all you can scuba + day tour around St Lucia

12 years ago
Posted in:--St Lucia, -Caribbean, Destinations, Itineraries, Photo Gallery
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Author: Pettie
Tags: Excursions, Scuba Dive

Staying at Sandals resort = All you can Scuba!!!

We went 3 times in total (6 different dive sites). each time a private Sandals only boat takes us to the dive site with our own instructor/guide (typically 4 to a guide). 2/3 dives were great. 1 of the dive was very murky that day. lots of tropical fishes, but unfortunately we didn’t see any turtles =( all the equipment was given to us, though Nick and I chose to use our own masks and snorkels and fins. Before the trip, Nick picked up an underwater flashlight, which turned out to be quite useful as it lights up the true colours of the corrals. under the water with little sunlight, most corrals has 1 colour – greenish yellow. but when the flashlight it shined upon it – we saw blues and purples and reds. it was awesome! The guides were all very knowledgeable on the dive sites and could spot a creature from many distance away.

Then as a one day excursion around the island, we toured with James Touring Service – James himself plus his assistant was our guide for the group of 20 or so. They said they don’t follow a specific itinerary but play it by ear each time depending on time/traffic/weather etc. but we think we got most of the island experience! they were both very nice and went out of their way to get us to the sights. They even stopped the bus a few times so that they can show us some of the St Lucia nature/flower/trees/fruits. We traveled via a private van with enough middle seats to fit all of us together.

Here’s the notable stops we went to with James:
1. Castries Craft Market – local market vendors for crafts and gifts.
2. Behind governor’s house Vista point – cashew tree! (the fruit doesn’t taste very good – but learned that there is only one cashew nut per fruit. no wonder cashews are so expensive!)
3. Anse La Rave Village viewpoint
4. Anse La Rave Village – boa constructor pit stop + local bread pit stop (1800 ft up at this point)
5. Soufriere viewpoint – Calabre tree (the national tree)
6. Soufriere lunch in the city – $5 for bbq chicken/fish/pork and walk around in the immediately surrounding area
7. Sulfur springs ($5 entry) for mud bath – AWESOME experience – a must go!
8. New Jerusalem Waterfalls – the original waterfalls was no longer there after hurricane, so we went to this little one

James charged us approx $50 a head – did not include lunch, but he has refreshments (water, piton beer, pop).

We liked James so much that we asked him to bring us to a local night party (St Lucia has one every friday night). He chartered a bus for the group of 12 of us. and were super protective of us. He stayed afar but kept an eye on us and came down to stay with us a few times (guess he wanted to make sure the locals knew he was there).