TRAVEL
A Group Dive Guide to St. Lucia - the “Helen of the West Indies” by David Prichard & Lily Mak , Enchanted Sea Images, Inc., Dallas, TX
I TEMS THAT ARE CONSIDERED beautiful are often coveted by many and the lush rainforest peaks, beautiful sandy beaches, and rich organic farmlands throughout the interior have made the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia to be regarded as beautiful as the fabled “Helen of Troy,” and fought over as much. While colonial powers centuries ago battled each other for the possession of Saint Lucia’s strategically located topside in the Windward Islands, only a few decades ago did scuba divers discover that “Helen’s” beauty also extended below the waves with a wide variety of undersea landscapes of drop-off walls, sloping vibrant reefs, and pinnacles surrounded by abundant marine life and a mysterious nocturnal creature
out by the Carib. The British attempted a colony in 1639, but with the same end result. The French West India Company were more successful using commerce and purchased land from the Caribs in 1651, but the British found out and sent an army of over 1,000 to Saint Lucia to take over the island. The island exchanged hands approximately 14 times over the years until France ceded the land to the English in 1814 after Napoleon was defeated. Helen’s Beauty Under the Waves With the calmer Caribbean Sea on the western side of the island and the rougher Atlantic Ocean “windward” side of the eastern portion of the island, most of Saint Lucia’s dive sites are located on the Caribbean side between Gros Piton Point (just south of Soufriere) up north to the Gros Islet area in Rodney Bay. There are approximately 22 established dive sites along this area with most located below the capital of Castries and above the town of Soufriere. The many underwater landscapes lead to a variety of marine life that follows normal Caribbean protocols. The deeper sites have an abundance of barrel sponges and gorgonians, plus larger pelagic fish, sharks, and turtles. In shallower reef areas, traditional reef life is abundant in these healthy reefs such as: hard and soft corals, a variety of eels, frogfish, sea horses, chromis, grunts, trumpet fish, filefish, blennies, octopus, squid, basket stars, jacks, snappers, wrasse, flounders, spotted drums, flying gurnard, grouper, parrotfish, various angel fish, trumpet fish, sea slugs, needle fish, triggerfish, sargassum fish, puffers, and many other fish. Crustaceans include lobsters, crabs, and a variety of shrimp. A large purple segmented centipede-like creature, called “The Thing,” is only seen at night and dislikes any dive lights so usually only a glimpse of one is all a diver gets to see. The top dive sites you can research for your particular group include: Trou Diable, Pinnacles, Superman’s Flight,
called “The Thing.” Exchanging Hands
Saint Lucia was created by volcanic activity along the eastern rim of the Caribbean tectonic plate’s subduction zone forming
the Windward Islands. This 238 sq. mile (617 sq. km) island (formed 32,000-39,000 years ago) is located south of Martinique and north of Saint Vincent islands and was first settled around 200 AD by the Arawak tribe who called the island “Louanalao” which meant “Island of the Iguanas.” About 600 years later the Carib tribe arrived and dominated the island and followed a similar naming suit of calling the island “Hewanorra” meaning “where iguanas can be found.” This name is now the name of the primary international airport in Vieux Fort at the southern end of the island. The first European influence in Saint Lucia was actually a peg-legged French pirate by the name of Francois Le Clerc (aka: Jambe de Bois) who used Pigeon Island (a small weath- er-protected island in what is now known as Rodney Bay in the northwest tip) as a base to attach rich Spanish ships during the 1550s. The Dutch were the first to try to build a colony near Vieux Fort in the early 1600s, but were driven
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