The green edge

Just south of St. Vincent, the island of Bequia — only 7 square miles in size and home to but 5,000 residents — is billed by locals as the “Original Caribbean.” It’s a place to drift along in time and to drift — literally — underwater. Drift dives during which the boat follows divers’ bubbles are a Bequia hallmark. It’s a relaxing way to see everything from flamingo-tongue cowries and shallow black coral to blacktip sharks.

Farther south, in the islands of the Grenadines, sailors find friendly waters with dependable winds, and divers find some of the least-visited top-quality dive sites in the Caribbean. Mayreau Gardens is actually a collection of more than a half dozen dive sites, all done as drift dives over sponges and hard corals. The Purina, also near the island of Mayreau, is not a sunken dog-food factory but the remains of a World-War-I-era gunboat, now collapsed and heavily encrusted. There are even oceanic hot springs that noticeably warm the ocean around them and hint at the volcanic origins of neighboring islands.

Peak Experience
St. Lucia
Picture the Matterhorn: either the original in Switzerland or the scaled-down copy at Disneyland will do. Now cover its flanks in green and move the base of the mountain down to sea level. Oh, and bathe it with tropical trade winds. Got that? Well, you just pictured the Petit Piton, one of two towering cone-shaped, sea-bathed peaks on the island of St. Lucia.

Both peaks still appear the way they did when Christopher Columbus sailed past them in 1502. The island itself is a volcano-formed, avocado-shaped independent nation within the British Commonwealth and a place proud of its unhurried atmosphere and natural beauty. About 3.5 times the size of Washington, D.C., St. Lucia has less than a third of its population, keeping density low enough for the land to show its wild side. For instance, a 19,000-acre rain forest shelters wild orchids, bamboo and enough exotic birds (including the jacquot, a nearly extinct St. Lucian parrot) to keep visitors thumbing their field guides.

As if determined not to have topside beauty get the upper hand, the reef at Anse Chastanet begins less than a stone’s throw from the water’s edge. Shallow enough in places that snorkelers can pop down for a look, it also drops down to 140 feet and is home to more than 150 species of fish, including puffers and, yes, sea horses. This shore dive has been the introduction to Lucian diving for generations of visitors, and it sets a high standard for the dives to follow — a standard that is, happily, met.

Some have settings you might recognize:  Superman’s Flight sits beneath a cliff face on Petit Piton that was used in the filming of Superman II.  And others, such as Pinnacles — a visually stunning group of four seamounts that rise from the blue almost to the surface — have yet to be discovered by the big screen, but should be. Dramatic underwater environments are practically a St. Lucia hallmark.

Like many Caribbean islands, St. Lucia has a shipwreck that was placed for the benefit of divers. But many would argue that the sea-fan-and-sponge-covered Lesleen M, while beautiful, is simply icing on a pre-existing cake. With walls and deep reefs covered in gorgonians and sea whips and shallow reefs alive with turtles, there is plenty to see in the water in St. Lucia, even if you never drop into the water on anything manmade.

This isn’t to say that St. Lucia is without a town life. The fort at Pigeon Point is a visual reminder that, while this island is British, it bounced back and forth like a shuttlecock between France and England over the centuries, often at the barrel of a cannon. The capital, Castries, has a market that’s a great place to find straw hats and one of the Caribbean’s tastiest hot sauces.

Whether it’s the hot sauce that does it or the scenery, one thing’s for sure: St. Lucia will take your breath away.

As the official publication of the PADI Diving Society, Sport Diver is the magazine divers turn to each month to find out what’s going on in their world. Sport Diver is the ultimate source for up to date information on dive culture, equipment, travel, training and PADI Diving Society activities.

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