My husband and I went to St Lucia in May of 2004.The Island iself is just stunning as far as scenery goes,the pitons are a must see.We stayed in the Rodney bay area,very nice studio apt that was part of Villa Cleopatra.It was small but had exellent managment as well as a nice small swimming pool,within walking distace to grocery store ect...My husband and I love to dive as well as snorkel and I have to say I was a little dissapointed in the under water area of the northern part of the island,it was very dirty,I mean diapers on the bottom of the bay other trash to numerous to mention,and this we just saw snorkeling!The beaches were nice but not as good as st john in the USVI the beaches there are tops.The other drw back was the beach peddlers they were too much,I feel like we were bothered all the time .One guy even so much as came over to us and had the gaul to say to me I know your not sleeping and tried to sell us a conch shell.We did go on 1 two tank boat dive while we were there it was pretty nice we did a drift dive around some underwater seamounts,and it included pickup from hotel and a nice lunch.driving in st lucia is a little hairy espesilly driving to the other end of island where the famous pitons are hair pin turns no guard rails ect... But very beautiful.If any of you are familiar with the white mountains of Nh driving from one end of st lucia to the other is allot like that but with views of the sea.one of the beaches that was clean and gin clear was at the anse chastenet resort,but the road to get there was rougher then a cob not for the faint of heart.overall though like I said beautiful island just a few drawbacks.Someday Im sure we will go back after we do some more exploring of other islands.