One of the reasons for this "last" trip to St Lucia was to dive here again. The plan was for Elaine and me to dive together at sites I didn't dive before, including Jalousie.
The "dive together" part of the plan fell apart really before I got here. Elaine fell while rescuing a friend who was falling off the sidewalk in front of a bus. She had to have stitches over her eye. Snorkeling at Jalousie on Wednesday was a test run for diving on Thursday. Snorkeling went okay - not great but okay. But when a cold she'd been fighting flared up, that seemed to be a sign. So I went diving alone.
First, let me say there are some absolutely beautiful dive sites in St Lucia and I understand that visibility can reach 100'. I've had the misfortune of being there when visibility was sketchy to just plain bad.
This trip we choose a different diver operator, Diver Fair Helen out of Marigot Bay. Honestly, I like Dive Fair Helen better than Scuba Steve, whom I dove with the last time.
Our first dive was a wall in Anse Couchon. The dive boat backed us into a corner of the bay almost to the steep cliff that forms the edge of the bay. We jumped off the boat into about 25' of water. Visibility was okay, not great but okay. We kicked over the narrow shelf that is the floor of the bay and then the bottom fell out. We only dove to about 65'; the dive master told me he's been to 130' on this wall and not seen the bottom.
I love wall dives. I love the initial sense of looking over the edge into the abyss. I love swimming along the wall and then looking up at fish, corals and other divers sillhouetted against the water above. This is a beautiful wall dive. Just wish the viz had been better.
Our second dive was along a shallow reef. Again, amazing in poor visibility so it must be absolutely stunning in good viz.
I'd considered bailing on the dives because Elaine couldn't go but I am so glad I went for a lot of reasons. It was beautiful, despite the visibility. I got to dive, period. And I learned some things about different kinds of diving and about me as a diver.
The biggest thing I learned is I don't like resort "cattle call" diving, i.e., get as many people on the boat and into the water. When we dive here in PR, it's personal. It's almost always with friends. When we go a boat dive to Desecheo or the Wall, at least half the boat or more is "our" group. Even when we do a discover dive with tourists, it's personal. When I go on a discover dive, it's usually with people I've told about it, someone I've "recruited" if you will.
For example, if we did a dive here in conditions like our second dive, we would concentrate on looking up close for small things. No point in looking too long for the big stuff: even if it's there you probably won't see it. So look up close; find the little treasures. But with 10 or 12 divers that's difficult. One of our dive masters on the second dive found a seahorse. I was actually the first diver in the group to get to it. I only got one not-so-great picture because there were nine other divers zoomingin behind me. Many of them had cameras also. I got out of the way but I'm sure by the time the last diver got there the sand was all churned up and the seahorse was totally freaked out.
In places like St Lucia, where tourists and cruise ship passengers make up the bulk of the divers, the timing of the dives can be dependent on the cruise ship schedules. If there are divers from the ship(s), what time can they be picked up? What time do we have to get out of the water to get them back to the boat on time (cruise ships don't wait!)?
We ran into this on our second dive. Just under 30 minutes into a planned 45 minute dive (and with nearly a third of my air remaining) the dive master signaled our whole group to surface. Sure enough, there was the boat waiting for us. We all clambered aboard and off we went at speed back to the harbor. Good thing too: the cruise passenger divers made it back to their ships with less than 15 minutes to spare.
So what does all this mean? Mostly that I can/will rule out resort locations - Cozamel, Cancun, etc - as dive vacation locations. I'm much more likely to choose a place like Bonaire where the diving is fabulous and is pretty much shore diving at your own speed/convenience. Or maybe just stay here.
Despite all that, I loved the diving and came away with a few great pictures. You can see the best of them on our Flickr page. Hope you like them.
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