Grenada Dive Fest – Our first taste of diving the Spice Island
After a stunning start to our Pure Grenada Dive Fest adventures on the smaller island of Carriacou, it was time for our first dives on the main island. And what a day we had planned – with 3 dives in the day and a night dive to look forward to.
We started the day meeting up with the team at ScubaTech who cater for both recreational and technical divers from their base at the Calabash Hotel. After a bit of discussion, we decided on a reef and a wreck for our two morning dives and headed out for a short boat ride to a site called Purple Rain. A great name for a dive site, that had us humming all the way round, especially when we saw how it got its name, as a huge school of Creole Wrasse descended on us.
Our second dive was on the Tyrrel Bay wreck, a recent addition to the huge fleet of wrecks that have made the diving here famous. It was sunk in 2018, and yet already had signs of life taking hold. The famous compass has a coral fringe and glass fish patrol the rooms within. The wreck lies just off the reef and so once we had explored the wreck fully, we made our way to the shallows along the reef, prolonging our dive time. In just a single morning set of dives, we had already seen why divers flock to the fabulous island.
The ScubaTech guys had dropped us off on the beach in front of Eco Dive Grenada and helped us with our gear, so we had time for a quick lunch from an eco-friendly vegan take away restuarant and we were ready for more diving. News of our love of frogfish had reached the team and so they took us out to a dive site where their resident photographer had found some the day before – Flamingo Bay. This is an easy going, shallow dive site with a mixture of reef and sandy seabed to explore. Sure enough, tucked under a sponge, there was well camouflaged frogfish for us to enjoy.
Our final dive of the day was to be a night dive on the wreck of the Veronica L. This was a dive we were really excited about, as we had heard it is covered in orange cup corals that open up in all their glory as the sun goes down. It exceeded expectations! While Christie modeled for Nick, I went in search of little critters and found tiny crabs covering the sponges, while octopus hunted them. We had to be dragged back to the surface!
After a truly wonderful day of diving the wrecks and reefs of Grenada, our perfect day was topped off by visiting the first craft ale brewery on the island, the West Indies Beer Company. Great beer, food & live music with friends made for a perfect end to our day.
Read more about our trip to Grenada in the new WINTER 2020 edition of Dive Travel Adventures magazine! You can find out where you can obtain your personal printed copy HERE or download a digital version for free, right HERE!
If you want to join in on all the fun at Pure Grenada Dive Fest 2020, save the date: 3rd – 9th October 2020. Watch out for more information coming soon here.
For more information on Grenada visit the Pure Grenada website by clicking here.
Dive Centres featured in this blog:
