Anse Chastanet Reef

Anse Chastanet Reef is the dive most visitors to Saint Lucia will do without ever leaving their sandals behind - the island's premier shore dive, a protected fr...

Anse La Verdure

Anse La Verdure is Saint Lucia's art gallery under the sea - a sheltered marine-reserve reef off the Canaries strip that carries a new underwater sculpture park...

Coral Gardens

The Coral Gardens are the south coast's easy, sunlit nursery - a sprawling shallow reef at the foot of Gros Piton where the island's protected marine area grows...

Fairyland

Fairyland earns its name the way most good things in the south coast do: it should not be this rich, this shallow and this easy. Inside the Soufriere Marine Man...

Grand Caille

Grand Caille is the southwest coast's granddaddy of a reef - a sprawling terraced system that cascades down the southern slope of the Soufriere Marine Managemen...

Keyhole Pinnacles

The Keyhole Pinnacles are the most dramatic topography in the Soufriere Marine Management Area - four volcanic peaks that claw up from the deep until their summ...

Malgretoute

Malgretoute is the kind of site experienced divers quietly ask for twice - a steep, sponge-encrusted rock slope just north of the Petit Piton, more undersea cli...

Piton Wall

Piton Wall is the pure vertical dive of the south coast - a sheer volcanic face dropping straight off the base of the Pitons into a blue so deep it reads as ano...

Superman's Flight

Superman's Flight is the dive that carries Saint Lucia's reputation: a drift along the volcanic wall beneath the Petit Piton, made famous as the underwater set...

The Staircase

The Staircase is the south coast's most gently beautiful reef - an untouched terraced wall that descends from a few metres under the surface in a series of broa...

Trou Diable (Devil's Hole)

Devil's Hole has the most menacing name on the Saint Lucia dive map and one of the healthiest, gentlest reefs inside the Soufriere Marine Management Area - a ca...

Turtle Reef

Turtle Reef is the site Saint Lucia's divers learn to expect a turtle at - a great crescent of coral north of Anse Chastanet that arcs around a sandy bowl, shel...

The south eats fishing-village simple with volcanic drama on the side: snapper and mahi straight from the boats at Soufrière's Bay Land, grilled lobster in season, and green fig and saltfish - the national dish - at the roadside cook-shops up the hill. Resort tables at Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain run higher and view-heavy, while the Canaries corridor keeps the price-down fish-fry feel. Piton beer, the island's own lager, is the reward after the last boat.

Anse Chastanet Resort

Jade Mountain Resort

Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort

Ladera Resort

Bodkin Scottial Fort Beach

Votiar Coastal Living

Jalousie Beach Villas

The southwest coast inside the Soufrière Marine Management Area is the beating heart of Saint Lucia diving, a protected corridor of reef, wall and pinnacle that mirrors the volcanic drama of the Pitons above it. Beneath the surface the island does not ease gently into the deep: coral shelves studded with giant barrel sponges end abruptly in walls that fall out of sight, sea-whip gardens sway along the drop-off, and volcanic peaks like the Keyhole Pinnacles rise from the blue to almost break the surface. Twelve signature sites pack into a few protected miles - the famous shore dive of Anse Chastanet Reef, the drift past the Petit Piton at Superman's Flight, the healthy plateau reefs of Trou Diable and Grand Caille, turtle country at Turtle Reef, and the sculpture reef off Canaries - all reached in minutes from the Soufrière and Tet Paul boat bases. A marine-area permit, contributed by every diver to the SMMA, funds the patrols and moorings that have kept these reefs among the healthiest in the Caribbean, and the sheltered leeward position keeps them diveable virtually year-round.

Soufrière & the Pitons - Southwest Coast

Most divers reach the southwest from Hewanorra (UVF) in the south - roughly an hour and a half up the coast road to Soufrière - or from George F.L. Charles (SLU) in the north via Castries and the Soufrière Road; allow two hours in either case. Boats launch from the Soufrière and Tet Paul bay fronts and from the resort jetties at Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain, running the SMMA grounds inside five to fifteen minutes, while Anse Chastanet Reef itself is dived straight from the beach. Soufrière-based operators arrange the marine-area permit at the shop, so divers do not need to organise it themselves.

Dive Sites in Soufrière & the Pitons - Southwest Coast