Total Submersion 2016 packs world-class diving and nonstop topside fun into a week to remember on St. Lucia

Packing up at the end of the week, I struggled to fit everything into my suitcase. Blame the addition of a PADI dry bag, coffee mug, water bottle, hat and other swag collected during the 17th Annual PADI Total Submersion.

This week of world-class diving, great friends, parties, contests and more exceeded my expectations. So did St. Lucia, Anse Chastanet Resort and Scuba St. Lucia, a PADI Five Star Dive Resort and Divers Alert Network Partners in Dive Safety facility.

READ MORE: 10 Reasons to Dive St. Lucia

For the week, the group divided into two teams, each with its own dive boat and crew (and a little friendly rivalry; water cannons may have been involved). Jimmy Stinson took advantage to notch his 1,500th dive, for which sponsor Scubapro awarded him a pair of Seawing Nova fins. I hit dive No. 100 on my final giant stride of the trip. Several other participants completed various certifications: J.B. Brown and Barb Sladeck completed their Open Water Diver certification; Don Battaglia finished his Drift Diver specialty to earn a PADI Master Scuba Diver rating; and Chris Valerian and Dawn Desmelyk completed Drift Diver, Boat Diver and Peak Performance Buoyancy specialty courses.

“The extremely friendly and knowledgeable dive staff made it very easy for us to earn three new certifications while not distracting from our group experience,” says Valerian. “We are definitely planning to go back to Total Sub.”

Numbers and certifications aside, we experienced diving at its finest. For one thing, we had the water mostly to ourselves. For another, more than 150 species of fish call these protected reefs home. At sites just a short boat ride from the dive shop, we swam through swarms of brown and blue chromis, and watched colorful parrotfish, peacock flounder, soldierfish, trunkfish, needlefish, pufferfish and more. Moray eels and enormous lobsters tucked into the coral. Enormous purple barrel sponges harbored tiny, brightly colored fish. Seahorses hid in red sea fan coral. Sea turtles loitered near the reef. We even spotted a tiny, juvenile smooth trunkfish, little more than a hovering spotted marble. We could thank the sharp eyes and expertise of the dive masters for many of these sightings.

The crew members not only made our diving productive, but they also made it effortless: helping us gear up, navigating underwater, signaling safety stops and helping everyone back onto the boats. There, we enjoyed pastries fresh from the resort kitchens while the crew readied our gear for the next adventure.

Night dives from the resort beach served up crustaceans, large basket stars, octopuses, squids, bioluminescence and “The Thing.” (You’ll have to ask.)

Topside, we enjoyed games, safety clinics and parties, executed by PADI staff and team leaders Theresa Kaplan and Adrianne Miller, along with special guests Julie Andersen, director of global marketing for Scubapro and founder of Shark Angels; Frances Smith, DAN medical information specialist; and PADI photographer Budd Riker. Andersen brought along bags of brand-new Scubapro gear for us to field-test, including fins, masks and BCs. She also gave an informative presentation about the efforts of Shark Angels to protect every diver’s favorite marine predators.

Cathleen Burns won the “Dangerous or Safe?” game sponsored by DAN, which presented various diving scenarios with players voting whether they were dangerous or safe. Karen Upchurch took first place in the Photo Safari, a weeklong quest to capture a list of underwater and topside images, winning a GoPro HERO4 camera for her efforts. I frequently spotted Upchurch — a fellow Blue Team member and previous Total Sub Photo Safari winner — in impressive underwater contortions with her camera gear. We all won at the duck hunt, obscure beach games and our private sunset catamaran cruise, which included a bonus whale sighting and ended with everyone dancing to live music.

“Total Sub unites divers from all over for one action-packed week of diving, fun and shenanigans, below and above the surface,” says Miller. “We all arrive as strangers and leave with a long list of new dive buddies.”

Many of those buddy bonds formed over our private buffet breakfasts every morning, buffet lunches next door to the dive shop between morning and afternoon dives, or dinners at one of three resort restaurants. Anse Chastanet’s menus feature organic produce from the resort’s own farm and fresh seafood right out of the water, turned into Caribbean and Creole specialties. Most afternoons ended over cold, local Piton beer or fruity rum punch at the Beach Bar as we watched the sun set over the blue Caribbean and compared dive memories.

The Total Sub staff obviously took a lot of care selecting the destination for this event. The island of St. Lucia wowed with classic Caribbean scenery as well as a famous landmark and World Heritage Site, the Pitons. The steep slopes of these twin peaks continue underwater, forming the dramatic walls we explored at dive sites such as Superman’s Flight, Piton Wall, Jalousie and Coral Garden. We also enjoyed views of the Pitons and the stunning blue water from our resort rooms, which are scattered along their own steep hillside. For those able to tear themselves away from the diving long enough, topside activity options include 12 miles of biking and hiking trails, bird-watching, boutiques and an art gallery, a spa, and a watersports center with complimentary snorkel gear, windsurfers, sunfish sailboats, paddleboards and sit-on-top kayaks. I managed to stuff everything into my bag, grateful that I didn’t need extra room for all my Total Sub memories. Next year, I’ll bring a bigger suitcase.