Anse La Verdure - Soufrière & the Pitons - Southwest Coast, Saint Lucia

Site Overview

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, a set of art installations deliberately placed on the seabed to double as artificial reef habitat and give the south coast one more reason for divers and snorkellers to visit. The premise is the attraction: instead of a natural wonder, you fin along a shallow sand-and-reef plain between sculptural forms colonising with early coral growth, already patrolled by the resident reef fish that make any structure their home - angelfish and butterflyfish working the ledges, parrotfish grinding along the flanks, sergeant majors holding in the shelter of the forms, and the morays, lobsters and crustaceans that move into any new reef with pleasing speed. Because the installations sit in 5 to 18 metres of clear, calm reserve water, the site is as easy as it is novel - a beginner, a refresher diver or a snorkeller can take in the whole exhibition without a demanding profile. It is young, so honest divers should expect an intriguing concept with promising early life rather than a fully developed coral cathedral. What Anse La Verdure really offers is a distinctive, feel-good dive that ties marine conservation, community art and reef restoration together in a single sheltered bay - and, on a good clear morning, a genuinely memorable one.