Malgretoute - Soufrière & the Pitons - Southwest Coast, Saint Lucia

Site Overview

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 cliff garden than coral palace, where the payoff is in the small life packed into every crevice rather than in a big drop-off. The boulders and outcrops are furred so heavily in sponges, soft coral and sea fans that they read as rock gardens at a distance, and up close each hole, overhang and sand-pocket between the stones holds something: morays poking their speckled heads out, scorpionfish draped in algae and impossible to spot until they blink, Caribbean reef octopus working the crevices, spiny lobster stacked in the holes, and - for the patient, torch-lit hunter - the occasional frogfish knitted so perfectly into the growth that a guide finds it before you ever will. Turtles cruise the deeper ledge and the Piton backdrop above is the finest on the coast. Because the slope is sheltered, shallow at the top and current-light, Malgretoute doubles as one of the best snorkelling-to-diving transition sites in the marine area and a genuinely beginner-friendly ground. It is not the showiest dive on the southwest coast, and it does not try to be; it is the one you slow right down for, and the one the macro photographers keep to themselves.