St Lucia

we arrive in St Lucia just as the sun is setting, after a quick stroll along the beach we crash after a long journey and 4 hours late lag.	spent the first day just relaxing by the pool, second day topped up our diving skills (after jules got over her asthma) ready for some scuba fun.	more just relaxing in the sun, it took a few days to get into the tropical vibe. nice beach view once we had learned to say no thanks to the local hawkers.		kind of a stunted heron, used to watch us heading off diving every day.
us off snorkeling in preparation for the next days diving. we found it very funny that they insisted on us wearing flotation vests to go snorkeling. very litigation-conscious.	found our own little pool far from the disco tunes at the other end of the resort	jules from the depths	cool shoals of fat gold fish, could be found hanging out near Pigeon island	lots of these, only small but boxie, cute
lots of these also, very spinie urchin	first of many eels, this one with yellow spots	some underwater gymnastics	first of many dives, think we did 7 in total, all included in the price :)	strange wormie things
electric blue spotted fish (yes i'm making these names up a bit)		spot the stone fish	spot the flat fish	lots of cool cone type coral, in all colours and shapes
cluster of purple sea anemoies	jules finding that the new mask is difficult to equalise	puffer fish, bigish, about 40cm long, huge eyes	dive master trying to get close to an eel, it shot away 1 sacond later.
plenty of these cleaner shrimp, comedy oversized claws	jules crusing the depths during the refresher dive	cute little brittle star hanging out inside a cone coral	more flat fish, fantastic way they can change colours to match the bottom.	interesting combination of coral
fish crusing with jules	stu going a bit funny on the free drink.	us, sandals lobby, as much as you can drink irresponsibly free, mmm.	the swim up pool for those who pay for better rooms.	hotel grounds, the path from our room to the sea, the humming birds flitting around the flowers
rainbow over pigeon island, view from the hotel.	leaving the hotel on our first real dive trip to the pitons (big pointy mountains)	we got very familiar with the dive boat and its crew, got to meet lots of people and swap live and dive stories, even a couple from poole.	our first view of the pitons and very impressive they are too.	more underwater acrobatics, bit deeper this time. only problem with standing on your head is it seems to rotate water into your ears which takes a day to disappear and things can be a bit muffled while its going. but its fun! feelng the bubbles travel up your body.
jules looking very serene in the depths.	huge cone coral, 1m high, when they get really big they have intricate crustations around them, look soft but they are hard	cool eel, if you get too close they open their mouths and show off some teath, normaly enough to stop you getting any closer.	coral garden, very spectacular, not quite as cool as the red sea, but very nice.	nice green things, look like plants but i suspect not, perhaps some kind of anemony?
cursing along anse wall at 20m. spectacular, the dive isn't called superman's flight for nothing, the current makes us drift along, like flying without moving.	distant puffer fish swimming through the garden.	us posing for the usual cheesie romantic underwater shot :)	any excuse to get upside down, more water in the ears :)	thats more like it
back to the land of free undissolved oxygen	between dives they nose the boat up to a fissure in the cliff, as we approach we hear high pitched twittering and realise its bats. its a bat cave, thousands of bats hanging on the walls, so close they form a carpet.			between dives we run into some fisherman, one of whom appear to have left his trunks at home. after many jokes about underwater snakes and using it for bait we watch them as they set their nets and haul in their catch.
eelie, version with tiny weenie little spots	gazillions of fish, think they are what the fisherman are after. they call them baliehoe fish	typical view, dive master leading his flock	cool, hook jawed long fish (more made up names, must get a fish guide)	flat fish
		lots of these weird things, white tendrals looking for all the world like dental floss the ends go back to a single hole, another weird kind of anemony?		50cm sea cucumber
cheese anyone	we travel to the next sandals south, 20 mins in the shuttle bus. dinner in the pier restaurant.
more like it	more diving, this time a wreck of rather deliberate sinking of a fishing boat, still cool.		dropping into the hold	very cool, eary feeling inside.
we spotted a turtle flying past above us, lazley flapping its flippers.				spot the arrow head crab (real name)
	look i'm flying
trying to get an underwater 360 pano, and failing, so far...		more fisherman, we donated our leftover sandwiches, they seemed very grateful and offered us some fish, unfortunately the 5 stars dont run to cooking facilities so we had to decline.	popped into castries and found it choka with these dinky boats
jules complains about something trivial and we get sent on a sunset cruise to make us shut up. turns out its the dive boat we just spent 5 hour onboard this morning, we laughed.	sunsetting next to pigeon island		ah, so romantic.	the pirate ship, making good way considering no sails
better use for the bottle holders than air tanks.	stu finds his place at the bar!
		the back of pigeon island, i'd been contemplating snorkeling round it since seeing it on google earth. finaly plucked up the courage and 1.5hours later made it back to the resort (jules was just starting to worry) best snorkeling near the resort was to be had off the back edge. good waves, played around getting sucked through some narrow canyons.	every day the pirate galleon would sail into the bay, exchange gunfire (bangs) with the fort and every day the fort surlendered, surprise.	the view from the top of pigeon island, with sandals on the left


		stu tries waterskiing, this involves jules laughing at my attempts on land	not bad, managed to stand up for a full run of the bay, unfortunately they didnt include how to turn in the first lesson.	old vs new
			practising the yogic flying.	whole family of lobsters just hanging out under the coral shelf. totaly alien looking things, very tame.
		lots of these fan shapped bushie sea anenomies
	strange sand eels off in the distance. as you go towards them the slide underground and disapear
		perfect brain coral, even looks a bit brain shaped
		hotel lobby
big toad found hopping around the pool, caused much consternation.