St. Croix side of Franko’s Map of the United States Virgin Islands:

It is a well known fact that St. Croix has some of the classiest, most fabulous underwater scenes for scuba diving in the world. It would be impossible for me to create a guide map of St. Croix that does not have information about the island’s wonderful underwater scene. St. Croix diving is indeed world-class! Thus, there are over three dozen dive sites located and accurately described on the Franko’s Map of the United States Virgin Islands, St. Croix side. It is stated by all of the dive operators in St. Croix that they have the very best diving in the world. That is why they are there. It is also stated that only on St. Croix can you dive a wreck, a pier, a reef and a wall on the same day. It should be noted that this bragging is absolutely true. In studying St. Croix and developing this map I put the favorite and most known dive sites on the map. However, St. Croix is a very big island and the dive operators there actually have many more sites than a single map could possibly show.

St. Thomas and St. John side of Franko’s Map of the United States Virgin Islands:

Reading the St. Croix side of the map is just a warm-up, because the details on this side of the map are for two islands that are amongst the busiest, most visited places in the whole Caribbean Sea. They are combined and individually amongst the most beautiful places in the Caribbean Sea as well. In fact, both St. Thomas and St. John are world-class destinations by any standard, and by studying Franko’s Map of St. Thomas and ST. John, you will definitely set your sites on a visit there some time soon. St. John is actually where my study began, because of its fame for the fabulous Virgin Islands National Park. It seems that everyone has seen a lovely picture of Trunk Bay, even if they did not know it was Trunk Bay on St. John. I’ve seen it in movies and magazines, and finally I went there, took my own photo from the most popular vantage, and put it on my own map! I also had the pleasure of snorkeling down there on a summer day when the water was dead-flat calm, and the temperature of the water was 87 degrees. That was just too warm! When I was in the U.S. Virgin Islands in August of 2005 I was scuba diving and snorkeling is water that actually felt too warm. The ocean engineer part of me said to myself that this was an unbelievable amount of stored solar energy in the Caribbean at this time. No wonder there have been so many hurricanes! Then, the next day, Hurricane Katrina began spinning near the Bahamas, plowed through Florida, and went on to become the monster that annihilated New Orleans, and the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast. Fortunately, other than warm, humid weather and cloudiness, it did not affect the U.S. Virgin Islands. Never the less, it was a reminder of how vulnerable this paradise is to hurricanes. Hurricanes have played a large role in Virgin Islands history, and has shaped the scope of human activity and the placement of towns and harbors on these islands.