Welcome to our dive blog. This separate series from our Plastic in the Pacific Crusade blog will focus on diving destinations we visit as we travel through the South Pacific islands, however this one is based in Grenada as part of our delivery towards our Pacific Crusade.
Grenada is one of the southern islands in the Caribbean chain and is volcanic based. We were passing through on our way to the Pacific for our Plastic in the Pacific Crusade and had a chance to dive Molinere Marine Park which is located on the western side of the main island of Grenada. We had wanted to dive some of the famous wrecks around the island including the 600ft Bianca C however heavy rains had effected visibility making it not worth it in the opinion of locals. After all you don’t want to go down to 30m on a 600ft dive wreck and have 10m visibility.
New regulations mean that in order to dive in the marine park you have to dive with local guides, however we managed to get permission to do it ourselves based on our campaign. We had anchored off the southern end of the marine park the night prior and couldn’t see the bottom in 6m of water. This was due to the run off from the recent rains and being located near a river outlet, we just hoped with no rain overnight, that the visibility would be OK the next day.
The sun was shining the following morning and we could see the bottom which was a good sign. We wanted to get a dive in before all the tourist boats came and stirred up the area so by 0830 we were in the water. We had driven the tender around and tied it to a mooring and dived down straight onto the bed of statues lying flat on the bottom like they were dead. It is a bit eerie to see this and not what I would call art. It was simply statues lying in scattered positions. We made our way towards where the circle of children is and spent plenty of time circling the statues with Annika taking lots of close up shots. The coral is slowly starting to take over and some look they are evil villains whilst others look like they are angels. It is quite unique to see. Unfortunately in one section the support has broken and several are lying back. My immediate thought was ‘why haven’t they fixed this?’ Visibility was OK, not brilliant, but not bad. There was plenty of particles floating in the water making photography quite difficult, especially for close ups, but is was still an interesting dive.
The best part about the dive is that without a guide, it became a treasure hunt. We had no real idea where the statues were so you would swim along crevasses and all of a sudden there would be the next statue. One set up was a table with a wine glass and bottle on it, another was a mermaid reaching for the sky with what looked like nuts in her hand. My favorite was definitely what they call the ‘lost correspondent’, a man sitting at a desk with an old typewriter. Being quite a shallow dive, no more than 15m, we actually got 70 minutes underwater which was a new record for me. You have to realise that I am 6’4 and whilst I have plenty of dives under my belt, I have never been an instructor and when you dive irregularly you don’t get the practice like someone like Annika who is a natural underwater and forgets to breathe half the time, well that’s what I think she does.
We went back to our yacht to refill our tanks and to have a bite to eat before our next dives. Our second dive of the day we actually went a few bays further on to Flamingo Bay which is regarded as the best reef dive in Grenada. It is usually a drift dive but as we were on our own in the tender, we had to return. It is a wall dive and you literally follow the wall out to sea. We dropped in at 15m and the deepest we saw was 19m. The reef was alive and the amount of Gorgonian Fans was out of this world. There were all different types of corals including brains, whip and other fans due to the currents. Fish life was amazing with a huge tuna swimming past quickly, several other bigger brim and snapper, however it was the lobsters that got our attention. Unfortunately we couldn’t get any good photos as they were all tucked away, but there were some good meals down there!!!
After 60 minutes we returned to our tender, ducked back to the yacht to change batteries and then hit the underwater sculpture park for a second dive. Our mission was to find the Christ statue as we had missed it first time around. We asked a local dive guy where it was and also where the bicycle rider was that we had read about but apparently it had broken and been removed. We headed off and found our Christ statue and found a few other awesome creatures that put on a show for us. The Octopus was of good size and a spotted moray swam on for ages trying to find a hole for the night.
After another long dive, we had taken what we could to capture the dive for you and returned to the yacht to process the footage. It had been a great days diving and if you are heading to Grenada, it is certainly worth the price to see it. Don’t go in wet season though as the visibility is definitely effected by the rain wash off from the island. Best to visit after Christmas through to March for the best visibility.
There is only one locally owned and operated dive company and that is the guy who gave us the advice on the wrecks and where the Christ statue is. It is called Native Spirit Scuba. Support the locals and go with these guys if you can.
Ocean Crusaders diving adventures are sponsored by Cressi and LED Dive Lights Australia. Without their amazing support we wouldn’t be able to capture the footage required for our online education program to educate youth of the issues our oceans are facing with regards to plastic pollution. Visit www.OceanCrusaders.org for more details on our crusades and to find additional photos from our diving adventures. To find our other dive blogs, in the footer, look up Diving Blogs under ‘Categories’. And don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list to ensure you get notified when a new blog goes up. The subscription form is in the right hand column.
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