on its own site — space is first-come and dinner-hour rafting is real, so hail ahead. Where a venue states nothing about docking, we say so rather than guess.
Planning more than lunch?
We represent buyers wherever the right boat sits — shortlisting, surveying and sea-trialing on the buyer's side of the table. Tell us the mission and we'll tell you which boat, and which berth, it calls for.