Antigua,St.Kitts,St.Lucia,Tortola,Dominica

[divematt]

I know it's not the best way to dive but I going on a cruise in November that stops in Antigua, St.Kitts, St.Lucia, Tortola/Virgin Gorda, Dominica, San Juan, and St.Thomas/St John. I'd really like some help with E-mails of good dive operators on those islands. I'd really like to try to dive in several of them. We port most of these islands at 7:00am and leave at 5:00pm.

[brizzolatti]

In St Lucia. I dived with Scuba St Lucia at Anse Chastanet. It's also good for snorkellers if there are any in your party because while you're diving they can walk 20 feet into the water and explore the reef. Scuba St Lucia offer daily shore dives and boat dives.

[MaresMan1]

I have done most of my diving in the Caribbean and I agree with Brizzolatti. Scuba St. Lucia is a well run and very safe operation. Well maintained equipment and the reef is awesome.

On St. Thomas/St. John I prefer Blue Island Divers.
http://www.blueislanddivers.com/
They are a small operation, but well run and you don't get the over crowded boat trip with them. Also, depending on your ability, that have some very interesting spots to dive. If that is not your cut of tea, talk to Christa (the marina manager), she has contacts to all of the best dive shops on the island.

Virgin Gorda is also very interesting diving, but I did not use any guides as my buds and I rented a boat and dove ourselves.

Whatever you decide, have fun, dive smart, dive safe.

Enjoy the ride
:mean:

[cornfed]

All of Scuba St. Lucia's dives are guided.

Some like that, some don't.

[brizzolatti]

Cornfed is right - Scuba St Lucia's dives are guided. My experience was, however, that they weren't regimented and that buddy pairings had a lot of latitiude. For example, all the dives I did, the DM said in his briefing that he was going to 18m but if others wanted to go deeper, that was ok but to keep him in sight If felt okay, a good balance between having some freedom to explore but within an agreed framework to promote everyone's safety.

Also at Scuba St Lucia, they make you do a shallow shore dive first before taking you out anywhere else. This might cramp your style divematt depending on how much time you have.

[cornfed]

The DM said 18m (60ft) unless you had a computer. Then you could go a little deeper as long as you stayed within sight.

Cornfed

[Todd]

Hi Cornfed:

Have you, or anyone else for that matter, had any experiences with other dive operations in St. Lucia? Something you enjoyed a little bit more...

Thanks.

Todd.

[Damselfish]

I've always heard St Lucia has some good diving and Anse Chastenet sounds like a neat place to stay. But I've always heard that all the dives are guided, even shore dives. It's discouraged me from going to St. Lucia. Is it just Scuba St Lucia that does this or all ops? Do they have justification due to local conditions, or is it just one of those control freak things with no good reason? Or local rules with no good reason?

[cornfed]

Damselfish & Todd,

I'm by no means an expert on St. Lucian diving. I was down in April for my Honeymoon and since my wife doesn't dive I only made a couple of dives. I dove Anse Chastenet with Scuba St. Lucia and had a great time. Normal I dive off VA or in local quarries and other then my cavern class I've never had more then 20 ft of visibility. As a result my few dives were a real treat for me. I don't have anything to compare it to since I've never been to other parts of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about other dive operators either. I can't tell you if the reefs are in better shape then other areas but I can tell you that Anse Chastenet is a marine sanctuary. Even though the dives were guided I didn't feel like I was being herded around.

I made my original comment because my LDS told me about some people that were planning a trip and canceled it because they heard that all dives were guided. Do I think they were over reacting, yeah probably. The dive master took us in and wandered around and surprise we ended up right at our entry point or right at the boat. As long as we were all in the same general area buddy pairs could do their own thing. If I decided to drop down to 120 feet or head off in the opposite direction I'm sure the DM wouldn't have appreciated that.

I got the impression that a lot of the other divers were the "hey, the waters nice here why don't I go diving" type. No one seemed like they went their specifically to dive. Most were either diving because they were there or had gotten certified on their vacation. I'm the only one that had any of my own gear. Some people even rented a mask and fins! I had a computer and was the only one with any type of time keeping device. No one else even had a set of tables! This was a real eye opener to me.

In the end, the guided dives weren't that bad. Some people seem to detest them so I thought I would toss that out. I had a great time and enjoyed the dives but really don't anything else in my log book to compare it to.

Hope that helps. If it doesn't you're out of luck. I'll be out of town next week so won't be able to fill in any gaps.

Dive safe,

Drew

Ps If you're down there with a non-diver there is great snorkeling at Anse Chastenet. The dive shop is on the beach and the park is right off the shore. They have a large roped of area for snorkeling. It's about 15-20 feet deep an plenty of shallow coral and marine life. We did our safety "stop" coming back through here and let me just say it sure as hell beats a hang bar!

[Tim Ingersoll]

We rented a house up the hill from Anse Chastanet. I dove with the resort dive shop for the week. I really enjoyed the diving and the op. was very good. A lot of drift diving right at the foot of the Pitons. Very nice.