Grenada, February, 2005

by Charles Stirling

My partner and I took the relatively new direct Golden Caribbean - Excel flight from Gatwick to Granada in the nice warm Caribbean at the beginning of February for a 2 week trip. Grenada sounded interesting as it offers both good wrecks and good scenic dives and with these flights the cost is very reasonable. British Airways and Virgin offer other flights.

One aspect both of interest and concern was possible damage from hurricane Ivan which hit back on 9 September 2004. This was reported as damaging or destroying something like 90 percent of houses on Grenada, but not touching the other two islands of this country, Carriacou, and Petit Martinique, and having little to no effect on the underwater environment. I wanted to check this out.

What we found on arrival was indeed many houses missing roofs, some hotels not open, the spectacular forests partly flattened but all in stages of recovery. The hotels and tourist businesses were recovering often using the decimation as an opportunity to upgrade the accommodation and facilities. Private houses were having more problems as much of the international relief funding promised had dried up and moved to the SE Asia tsunami appeals. I guess this is one of the problems with disaster relief, it's political and volatile.

Forests

The forests were very green, but with trees down and under foliage taking advantage of new found light it was fast growing vines producing the green. Many locally were very concerned about this new under growth preventing trees from recovering, but it looked like damaged trees were beginning to send out new shoots. It will take time for the trees to regrow, but maybe take this as an opportunity to have much better views than before as some of the locals were doing. One man said he had never before been able to see the sea from his house, now he could. The middle of the island is mountainous, over 2700 feet, still with splendid walks, lakes, rivers, waterfalls.

We were travelling partly independently and partly with a personal package organised by Sportif International and the Grenada Tourist Board. For our first week we stayed at the mid market Grand View Inn on a hill overlooking the Grand Anse Beach. We used this week by renting a car to tour the island along with diving with two dive businesses.

Going Diving

The first, ScubaTech is a small organisation operating out of the grounds of the luxury Calabash Hotel on Prickly Bay. They have a very helpful and personal approach which included taking me out with a rebreather for one day (they can offer nitrox and rebreather courses, either semi-closed or closed circuit), and are also into marine biology with plans to setup courses and diving with the University Biology Department. They organise diving taking into account the experience and interests of their visitors. The British owners, Rob and Katie Bryant, know the area well as Rob worked there for some time meeting Katie who came over as a visiting diver, one of those holiday romance stories. Rob is BSAC along with TDI trained. Their setup made diving easy with the boat collecting from the private hotel dock next to the shop and private beach.

The second dive shop was DiveGrenada, again run by ex-Brits, which operates out of the Flamboyant Hotel right on the Grand Anse Beach with pick up from the beach. When we were there the hotel was still in reconstruction but the diving was back. With their location they have a lot of the visiting cruise ship passengers and at times can't be as personal when this is happening, but still proved very friendly and helpful. I only did one dive with them (lack of time on my part) and the entry through the surf was a challenge, but outside of about a 6 week window from mid January to the end of February the surf is supposedly no problem with flat seas.

Our second week we moved hotel to luxury at the True Blue Bay Resort with a few days diving with Aquanauts Grenada operating from the hotel pier. This is a much larger outfit, a BSAC Resort, PADI Gold Palm Resort and SDI and TDI training facility, with a number of boats and more divers. They can't offer the same individual approach but make up with maybe a bit more luxury. The rooms here had kitchen facilities so snakes or meals could supplement eating out and the views were stunning.


Island of Carriacou

During this second week we also took a trip over to Carriacou by ferry to do a dive in the afternoon and a second dive the next morning at Carriacou Silver Diving Ltd while spending the night at Ade's Dream Guesthouse and Hotel. Grenada is relaxed, Carriacou is laid back relaxed. The island is much less developed, the diving is scenic without wrecks and gave us a couple of very good drift dives.

What to Choose

So what dive business to choose if you visit? They were all good, they all offered good hire kit, all operated with safety a high priority, in Grenada they will dive mostly the same numerous sites, they can all arrange accommodation either at their associated hotels or others. Really it comes down to a choice of size, take your pick. Carriacou advertises itself as having better reefs and clearer water, but I would put both islands in a category of very good on both accounts and make my choice on the non-diving options. All the diving is boat based but trip lengths are short.

