Moving to STX

Hello Karen,

Dive experience - what type of work does he want to do. I do not know exactly what a commerical diver does?? If interested and qualified he could teach diving for people who want to be certified, get employed with some dive operators that take visitors out on reef and wreck drives for example.

Does he already have a work visa or alien registration card to be a working resident in the USA. If he does - the same documents would work in the USVI.

No problem with inter-racial social problems ... there are many many inter-racial couples and persons of inter-racial descent. Search this board for that topic, there are quite a few threads about it. Look at the top of this page... you will see in text Search- click there and search.

The more densly populated areas around the two main towns experience some levels of crime yes.... there are areas further out from the towns that are not affected. Many crimes are domestic and drug related.

--Islander

Thanks, Islander....

Commercial diving is similar to underwater construction -- building docks, pipeline maintenance, etc. He also has a lot of experience with underwater archaeology (excavating shipwrecks, etc). He is also able to certify and take tourists diving, and I suppose there would probably be a fairly decent job market for this kind of thing in St. Croix. However, the underwater construction and archaeology is his first preference and we were wondering whether there are any avenues to pursue along those lines or whether certification is the best bet for employment.

Currently, we live in Europe so he doesn't yet have a work permit for the US or USVI. If a diving company were interested in hiring, is the company usually the one who would apply for a work permit? Or is that something you must seek out on your own before any company would even want to hire you?

-- Karen

Karen,
you/your boyfriend would want to check with HOVENSA for commercial diving jobs. They have a huge cargo port on STX. HOVENSA, the refinery, is a division of Amerada Hess. That's all I know for a commercial diver position but there may be others in neighboring islands, such as Puerto Rico, that he may be able to commute to and from. On the social atmosphere, you would feel very comfortable with things on St. Croix. There are plenty of interracial couples, of all sorts, in the USVI.

Good luck with your move.

Karen,

Ali provided the suggestion for HOVENSA.... which is the one I thought of as well when I saw pipeline.... and then perhaps the Port Authority (for docks - but they are already built - not sure if they require commericial divers to do work on them???? or National Park for setting up moorings and archeological research for shipwrecks - The biggest one is still diving - tourism trade related. You would really need to research HOVENSA and National Park??? to see if they offere anything.

Work permits and resident alien status cards are different depending on nationality as I came to understand several years ago. Different in terms of being able to get them. If a work place can not find employees in the US that can do the work, yes they hire and apply for work permits for outside help. I don't know many details on this however I would suggest perhaps you utilize the US Governments web site on visas

http://travel.state.gov/visa_services.html

--Islander