St Lucia
by Trevor Thorpe

After returning from Cayo Guillermo, Cuba in May I was wondering where to go for my October holiday and decided that the diving in Grenada was that good that I would book to go back there so I booked it for 12th-26th October. Unfortunately they had a very unexpected and highly unwelcome arrival in the form of Hurricane Ivan shortly before I was due to travel which devastated the island making my holiday impossible. The firm I was due to travel with, Friendship Travel. com, a firm that specializes in single travellers like myself, had to cancel my holiday and instead offered me a full refund or a transfer to St. Lucia 13th-27th October. As the hotel in St. Lucia which they offered me was the Le Sport which is run by the same company and is one of the best spa resorts in the world I chose St.Lucia.

So after travelling down to Gatwick Airport by National Express from Nottingham, which takes around five hours, and after going through check-in, passport control etc. I finally boarded my British Airways flight to St. Lucia via Antigua where we touched down for about 45 mins. to change crews and disembark passengers. We then took off for our remaining 34 minute flight to St. Lucia. In total the flight took about 9 hours as we flew directly over the ocean. After landing in Haenorawa Airport, St. Lucia we went through customs and passport control and then baggage reclaim before exiting the Airport and being met by our tour rep. As there was only myself and a lady named Pauline who were travelling with Frienship travel that were staying at the Le Sport we were asked if we would share a taxi for the 1 hour journey to the Le Sport, which we both agreed to. After arriving at the hotel and doing the normal check-in which was very effecient I was shown to my room, which was very nice and located in the single garden section built especially for single travellers.
The following morning we attended the welcome meeting where we were shown all the trips available but as I would be diving most days I didn’t do any but we both decided that as the international airport was at the other end of the island, on the final day we would do the helicopter trip from Castries airport to Haenorawa airport which was superb. I did however go to the Friday night jump-up, a local street party with some friends. The hotel is absolutely first class and there is lots to do i.e.,yoga, stretch classes etc. and every day a member of staff takes guided walks around the property which is very useful. You also get a free 50 minute massage or other treatment every day, which was superb.

I chose the Le Sport because qualified divers get a free dive every day although the free dives are only shore dives which aren't really any good to me as they only go down to 21ft. and the visibility isn't very good because the sea bed gets kicked up by the try divers. I did, however, do two shore dives both to Salem Point, one to 21ft. for 67mins. and the other to 21ft. for 61mins. After these two dives I decided to buy a further eleven boat dives which were done as two tank boat dives costing $85 each plus one, one-tank afternoon boat dive costing $25. The dives I did were; Supermans Flight to 69ft. for 64mins., Anse Chastenet to 48ft. for 37mins., Turtle Reef to 75ft. for 25mins., Anse Coshan South to 40ft. for 45mins., Turtle Reef to 62ft. for 41mins., Anse Chastenet to 48ft. for 37mins., Jalouse Reef to 77ft. for 43mins., Anse Coshan to 56ft. for 35mins., Birds Rock to 47ft. for 28mins., Anse Coshan South to 43ft. for 37mins. and Anse Coshan North to 47ft. for 38mins.

The dive staff, Markus, Andy, Alvin and Curtan are extremely helpful and very friendly as are all the hotel staff, however whether it was because they where deluged by the number of divers that had been transfered from Grenada or not they didn't seem able to cope with the amount of try divers which I thought could have led to possible safety problems. Indeed on several dives the instructor led the dive and the more experienced divers had to look after the more inexperienced divers.

Contact; FriendshipTravel.com

Contact; lesportstlucia.com


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