Grenada Trip Report May 2005

[Allan Carr]

With the tragedy of the Boxing Day tsunami, the disaster which befell poor little Grenada (pop. 98,000) as the result of Hurricane Ivan last September tends to have been forgotten. However, the impact on the island was dramatic – 90% of buildings were damaged and 50% of the population was made homeless. Around $900M worth of damage was done. In spite of this, the island is slowly recovering although it will be several years before it is back to its pre-Ivan state.

The good news from a diver’s point of view is that the underwater environment is virtually undamaged apart from some of the shallower large fan corals.

Having enjoyed ourselves so much in Grenada last year, my wife and I decided to spend our tourist dollar there again so that at least we could put something back into the local economy.

The Diving Operators

There were 5 main operators on Grenada, two of whom (La Source and Rex Granadian) were attached to big hotels. Both were almost completely destroyed by Ivan and whilst Rex Grenadian is due to open around Christmas 2005, there is no scheduled date yet for La Source.

This leaves 3 other operators:

EcoDive
Dive Grenada
Aquanauts

The latter is the biggest operator, American owned and with several bases around the island. The first two are run by the guys who own them. We dived with Ecodive, the same outfit that we dived with last year. It is run by a 57 yr old American, Marv Wolf with over thirty years experience in the business. He runs a very professional operation and is very safety conscious. Last year, he had 5 instructors and one DM, three of the instructors being both BSAC and PADI qualified although they only did PADI training. As the result of Ivan, Marv lost his dive shop and both boats overnight so is running the operation himself at present with sub-contract help from his previous staff when needed. Marv is very focussed on customer service and goes out of his way to make sure that you have a good time. He was especially helpful with my wife who is disabled with severe back problems –always cause a few raised eyebrows when she turns up at the dive operation walking with a crutch!

The Diving

Most of the diving in Grenada is the typical American style – 12l tanks and two tank trips. Only Aquanauts now do Nitrox – Ecodive used to but have stopped due to lack of demand because all the O2 is imported and hence very expensive. Since most of the diving is around the 20M mark, this wasn’t really a problem even though both my wife and I have single digit SAC in those conditions. Apart from a few deep dives such as the Bainca ‘C’, we weren’t limited in our dive times by decompression limits. In fact in 16 dives, we clocked up just over 16 hours underwater. There are no recompression facilities on Grenada and it is necessary to take an air ambulance to Barbados in the event of a DCS incident so make sure that your insurance is OK. All the operators tend to carry O2 on the boats.

Only once during our 8 days of diving did we have any other divers with us and the other two operators fared no better. Only on three of those days were either of the others out and they also only had a pair of divers with them.

Grenada has some fantastic reefs with a tremendous variation between reefs only a short distance apart. It’s a photographer’s paradise and we’ve got some great photos. This year we were only able to dive the SW corner of the island since with only two of us, the fuel costs for travelling further afield would have been prohibitive. Even so, there is plenty to see in this area and after 16 dives, there was still many areas left to explore.

For the rust addicts, there are some good wrecks, the prime target being the Bianca ‘C’, an Italian cruise liner which caught fire and sank in 1962. Ecodive normally drop down in the area of the swimming pool which is at 35M and work towards the bow at 27M before heading off to the nearby Wibbles Reef to slowly ascend and deco. The currents around the wreck are somewhat unpredictable and on the first dive we did on her, we had to drop down to 38M in the lee of the wreck in order to be able to swim against the current. Aquanauts had two divers out that day who missed the wreck because they were diving Nitrox 32 and couldn’t take this approach. The Bianca ‘C’ is a spectacular wreck with plenty of opportunities for easy penetration. You could spend a whole two weeks exploring her. Not surprisingly, none of the dive operators will take you down on her until they have checked you out on less demanding dives – regardless of qualifications. Marv refused to take an instructor down with us until he had assessed her – and then she decided against the dive.

Apart from the Bianca ‘C’, there is the Shakem, 32M to the bottom, a cement carrier which sank when her load shifted, Veronica ‘L’ in 20M and several other smaller wrecks. The wrecks are all well populated with barracuda and the odd nurse shark.

Why should you visit?

Grenada is probably not the destination you would choose for a purely diving holiday but it would be a waste to spend all your time underwater. The lush rainforest is well worth exploring and the round island day trip stops at both the Rum Distillery (138 degrees proof!) and the chocolate factory. The latter is run by an enthusiastic Rasta guy who makes the best chocolate that I have ever tasted – purely organic and made in a workshop (it’s too small to call it a factory) powered by solar power.

Many of the restaurants were destroyed by Ivan but are starting to re-open. The local lobster is very good and reasonably cheap. Don’t expect riotous nightlife – there isn’t any. There are excellent beaches for families with non-diving members.

The Grenadians are very friendly – if someone starts talking to you in the street, in most tourist destinations you would expect to be hustled for something but often they are just being polite and will end by saying thanks for visiting Grenada. Even the beach boys are friendly and will still chat pleasantly even if you have said that you are not interested in their wares.


Possibly the best time to go is in May because the hotels drop their rates for the summer and it is still in the dry season. Book yourself if you can rather than through a travel company because their rates do not reflect the reduction in hotel prices. Excel Airways do a charter flight at very good prices. We took their Excel One service which is business
class standard (45 inch seat pitch) at the same sort of price as BA and Virgin economy.

Grenada has had a really hard time but the people are very resilient. I can thoroughly recommend it for anyone wanting a relaxing holiday with some excellent diving thrown in.