The green edge

By Tom Morrisey

updated 4:41 p.m. ET March 20, 2007

When you drill down to the core, it’s the natural things that emerge as the true essentials for a great dive trip: breathe-easy blue skies, make-the-first-track beaches, palm trees, rain forests, reptiles in the crosswalks and — of course — vibrant and teeming marine life and dramatic dive sites. Give me a rain forest, a waterfall, and a coral reef hazed over with blue chromis, and I am one satisfied customer. More and more, when I pack my gear bag, that’s what I go looking for — a natural high with a low latitude.

You say you’re the same way? Well, good news: Five of these natural paragons are right in North America’s big blue backyard — the Caribbean. That means they are easily reachable and they’re eminently affordable.

So what are you waiting for? Book your trip. And pack light … you’re gonna need some extra room for all the memories.

Country Cousin
Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
We all have a fondness in our hearts for the country cousin: that simple, straightforward, all-natural soul. And in the skinniest latitudes of the Caribbean, Tobago is that country cousin.

Tobago is the quieter, more natural, laid-back counterpart of cosmopolitan Trinidad. In Trinidad, you drift off to sleep with the sound of dance music lilting in the distance. In Tobago, that music is apt to be replaced by tree frogs, night birds and the hypnotic rustle of leaves.

Moreover, Tobago — farther than Trinidad from the seasonal outflow of Venezuela’s Orinoco River — has what is universally agreed to be the country’s best year-round diving.

One perennial favorite site goes by the less-than-stellar name of “Goat Island Dream.” Part of the draw here is topside — the dive begins next to Goat, a private island, and immediately behind the simple three-level house where Ian Fleming created the James Bond series of novels. Here, after searching in vain for Dr. No and Goldfinger, you can enjoy a reef at 70 feet that is home to nurse sharks, lobsters and — if you can see past their disguises — sea horses, plus a full cast of Caribbean reef fish.

Ty Sawyer The beach at Pidgeon Point, Tobago

For parties with a mix of divers and snorkelers, Goat Island is great in that one of Tobago’s best snorkeling spots, Angel Reef, is right next door to this dive. Angel is where Fleming would snorkel for an hour every morning before taking his breakfast on a loggia overlooking the sea. And this reef is also home to one of the world’s largest brain corals — a whopper some 16 feet in diameter.

Of course, there are dives in Tobago where nature — not superspies — is the primary draw. One of our favorites is Bookends, named after a pair of islet rocks with a gap between them. Part of the attraction of this dive is watching the waves crashing against the rocks from underneath and wondering how the barracuda and tarpon can hang nearly motionless amid all that turmoil. And part of it is a reef that extends down to about 115 feet. Every green-edged island has to have at least one site that you can dive without using a boat, and Tobago has a couple of beach dives: Arnos Vale Bay, adjacent to the plantation where Princess Margaret honeymooned, is hands-down the best. Barracuda, lobster and octopus abound here, and the topography is varied enough that you can easily split the bay into a pair of one-tank dives.

Currents can be variable around Tobago, though, so it’s best to start a trip here with a PADI operator familiar with conditions. And be sure to budget enough time to explore this beautiful, green place. This is one country cousin with lots of charm.

Spice it Up
Grenada
You may remember Grenada’s three “Spice Islands” of Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique from junior-high geography. Spices were, after all, what put Christopher Columbus on the boat. Perfect for the cultivation of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and cocoa, the islands of Grenada became one of two reasons (gold being the other) that the Old World was so happy to learn about the New World, even though the latter’s geographic location really screwed up the whole Lisbon-to-India thing.

And if you are a diver, you know — even though tourism has long since passed nutmeg as Grenada’s principal source of revenue — that this is still one rockingly laid-back and natural place in which to spend time both under and above the water.

A literally large part of that has to do with the Bianca C — a.k.a. “The Titanic of the Caribbean” — a great big, honking, 600-foot cruise ship that caught fire while at anchor off St. George’s in 1961 and subsequently deep-sixed herself while the Royal Navy was trying to tow her to shallows on the far side of Point Saline. It was actually the second time that the liner had sunk; the first, during World War II, took place when retreating German forces scuttled the then two-month-old ship. She was raised, refitted and returned to service. But after she settled to a 167-foot bottom in Grenadian waters, only her bronze propellers were salvaged. The rest of the ship stayed where it was, instantly becoming the best deepwater wreck in the Caribbean — 90 feet just to touch her, and 120 if you want to swim a lap in her top-deck pool, which local dive masters enthusiastically describe as “still full of water after 45 years.”

We’ll give you a second to think about that....

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