Golden Rock Resort, St. Eustatius: Undercurrent 03/2026

Golden Rock Resort, St. Eustatius

lovely resort, easy Caribbean diving

from the March, 2026 issue of Undercurrent

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Dear Fellow Diver,

View Over Sint Eustatius I took a giant stride off the twin-hulled dive boat and descended to the Chien Tong, a 170-foot wreck sitting upright at 85 feet on the sandy bottom. It's a Taiwanese fishing trawler that was scuttled in 2004 after encountering damage and failing an insurance survey.

The overcast day and a fair amount of particulates in the water made for a dark dive, a challenge for photography. I dropped to the bow, surrounded by black-eyed jacks, sergeant majors, and yellow goatfish; a lone puffer fish hovered nearby. Descending to the bottom, I spotted a green turtle near the midships smokestack (I later learned that the smokestack is its personal resting perch nearly every day). Unfazed by my presence, it lay with its beak resting on a soft yellow tube sponge. At the stern, a school of jacks circled, then more arrived, and hundreds of brown chromis came whizzing by. It was a spectacular way to end the dive.

In nearly 50 trips to the Caribbean, I had never ventured to the small Dutch island of Sint Eustatius, or Statia as it's called, a volcanic island nestled between St. Barths, St. Martin, and St. Kitts. Measuring about five miles by two miles, it was a major trading hub in the 18th century, resulting in hundreds of wrecks, the bones of which are occasionally spotted. Today, its population is around 3,700 with an oil terminal and a small tourism industry. On November 16 each year, they celebrate Statia Day in honor of being the first foreign government to recognize the U.S. in 1776.

During the second week of January, I lodged at the Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort, Statia's only luxury resort. Post New Year's, it was indeed quiet, with only a few guests, mostly from the U.S., a few from Scandinavia. The five-year-old resort sits on 40 acres below the dormant 1972-foot Quill volcano. As I strolled through the lush grounds with over 140,000 plants, flowers, and trees, I was impressed with the tropical beauty. The 72-room property has and two- story luxury hotel building with ocean view rooms and suites, private one or two bedroom cottages, and, where my wife and I stayed, charming villa suites in quad buildings, with two units down, two units up. One can stay busy in the well-equipped gym, on the tennis or paddleball courts, or in one of the two swimming pools, and even hike from the resort to the volcano summit -- it's not an easy climb....

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