As the final week of work prior to our two week vacation to St Vincent and the Grenadines commenced, who would have thought that we would be concerned about the weather in the Caribbean.

However, the development, growth and passage of Hurricane Ivan through the area was enough to keep us glued to the Internet as we monitored its progress.

As the week came to an end it was accompanied by copious e-mails to Bill Tewes (pronounced TEW – ES). As Bill had cause to remind me when I pronounced it incorrectly on more than one occasion) of Dive St. Vincent. Frantic phone calls were exchanged between the group of six potential vacationers, querying whether there was anything left of the Mariners hotel, dive sites on St Vincent and more importantly was the trip on at all.

Our fears were partly allayed when we received the following e-mail from Bill :-

"Well the excitement is over. We didn't get the hurricane, maintaining our record of over 60 years without one. It stopped in Grenada and Union Island and went to the West. Our hearts go out to them. We did get about 10 hours of tropical storm that blew down trees and took off some roofs but not much else."

So having satisfied ourselves late on Thursday night that the trip was still on, we finished our packing. The following night found us enjoying a relaxing evening at the Holiday Inn Gatwick, prior to our 11:05am British Airways flight from London to Barbados the following day.

As a convert to using e-tickets and having checked previously that Internet access was available at the hotel, we decided to take further advantage of modern communication methods. Logging onto the BA web site within 12 hours of departure should enable us to change our seat allocation to a new position in the aircraft affording some extra legroom (if there were any unallocated). Although we could see our allocated seats in the aircraft on the screen, try as we might, we could not re-locate them to another position. I am sure that you can appreciate how annoyed and frustrated we were, especially as we stayed awake specifically for the purpose of moving our seats.

Having arrived the prerequisite 3 hours before departure and inserted my credit card into the E-ticket Check-in machine, we were once again frustrated by our inability to re-locate our seats. Having printed off our Boarding Cards we abandoned technology and proceeded to the Fast Bag Drop Off where a very helpful BA Check-in assistant much to our astonishment and delight confirmed that the seats shown on our Boarding Cards were in fact Emergency Exit row seats with extra legroom. How this miracle occurred we have no idea, especially as we were certain that our attempts to re-locate the seats previously were ineffectual.

We can only assume that BA must have responded to our original request for 'Seats with extra legroom' when we booked our flights on the Internet many months previously. To this day I am mystified as to what happened but I guess that the old adage 'All is well that ends well!' most certainly applies in this case.

Although it was an 8 hour flight on the Boeing 777 to Barbados, time passed relatively quickly and comfortably in our Extra Legroom seats. As we commenced our approach to land, thankfully there was no evidence of a hurricane in the area.

Our 40 minute onward flight with Caribbean Star was soon over and we were touching down at E.T. Joshua airport St Vincent where we were greeted by blue skies, bright sunshine and a temperature of 86F. This wonderful weather helped to get us into the vacation mode almost immediately.

Unfortunately although we arrived on time our luggage did not. It would appear that due to excess weight carried by passengers that had checked in before us, our luggage did not travel on the same flight as us but was eventually delivered to our hotel a little later that same evening.

A taxi (included in the Divers Package) was waiting for us when we had cleared Customs and Immigration. The Mariners Hotel is only a 10 minute journey by car from the airport and upon arrival at the hotel Reception we were greeted like old friends and were given a complimentary Rum Punch to welcome us back.

Feeling very tired after our long 11 hour journey and extended day we retired to our room. The 5 hour time difference between the UK and St Vincent meant that we had been awake for almost 17 hours.

Shortly after reaching the room the phone rang. It was Bill Tewes welcoming us back and arranging to collect our diving equipment from the hotel the following morning at 9:40am.

We unpacked quickly, prepared our dive equipment for the following day and showered. We were about to hit the sack when there was a knock at the door. It was the four other members of the vacationing team Jeff, Marti, Tim and Robin who had just arrived from Atlanta Georgia in the good ol’ US of A. Our 6 person dive team was complete.

Declining an offer of a drink at the bar, we arranged to all meet for breakfast at 8:00am and departed to the ‘Land of Nod’ (for those of you are unfamiliar it is a quaint old English saying) to catch up on lost sleep.

After 9 hours of sleep we awoke refreshed at 6:00am the following morning. Due to the time difference our bodies were feeling as if it was 11:00am.