On Grenada itself it felt almost strange wondering around, it simply felt safe and incredibly friendly. We wondered into situations and places that here in the UK it would be a bit on the dodgy side but not there, very unlike some of the rest of the Caribbean. Nor is the island as commercially touristy as some. We went down to the main taxi/bus terminal at night listening to reggae, eating barbecued chicken for a dollar, a beer for another dollar. Out and about to little shakes serving food we would end up in easy conversations. Visiting the tourist sites up in the north or along the beaches on the west coast no hassles, just friendly. Oh, and their are 45+ separate beaches from small and isolated to miles long popular ones. Driving was disconcerting at first with frequent quick little "Beep Beeps" of horns which was explained latter with "how else do you say Hello to someone when you're driving". The southern end of Grenada is the well-to-do area with most of the luxury hotels (and dive businesses), better roads, and more visitors. Further north, both inland and coastal, hotels are less plentiful but very worth visiting even if you only do it as day trips.

Our diving was primarily around the south with coral reefs in fairly good condition, plenty of brain, star, stony, plate, gorgonians and soft corals. No BIG walls and drop-offs that we saw, none of that 500 m to the seabed sort of wall. You might have to put up with walls of only 10m heights, but lots of areas to explore with extensive coral gardens. A little latter in the season than we were there would be better chances of longer boat trips further north and on the Atlantic side for even more variety. As I said, we went after hurricane Ivan and wondered how much damage might have been done. Katie, from Scuba Tech, said they went out to survey for damage the week following Ivan only to find virtually none had occurred, so they started some baseline surveys to document the normal marine life instead. They plan to extend these survey efforts to involve interested visiting divers and similar efforts are underway on Carriacou.

We didn't see any sharks though grey reef sharks and rays are often be seen in some locations (supposedly many, at times, on shark reef and other spots hiding under overhangs) sadly just not our trip. We did see lots of reef fish, dense shoals of fish on some of the wrecks and lots of macro life, but not any really really big fish. The wrecks were in good condition, fun, interesting but not of world class (whatever that means) except the Bianca C, a 220 metre, 18,000 tonne passenger liner which is rated as one of the best wreck dives in the world. Two of the wrecks I enjoyed were the Veronica in only 15m which has a crane with it's boom still intact hanging over the side and the Rum Runner at 36m, a catamaran, which is just different. Really, all the wrecks we dove were good, none were just piles of scrap plates on the seabed and the visibility meant they could be seen. A few of the wrecks were purposely sunk while others are "natural" ones. The diving can cater for all levels of experience, Jenny had only done a few dives before going and was well catered for, the more experienced will also have good dives and some can offer a challenge. With the smaller operations diver numbers were countable on fingers, with Aquanauts you might be on a boat with 20 others but at none of the sites did we even see another dive boat. It wasn't diving in crowds.


Year Round Diving

The diving season is year round. The main tourist season (December to May) is when much of the northern hemisphere is still cold and it's warm here. As other locations warm up greater competition for tourists reduces the numbers here, but it sounds like the summer here is ideal without being oppressively hot or humid. Divers evidently have tended to go during this main season so missing out on the calmest weather (June to September) when it's much easier to dive both the Atlantic and Caribbean sides of the island. The winds come in mainly from the east and Atlantic swells can make the Atlantic side less diveable during this main season, which is what we experienced so we missed the Bianca C. There is always somewhere to go diving here, even in November which is the most problematic month. All this about hurricanes, normally Grenada never sees them, "it's outside the hurricane belt" and last year's Ivan was a once in a quarter century occurrence.

How would I compare this to the Red Sea? A little more expensive but much more personal, much less crowded. Much more to do besides the diving if you have non-diving partners; many good beaches, restaurants, walks, watersports, golf, fishing, and a good range of accommodation from basic to top luxury (but no camping).

Air Temperatures: 25 to 30C, water temperature 24-28°C. Thin wetsuit or shortie territory with a sun hat year round.

ScubaTech
Aquanauts
Dive Grenada
Carriacou Silver Diving Ltd.
Grenada Board of Tourism

Charles Stirling BSAC Advanced Diver. csphoto@ecoeco.co.uk


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