Having been to St. Lucia on a previous cruise, I wanted to make a dedicated dive trip there. I have done a lot of research for a trip I booked in January 2023. The Soufriere area is where you want to stay to be close to the best dive sites in the marine park. It is, indeed, a long drive from the north and the roads are very curvy from what I've read. There's only two dive ops I've found down there, Scuba St. Lucia/Dive St. Lucia (one company) and Action Adventure Divers,
www.aa.divers.net. They are vastly different in their service provided. Scuba St. Lucia has the kind of dive boat I prefer, easy on and off, among other things, and they have Nitrox. Action Adventures is a bit more primitive, but they are located right on Soufriere beach. Their website is not very comprehensive and I don't know if they have Nitrox. From TripAdvisor pictures, the boat looks like a single motor, wooden fishing boat.
Scuba St. Lucia takes dive bookings only if you stay at Anse Chastenat or Jade Mountain, very high-end properties. Anse Chastenat's price for a single diver, which is me, package for 7 nights is $5749, a little too rich for me. Plus, my trip was going to be 11 days, with 9 days of diving, so the price tag would be much higher. I only found this out AFTER booking my hotel in Soufriere and the flights. I've never had this happen before, where a dive operation will snub the general public from diving with them. They must not be hurting for tourism dollars post-COVID. Thankfully, I have free cancellation of both the hotel and flights.
Dive Fair Helen is in Marigot Bay, and Scuba Steve's/Dive St. Lucia is in Rodney Bay. I've read the best diving is in Soufriere, and Dive St. Lucia charges $12.50 extra for fuel plus $5 MP fee to go south.
When I spoke with Dive Fair Helen, they recommended to stay in Soufriere because they don't go down there.
The onsite dive shop at the Sandals resort limits your dives to 30 minutes.
Also, if you stay in the Soufriere area, the airport is only 30-40 minutes away versus 2 hours to the northern resorts on curvy roads.