Drawing back the curtains (drapes to our American friends) that morning revealed the same magnificent view that had been vividly impressed on my memory since our last visit.

As we sat down to breakfast that morning in the French Verandah Restaurant it was like slipping on a pair of well worn shoes that feel familiar and comfortable. I do not think I will ever tire of looking out across Young Cut, the short stretch of water that provides a haven for boats and yachts. The Cut separates the exclusive resort of Young island from the main island of St Vincent and it is the typical Caribbean view that we all imagine in our minds.

Of the other four members of our group Jeff and Marti are well known to us as they had joined us on previous vacations to Roatan, Grand Turk and St Vincent. As we only get together once a year, we had a lot to catch up on. The other couple Tim and Robin are friends of Jeff and Marti and had decided to join us having read the previous dive trip report on my web site and as a result of Jeff and Marti extolling the many virtues of St Vincent and it's diving.

Before we could get to know the new members of our dive team we had to make our selection from the extensive breakfast menu and give our order to one of the Restaurant waitresses who welcomed us in a cheerful, polite and friendly manner. Breakfast is also included in the Dive Package and you can select anything from the menu up to a maximum of 25 Eastern Caribbean Dollars (which just happens to cover more or less everything on offer)

Our freshly prepared and cooked breakfast arrived promptly and having eaten we caught up on what had been happening over the last year and also got to know Tim and Robin.

As promised Bill Tewes arrived at 9:40am to collect our dive equipment and greeted us with his usual infectious enthusiasm. Thirty minutes later having completed the relevant documentation we were on board the dive boat en-route to the dive sites, none of which are more than 20 minutes away.

However, for our first dive of the trip Bill was insistent that we go to Between, a site right next to Young Island that we had dived many times during our previous visit and had always offered many surprises. This site consists primarily of a barren area of sand interspersed with patches of grass. On previous occasions it has delighted us with various oddities such as Spoon nose eels, Flying Gurnard, Headshield Leech Slugs, Yellow Throat Pikeblenny, Sharptail and Gold Spotted Eels etc. Bill briefed us that although the passage of the hurricane had caused very little damage (if any) to St Vincent’s dive sites, on this site many of the normal inhabitants had either been swept away or had decided to move elsewhere until conditions improved. During his briefing he told us that he had dived there the previous day, and that he had some surprises in store for us.

As we descended down to the sandy bottom at 34 feet the appearance of the site did not seem to have changed much but Bill indicated to us that we should follow him towards a Sea Fan that had obviously been uprooted and was laying face down. Slowly and carefully he picked up the fan to reveal an Aladdin’s Cave of juvenile fish and the largest number of beautifully coloured Porcelain Crabs that varied in size from ¼ inch to 1 inch in size that I have ever seen, let alone seen all in one place.

We spent most of the dive lifting up Sea Fans to check on the fish and critters that were taking refuge under the only protection available in this barren landscape. When you flipped a Fan over numerous shrimps, small crabs, brittle starfish and scale worms would scurry out of sight to the other side of the Fan.

The site also has an extensive area of Manatee Grass and amongst it we found what proved to be the highlight of the dive, an Eelgrass Blenny. These are certainly uncommon as proven by the fact that the Fishes of the Caribbean and Adjacent Waters multi-media CD/DVD guide produced by ReefNet contains neither a photograph or video footage of this illusive Blenny.

This particular specimen was reasonably co-operative and allowed me to take some fine shots of him (or her) in various poses. The resultant images have been submitted to ReefNet in the hope that they will be included in the Fourth Edition of their CD/DVD when it becomes available.

Back on the boat we were all excited and enthusiastic about our finds and were more than satisfied with the surprise that Bill had conjured up.

As the first dive was so great we decided to dive the same site again, burning off a further 90 plus minutes of air. Thus making a total time of over 3 hours for just two dives and was a perfect start to our diving fortnight.

The following images were all taken with a Nikon CoolPix 2500 2 Megapixel Digital Camera with 256 Mb memory card.

View of Young Cut and the Mariners jetty at sunset.

A well appointed Deluxe room with ocean view.

The view that greeted us each morning when we drew back the curtains (drapes).

The walls of the dive shop are covered in rare Critter photos taken by customers (and includes some of mine)

Lush tropical vegetation reaches down to the crystal clear waters edge at this dive site.

The rare and illusive Eelgrass Blenny

Dive trip to St Vincent & the Grenadines, Mariners Hotel - September 2004 (Part Two)