I was in St. Kitts on Dec. 29 on a cruise stop on Voyager of the Seas; the diving excursion offered by the cruise line was cancelled a few months before we left, so I booked a 2-tank dive with Pro Dive St. Kitts, based largely on reports from Scubaboard. Communication in setting up the reservation and with regard to any questions I had was by email and Auston and Margot were very responsive.

We were to meet at 8:15 a.m. "to the left of the big St. Kitts" sign at the cruise port, and that's exactly where I found Auston and some of the other divers who would be going with us. There were two ships in port that day, and some of the other divers were from the other ship while some were staying at local hotels. I gathered that some of them had booked multiple days of diving with Pro Divers. We had a quick walk (maybe 5 minutes) directly to the dive boat. It's a good-sized boat with most of the deck shaded by a canopy; we had 11 divers and three crew, and the only time it seemed a little crowded was when we were sitting down trying to get into our gear. AL 80's were standard with Pro valves, and one of the mates was happy to take out the inserts for those of us with DIN regs. Fills on my tanks were both 3000psi.

They had two divers in the water with us; Auston, who led the group, and Terry who brought up the rear. I was insta-buddied with another diver and we stuck together pretty well on the first dive, but the "buddy diving" was pretty loose in general - it was more of a group dive. During the briefing, Auston would describe the site and tell us how the descent/ascent would work. There was some surface current so, while I wouldn't describe it as a hot drop, we were told to get in the water and head down with purpose. We could dive our tanks; the plans had us ending below the boat by the anchor line, so if you had air you were free to use it. Three-minute safety stops were required. My dives were 47 & 48 minutes and I came up with 500 each time.

First dive was about 1.5 miles offshore, which was a bumpy ride as it was pretty windy. The site was "Brimstone Shallows", although "shallow" is relative - we did what I think was the back side of the reef, and my max depth was 99 fsw. The focus on this dive was the coral and sharks - Auston carried a pole spear and fed a few lionfish to the Caribbean Reef sharks that showed up. Once they came in, they swam around us for most of the dive. Also saw a Green Moray and what appeared to be a quite healthy reef - lots of fans, etc.

During the surface interval the crew changed over the tanks for people using rental gear and offered to do it for those of us with our own gear. Graham cracker-type cookies and water were provided. After another briefing, we hit the water for the M/V Talata wreck site. There's actually a smaller, unnamed wreck that we dropped on, then swam over the reef to the Talata wreck.

I'd definitely go out with Pro Divers again. The crew was friendly, the boat was clean and organized. Seems like a very good operation. Below is my first attempt at a dive video (or any video, to be honest).

While we were walking from the meeting point to the dock, Auston was telling us how when he first came to St. Kitts, none of that area even existed - they built it all up with what they dredged out to create the cruise docks and just added on to the island.