Fort Frederik Beach

Fort Frederik Beach is located right outside of the town of Frederiksted on the western shore of St. Croix. The beach is literally right next to the historic Fort Frederik, whose red walls you can see as you sit on the beach. This beach is fantastic for reasons other than the fact that you can walk to it from town. The sand is a soft, the water is calm for swimming and floating, and there is a large field of grass behind the beach making it perfect for kids running around and tossing the frisbee. There's plenty of shade and also picnic tables to have a barbeque under making it a popular spot with the locals.

The beach has a fantastic view of the Frederiksted pier where you can see cruise ships comming into port. On a cruise ship day expect the beach to be more crowded than usual. Being on the western side of the island the beach has magnificent sunsets. Make sure you check out Aquaholic Beach Bar & Grill on the north edge of the beach for the bar and the incredible local food!

At Fort Frederik Beach you'll likely see people digging through the rocks and shells looking for something. They're looking for treasure! More specifically they are searching for "chaney", which is shards of fine china comming from passenger ships originating from Europe. It's thought that on the trip whole pieces of china would break and people would toss it overboard to avoid the taxes based on total weight of goods. The name chaney comes from Crucian children who used to smooth out the pieces of china and use them as "china money". Combine the two words and you get chaney!