St. Lucia lies in the hurricane belt west of Barbados in the Windward Island chain. Diving on this beautiful, heavily-forested island, with pretty reefs and tiny fish, is managed and controlled.... Anse Chastanet hotel is located near the Pitons on the southwestern part of island, where the better diving is; there's not much worth seeing elsewhere underwater.... The year-round high is in the 80s days; night lows are in the 70s. Afternoon cloudbursts are common....

For a full review of the following St. Lucia destination, see:

Anse Chastanet - St. Lucia, Undercurrent- July 1999

Anse Chastanet, March 1998, Andrew Samuelson, Quakertown, PA. Drift dive was easy and gentle. Boat nearby when we surfaced. Lots of fine particles suspended in water, slight stinging sensations. Visibility and colors washed out, much coral had fine film of sediment. Vis: 40-50 ft. Water: 80-81 degrees. Diving restriction: 60' limit. Land explorations interesting but very third world. Climbing LePetite Piton (2500' vertical) was exhilarating. (Ph: 809-459-7000, Fax: 809-459-7700)

Frogs/Jalousie Hilton, May 1998, Craig Thompson, Oceanside, CA. Awesome accommodations, fantastic staff. True 5 star resort, isolated. Diving very good. Vis: 100-120 ft. Water: 80-85 degrees. Dive restrictions: no deeper than 120' or so. Short boat rides, great walls, lots of small fish, only a few large ones. Great topside attractions in rain forest, waterfalls, volcano. Excellent island, people great. Very remote. Little nite life. Great place to relax and be pampered!

Rosemond's Trench Divers/Oasis Marigot, August 1997, Don Cox, Ellen Roecker, Kelly Cox (almost 13 yrs old, 44 dives) Madison, WI. Weather mixed sun and refreshing cloud cover with occasional heavy but short lived-rain and lovely rainbows. Calm sea, currents strong at times. St. Lucia is worth the hassle and expense. Rugged terrain and lush green jungle is mind boggling. After reaching St. Lucia, it is still a trek to reach Marigot Bay, but easy to arrange a taxi. You are pretty much in the boonies, spectacular boonies though, sharing the bay with a posh marina. Half mile up a steep grade to a ridge overlooking the bay is a small village with a grocery store and an occasionally raucous bar/restaurant. Between bay and village there are 5 persistent people who will try to be guides or sell crafts. Find a peaceful way within yourself to deal with these people: a mix of firm noes, part of the time, and buying their services or goods at others. It helped to greet them by name and with a smile, maybe concentrating your occasional business in one or two people who come to regard themselves as your agents. . . . Oasis Marigot houses are timeshares across the bay from the road; go back and forth occurs via a funky little ferry for $10/week each. There is then a patience-building little electric tram to get up the hill to the houses. . . . Dive operation is on the same side of the bay as the houses, with its own dock; fairly secure area for storing gear, including hanging wetsuits. Sea houses themselves are delightful. From across the bay at the marina store, fresh French bread is delivered each morning; best reserve some if you want to be sure of getting it. Swimming pools on both sides of the bay but the one on the seahouse side was popular with the children of staff; sometimes a bit raucous for our laid back vacation style. . . . Best food at an English-run Indian restaurant, the Razzmatazz, at which a fellow sang country and western songs. Located in the tourist district, Rodney Bay, north of Castries. A woman who lives next to the Marigot Bay marina, will fix interesting meals to order-let her know in advance so she can shop. She serves in her big front room, with the TV going. Meals seemed bland so ask for zip. . . . Bay unsuitable for shore diving or snorkeling, partly due to the boat traffic. Rosemond Clery responsible for the photo of a many toothed conger on page 373 (2nd ed.) of Humann's fish ID book, and was an inter-island boxing champion. He took great pride in showing great sights and a wonderful time. Boat needs basic repairs, and the rental equipment was showing age; only the personnel sparkled. They set depth and time limits at the beginning of each dive. We dive with computers, but did not find the limits restrictive-shallower dives lasting an hour, one to a max of 82 feet for 46 minutes. Either Rosemond or Elvis, his young assistant, went down on each dive. Once, on a drift dive, the boat was not there when we surfaced. Rosemond was displeased and after miscellaneous whistling, hooting, and sausage waving he attracted another boat and reached his by radio. It turned out that some divers from Anse Chastanet had ignored the strong current warnings and been swept away during a shore dive. Our boat picked them up and took them back to shore. That seemed to us to have been the right and responsible thing to do, and it didn't hurt us any to be bobbing about for a while at the foot of those magnificent pitons. Dropped in at Anse Chastantet, a beautiful site, though oddly unreal. Water about 83 degrees. . . . Diving was wonderful, but the critters tended to be small, due to fishermen. They were significantly larger in the marine park by Anse Chastanet, where fishing was not allowed. Corals, sponges, and shallow gardens lovely. Huge sand divers, abundant scorpionfish, sharptail and goldentail eels, sargassum triggerfish, yellowhead jawfish, turtles, a lesser electric ray, heart urchins, a chain moray, a redlip blenny, a peppermint goby, a West Indian sea egg, and a school of squid. A diver used shears to cut a piece of the chicken wire of a fish trap, releasing a small fish that was stuck halfway through.

Sandals, March 1998, Don Mayer, Asheville, NC. The resort is fine, dive personnel were fine, but setup and facilities were poor. Dive boat was 24-25 ft., open, and had 18 divers and 3 dive personnel. You got on the dive boat either thru significant surf or after a 20 minutes cab ride to a dock in town. Tanks and BC's laid in the deck made moving around very difficult. Vis: 50-80 ft. Water: 78-80 degrees. (Ph: 305-284-1300, Fax: 305-663-4355)

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