Kody, St. Kitts, Frigate Bay Area, June 99

SUMMARY - HIGHLIGHTS

Why St. Kitts?
Definitely not crowded in off-season, probably not very crowded even during high season. Healthy, relatively undisturbed reefs. Price/Package reasonable for Eastern Carib. Very nice spot for macro-photography: lots of shrimp (Peterson's, Candy Cane), arrow crabs, worms, and lots of healthy corals (including large black corals), One excellent wreck teaming with life at night: octopi, sleeping turtles, lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and more.

Why not St. Kitts?
After years of over-fishing, there is a marked absence of large reef fish. One dive noted a large school of jacks, but that was about it except for a lone nurse shark and a stingray (total of 12 day dives). The island is still recovering from hurricane Georges, but most construction should be completed by year's end.

DETAILS:
Trip was a full week of diving. I bought a 6-day (two-tank) package with one night dive for $365, tanks and weights only, from "St. Kitts Scuba", one of three dive shops on the island. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me...

Comparison "ratings" below (scale of 1=bad, 10=great) are based on about fifteen other trips throughout the Carib, Pacific, and Coral Sea.

Reference: 10 = San Salvador, Bahamas, aka "Columbus Isle" (Club Med) 1 = Lake Tenkiller, Eastern Oklahoma

Here's the low-down on the dive operators:

1) St. Kitts Scuba (SKS) SKS is located at the Bird Rock Beach Hotel a couple of miles south of Basseterre (the island's principle city.) The shop (and its dock/pier) was still under reconstruction in June/99, but operational. The hotel was still closed. SKS included taxi service to and from my nearby resort (discussed later.) SKS is managed by Ian Phillips, a very responsive instructor, dive master, and captain (rate '9'), with past diving experience all over the world. Ian's local staff was often less enthusiastic (rate '4'), but he is rebuilding the SKS business, and customer service is definitely his top priority. I had to deal with a few inconveniences related to the construction (i.e. no rinse bins for gear) but overall those inconveniences were offset by often being the ONLY DIVER ON THE BOAT, and having the dives tailored to my wishes. Lockers are available to store your own gear (bring your own pad lock), and gear is available to rent if you don't bring your own. I didn't rent, but from what I saw, the gear was fairly new and in good shape (rate '9').

When the hotel and dive shop are completed (fall/99) I would definitely recommend SKS overall (rate '8'). SKS currently runs one boat (six to eight divers? rate '7') and is planning to add another larger boat soon.

2) Turtle Beach Dive Shop (or something like that) (TB) TB is located on the far southern tip of St. Kitts. which is a few miles from anything. It is run by a local guy. While diving with SKS, I saw a couple of last-minute diver additions that were "cancelled" by the TB shop because TB only takes the boat out if it's half full, or something. Ian Phillips (SKS) said that he gets a lot of business from TB cancellations.

3) Kenneth's Dive Shop (KDS) KDS is located in the city of Basseterre near the commercial port. Kenneth is another local guy. He runs a large "pontoon" type boat (rate '5') and I observed him out diving with an almost empty boat as well. I passed by his dive shop a few times, it's old and located in a kind of dirty part of the city - didn't go inside. Didn't hear anything else...

DIVING:
SKS and KDS operate in the main part of Frigate Bay, located along the southwestern part of the island. Due to limited paying customers, we didn't venture out to other parts of the island, which was understandable... The local reefs (with maybe eight different sites in that area) start anywhere from 35' to 50' and generally drop down to a sandy bottom at anywhere from 70' to 110'. There were no serious walls, drops, and often no current. There was a noticeable absence of large reef fish due to years of over-fishing by locals. The largest grouper that I saw was no more than sixteen inches long, and the average size was less than a foot. There were still schools of barracuda; however, it appears that the local deep-sea fishing operations (for tourists) have so much trouble catching anything for there customers that at the end of the trip they usually have to buzz over the reefs and snag a barracuda to keep from going back empty-handed. It's sad... However, in twelve dives, we did manage a 5' nurse shark, a school of full grown jacks, and a large southern stingray.

On the up side, if you like little stuff, it was all over the place! Be mindful that good buoyancy control is a must for enjoying "macro" diving. A number of the buddy's that I had diving missed a lot of cool stuff because they couldn't (or weren't willing to) roll over and stand on their heads to look at tiny shrimp or crabs down inside cracks and holes. I'm glad that at least they weren't "reef bangers", though, hurting the reef in an effort to observe it...

Some of the coolest stuff was fluorescent anemones with one or two fluorescent Peterson's shrimp on them. Candy Cane shrimp were also common at all times of the day. The corals were all generally very healthy, and there was little apparent damage from the recent hurricane. One large reef site (called "black coral") had, not surprisingly, a lot of very healthy black coral "trees". This reef was large enough for multiple moorings and dives. If you like lizard fish, they are abundant (some over sixteen inches) and gobies, goat fish, and the other common sand-dwelling types can be stirred up just off of the reefs. The best dive of the trip was the wreck. Probably about a 150' freighter that's been down there for about eleven years. It's in about 50' of water (sandy bottom) and split into two pieces. We dove the wreck as the second morning dive in preparation for the night dive. The wreck is heavily encrusted with corals, and it has a lot of stinging "fire worms" (don't touch!) on it. There are a couple of octopi that live there, and at night, you'll find several lobsters lined up at the sandy bottom. Turtles come there to sleep, which means that you can get up right next to them. We also roused up a large 3' puffer down inside one of the holds, and shrimp, arrow crabs, and scallops were abundant.

The back end of the wreck can be navigated during the day, but it's a little tight in some places, so if you plan to swim through it, wear a full wet suit (especially, due to the fire worms.) Throughout the week, air temps in the 80s, water temp was always 84 degrees.

WHERE TO STAY?
I don't really know... I heard some good things about condos if you want to take care of yourself... I stayed at Jack Tar Village, an all-inclusive Allegro resort, but they don't cater to divers, and the attitude was a bit "stuffy" for me. Price: $125 per night based on double occupancy. Compared to other Allegro Resorts, such as "The Diamond" in Cozumel, this place needs work! The rooms were very nice, but the food was, at best, average, and the attitude of the staff was VERY POOR, and we continually found ourselves uninformed or misinformed about what was going on. Drinks were included, but it was watered-down and really cheap stuff. It seemed over-priced across the board.

This is a good time to note that the local population is not very concerned about tourism, and they have a cultural "work ethic" problem - meaning that few people really do much. Business owners have to hire four people to do one job. It's sad... Taxi drivers are the best in terms of good service for rides or day trips and sight seeing. Don't be surprised if you find other locals in tourist jobs that are rude and even bitter towards you.

ANOTHER SUMMARY
I can honestly recommend St. Kitts for very good macro (and macro-photography) diving, even during the day. As long as Ian Phillips is managing St. Kitts Scuba, I think that you'll be taken care of to your liking. St. Kitts is probably not the best place for beginners because there's often not much to look at from 10' above the reef. However, if you're looking for a vacation resort as a place to learn to dive, I guess that St. Kitts is as good a place as any.

Overall Rating: 7