Coral Bay
"Coral Bay is where people come when they've run out of places to run to, and then they stay."
The road from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay crosses the spine of St. John and descends to the east end of the island in a series of switchbacks that convince you, at several points, that you’ve taken a wrong turn. You haven’t. You arrive in Coral Bay — a few dozen buildings, a couple hundred boats swinging at anchor, a bar on a hillside — and understand immediately that this was the point. Coral Bay selects for people who don’t mind the drive.
The Character of the Place
Coral Bay is populated by people who came for a vacation and then, at some point, did the math and didn’t leave. Liveaboards who’ve been anchored in the bay for years. Retired marine biologists. A woman who runs an art school out of what appears to be her porch. A man who everyone calls Steady who fixes outboard motors and has fixed them for thirty years and will probably be fixing them in thirty more.
The interaction between these long-term residents and the tourists who make it out here — which isn’t everyone; many St. John visitors never get past Cruz Bay — produces a particular social texture. The locals are mostly friendly, occasionally territorial, and consistently unconcerned with performing Caribbean paradise for your benefit. This is refreshing.
Skinny Legs and the Bar Scene
Skinny Legs is the central institution of Coral Bay — a ramshackle open-air bar and restaurant on the eastern edge of the settlement that serves burgers, plays music on certain evenings, and has been the anchor of the community for decades. The cheeseburger is legitimately good. The beer is cold. The afternoon crowd skews toward people in board shorts who have been doing something involving boats and are taking a break. On weekend evenings there’s live music that you can hear from the road, which makes it easy to find.
There are two or three other bars within walking distance, each with their own cast of regulars, and the circuit between them on a slow afternoon has an unhurried quality that I associate with places where nobody has anywhere better to be.
The East End Beaches
From Coral Bay you can access beaches that the day-trippers from Cruz Bay rarely reach. Lameshur Bay, on the south coast, requires a rough road and rewards you with two connected beaches and good snorkeling in protected water. Salt Pond Bay, a twenty-minute walk from a parking area, is one of my preferred beaches on the island — a crescent of coarse dark sand hemmed by cactus and seagrape, with a rocky headland you can scramble around to a smaller cove beyond. The reef at Salt Pond Bay has seen better days but it still has fish, and the beach is wild-feeling in a way that Trunk Bay, for all its beauty, isn’t.
Why to Stay Rather Than Day-Trip
You can reach Coral Bay as a day trip from Cruz Bay but you miss the essential quality of the place, which is what happens after 5 p.m. when the rental car tourists head back over the mountain. The bay settles. The boats swing in the evening light. Someone on a catamaran plays guitar poorly but enthusiastically. The generator at Skinny Legs kicks on for another few hours of cold beer. Coral Bay doesn’t perform; it just is, and being there for more than a few hours is how you come to understand the difference.
When to go: January through April for dry season. The road conditions are the same year-round — unpaved sections get slick after heavy rain but are generally passable. Coral Bay has a couple of small rental cottages and guesthouses; book early for the high season. The annual Thanksgiving Regatta brings a different energy if you want to see the sailing community in full force.