St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures (SCUBA) opened on July 15, 1998. Longtime island residents Ed (25 years) and Molly (20 years) met while working for the same airline, a Caribbean subsidiary of Eastern Airlines. After the demise of Eastern, Molly and Ed didn’t want to leave the island that they loved so much. Ed was a NAUI Instructor (Molly was his first student) and Molly had retail background from college so they started working for what was then the oldest dive shop on the island, V.I. Divers, Ltd.
Anyone who has ever owned their own business knows that if you’re going to work that hard in a business it should be your own business.
It took several Margaritas at Luncheria (see our restaurant page) to come up with the words that would make the acronym SCUBA. Same thing with the logo.
If you think St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures is an innovative way of coming up with the acronym SCUBA, you should meet our German Shepherd dog, Salve Cannis Ultra Bonnam Amicum. Translated from latin it means “Hail Dog, Going Beyond a Good Friend”.
SCUBA started out with a small retail dive shop in Christiansted on St. Croix and no boat or dive equipment. Within the first six months V.I. Divers, Ltd., sold the diving equipment, compressor and rental gear to Molly and Ed.
The next step was the dive boat. Reliance came to St. Croix brand new in 1987 when Larry French who owned Underwater St. Croix in Green Cay Marina bought the boat. Ed actually became a customer of Larry’s and received his Advanced and Rescue certifications on the boat. In 1989 Hurricane Hugo hit and really decimated the island. Larry realized that there was a lot more money to make as a contractor (something he had plenty of experience in doing) than in a dive shop. The boat sat idle for 6 years until 1995 when it was purchased by Bob Bose who opened Green Cay Divers.
Reliance at Green Cay Marina - 1998
As a result of yet another hurricane (Hurricane Marilyn) V.I. Divers found themselves without a boat, and Bob was without a Captain. The two shops combined forces and Ed Captained Reliance for both shops.
Then in November of 1998 SCUBA purchased Reliance and was finally a full-service dive shop.
Three years later SCUBA blew out a wall in the shop and doubled in space. Three years after than they blew out another wall and added the “ScuBoutique” portion of the store. Ed jokes that Molly is just working her way towards a waterfront store.
Now, having added a second boat, Scuba Dos, SCUBA is the only dive shop that dives all of the moored dive sites around St. Croix’s north and west coasts.