Trou Diable (Devil's Hole) - Soufrière & the Pitons - Southwest Coast, Saint Lucia

Site Overview

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 cautionary tale for anyone who picks sites by title. Trou Diable is a broad plateau coral shelf on the exposed southern edge of the marine area, a mosaic of massive coral heads, pinnacled outcrops and caves and overhangs that carries divers from a shallow 8 metres down to a deep 30 without ever turning into a wall. Its signature is the barrel sponges: great wine-coloured cylinders the size of small cars, some well over a metre across, bolted to the ledges and furred with anemones and shrimp, and so numerous here that they give the whole plateau its texture. The reef is regularly cited by the SMMA's own monitoring as among the healthiest on the island, and it shows - dense coral cover, clouds of chromis and grunts over every head, turtles cruising the shelf, and groupers and barracuda holding in the current along the deeper edge. Because the depth is a choice, the site flexes from an easy Open Water swim along the bommies to a serious deep dive for advanced teams chasing the sponge forest at 28 metres. It is a two-tank favourite precisely because the plateau reads so differently at the top of a tide and the bottom of one.