Buck Island Reef National Monument is a small, uninhabited, 176 acre island about 1.5 miles north of the northeast coast of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. It was first established as a protected area by the U.S. Government in 1948, with the intention of preserving “one of the finest marine gardens in the Caribbean Sea.” The U.S. National Monument was created in 1961 by John F. Kennedy and greatly expanded in 2001 by Bill Clinton, over the bitter opposition of local fisherman. Most of the Monument area, which is administered by the National Park Service, is underwater.