St Lucia or St Kitts?

[alschmid]

We are looking to dive in either St Lucia or St Kitts.

 

Anyone have any recommendations or big differences in diving between the two islands? Any scuba shop recommendations? We are certified OW divers with a few dives under our belt.

[travelbugs]

Haven't dove St. Kitts (yet). But we did dive in St. Lucia. We went with Dive Fair Helen. Wonderful outfit. Great gear, boat & personality. If you go with them, when your registering, request Supermans Flight (dive sight). When we went, I didn't know we had to do this ahead of time. Requests are on first come basis. We had some beautiful dives none the less, but I really wanted to do S. Flight. Another thing they did before we went off diving, was made everyone on the boat do mask clearing and demonstrate bouyancy control at 25 ft. More dive outfits should be doing this. I think this determines where they AREN"T taking the group. They also provide a homemade lunch (it was fantastic) and if your celebrating a birthday, they'll bake you a cake! When your cruiseship docks, there is another very small pier/platform across from it. This is where they picked us up (you can catch water taxis here as well). Have a wonderful & safe dive wherever it may be!

[Scubachick84]

I too dove with Dive Fair Helen (in February '09) and while their boat and crew were excellent there were a couple of things I didn't like about their operation. There are two cruise ship docks and my ship (the Caribbean Princess) was apparently docked at the wrong one. I had to take a taxi over to the other pier first thing after we docked to rush over and meet the driver for 9 am. However, when I got there, there was no driver in sight and it was another 30-40 minutes before they got their act together. Then we had about a 30 minute drive to Marigot Bay where we picked up the boat, which ferried us across to where the shop was. Here we spent another 30 minutes or so sorting out payments and gear. Then we got back on the boat and headed out for our dive site which was nearly an hour from the shop, within sight of the Pitons. After we wasted another 30 minutes doing our mask clearing and buoyancy checks we FINALLY got to diving. While the buoyancy check is pretty important (and this is where most of the time was spent), I think the mask clear is a total waste of time.

 

The diving was amazing, great variety of corals and creatures. One of the sites was called the Pinnacles which had some very unusual currents that reversed direction halfway through the dive. As the previous poster stated the food was excellent too. After the diving we of course had the hour long boat ride back to Marigot Bay where we sat and waited again for the driver. While I got back to my ship with about 40 minutes to spare to go shopping in the flea market, divers from another ship were cutting it very close and when we got stuck in traffic heading into the downtown area they were getting quite anxious.

 

From the sounds of the previous poster it sounds like they picked you up at the pier in their boat? Maybe this is a better arrangement. I'm not so sure that Dive Fair Helen should offer their services to cruise ship passengers given the distance of the shop from the port and all the waiting around.

[alschmid]

Kind of a follow on question - from my reading it sounds like a lot of st lucia diving is more technical (depper and currents) than I would think I would be comfortable with. I've been in the past with trips where they take the whole group down over 60ft - (usually I'm just watching everyone below me since I dont' feel too comfortable going deep with my experience level). Is this something to worry about in St Lucia - I would assume that the dive shops should have a good feel for everyone's level and would think they would plan the trip accordingly - but haven't really had this happen too well in the past.

[travelbugs]

Hi.

We were on Royal. Sorry to hear about the wasted time Scuba Chick. We had maybe a 15 minute wait at the dock, maybe a 10 minute ride to their harbor on the boat. Check in was smooth and quick (we had everything done online before we went, so we just had to show our C cards). Can't remember how long it took us to get to the dive sights, we were too busy talking to everyone else on the boat. We also did the Pinnacles, if I remember correctly it was a drift dive. We also did Anse Chasne ( according to our divebook, both of these dives were at 60ft).. alshmid, I think when they do the buoyancy check and mask clearing, they are also watching your comfort level. On the drift dive, my husband got low on air before everyone else. He simply followed us from above following the big red ball that the Divemaster has the other end of below. I don't recall any currents being very strong (and I'm the wimp in the group). Get in touch with them, see what they have planned that day, ask how deep they're going, see which dock your coming into and ask how they would get to you. It's beautiful diving, enjoy it!

[Scubachick84]

travelbugs, we did the same two sites as your group did. Maybe the currents weren't as bad the day you dove at the Pinnacles? I've never been in a current quite that strong.

 

That being said, alschmid, the currents weren't really challenging, you just really fly. And somehow when we reached the turnaround point the current was going in the right direction again. The divemaster was very explicit that we weren't to exceed a certain depth, I think it was 80 feet on the first dive and 60 feet on the second. There was one couple on our dive who were quite inexperienced with only a couple of dives out of their certification dives, they managed just fine after some initial nervousness. I wouldn't really call these dives technical. Out of curiousity, aside from St. Lucia and St. Kitts, where else is your cruise going? Maybe there's another island someone can make recommendations for?

[alschmid]

We are also going to St Thomas, Dominica, Antiqua and Barbados (lots of ports)

 

I was planning on doing some shore diving in St Thomas - thought it would be a good way to get more comfortable again. We are all signed up for a refresher course next week with our LDS as well.

 

We are thinking we will dive St Lucia - Scuba Steve has a scuba/driving tour that would let us see some of the island as well. Or we may just do a 2-tank dive, haven't decided yet. I've let the dive shops know our experience level and they have been great at communicating. Scuba Steve's also has dives that are smaller groups and go to the Piton's for sure - but more expensive of course. That dive shop hasn't been reviewed on cruisecritic from what I can tell - but has great reviews on trip advisor.

 

May also dive St Kitts - but that would just be probably take the dive shop number with me and decide on board if we feel up to another dive on the last day of a busy cruise.

 

Thanks for all of the feedback!

[travelbugs]

"May also dive St Kitts - but that would just be probably take the dive shop number with me and decide on board if we feel up to another dive on the last day of a busy cruise."

 

 

Just remember your 24 hr. rule for flying if you do St. Kitts. ~Bugs

[alschmid]

travelbugs - yes I thought about that. Our flight isn't until 4:30pm out of San Juan - so officially we would be ok on the rule, correct? (I have to go look up my books to look through them before the refresher course to remind myself of everything)