7 Caribbean classics

By Tom Morrisey

updated 8:16 p.m. ET March 13, 2007

I was sipping on a Mudslide in Grand Cayman about a month ago, watching the sun slide toward the horizon with a couple of divers from England. We were comparing notes on our trips in, and when the subject turned to flights, I mentioned that my total airtime, Florida to Grand Cayman, was well under an hour and 45 minutes.

That got me agape. We started talking about other destinations in the Caribbean, and I rattled off flight times from major U.S. gateways: Dallas to Cozumel, two hours and 30 minutes; Miami to Trinidad, three hours and 40 minutes; Houston to Honduras, three hours. …

“That close?” one of my companions gasped. “And that brings you to this?” He waved an arm, taking in palm trees, blue water gleaming, dive boats riding at their moorings and happy divers emerging from their shore dives. I nodded.

“Man,” he sighed. “You blokes don’t know how good you’ve got it.”

I lifted a glass in a salute. Sure, maybe we’re spoiled on this side of the pond. Need a change in latitude? Just hop on a jet and you’re knee-deep in paradise in less time than it takes Paris Hilton to pick out a collar for her pooch. Better than that, you’ve got your choice of great places to go.

And what can I say? If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Here are seven of our favorites.

Hunting the Mermaid
Grand Cayman, The Cayman Islands
Our boat is moored at North West Point Drop-Off, off the northwest tip of Grand Cayman. We splash in, follow the mooring line down in steady but manageable current and discover an amazingly healthy and thriving reef crowning a wall that drops down into blue-shadowed infinity. Kicking lazily into blue water, we plummet down to 100 feet of depth and begin working our way up past sea fans the size of card tables and brain corals that look as if they are awaiting transplant into the Jolly Green Giant.

We are diving with better than 100 feet of visibility. Rock beauties, black triggerfish, platoons of sergeant majors and clouds of blue chromis all add their own animation to the vertical seascape. When we shine a dive light into a nook or a cranny, squirrelfish and lobsters stare back at us. And when we arrive back at the reef atop the drop-off, we are greeted by parrotfish industriously converting coral to sand, and cruising green sea turtles. Later this same day, after the dive boat has dropped me off and I’ve had my daily bacon cheeseburger and Diet Coke at My Bar, a couple from San Diego approaches me with a request.

“We’ve been out on Sunset Reef a couple of times,” the husband says, waving a hand in the direction of Sunset House’s front-yard shore dive. “And it’s been great but we, uh … we can’t find the mermaid. Can you tell us how to get there?”

He’s referring, of course, to Amphitrite, the 9-foot-tall bronze mermaid sculpture that stands in 50 feet of water at the edge of the reef. I check the dive computer on my wrist.

“I’ve offgassed enough to make another dive,” I tell him. “Why don’t I just take you out there?”

Ten minutes later, we’re giant-striding into the entry basin and exchanging OKs. Swimming slowly and comfortably, I lead my new friends over parallel ridges of tongue-and-groove reef and into a series of coral-choked canyons and ravines. We crest a ridge and there’s our mermaid, hands out as if dancing to the music of the deep.

As we go, I can’t help but reflect that, between dives such as North West Point Drop-Off, Trinity Caves and the deep wall dives of the East End, and engrossing shore dives such as this one, Grand Cayman not only has something for both experienced and newer divers—it’s a place where the only limits on your time in water are your surface intervals and the need for sleep and meals. It’s little wonder that most of the traveling divers I know have lots of Cayman Islands stamps in their passports. This is one of those islands that’s a staple.

Two if by Sea
Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
“Bonaire rocks.”

Wait. Let me re-phrase that.

“Bonaire. Rocks.”

That seems to be the prevailing wisdom when people talk about diving Bonaire; rent a car (or a truck), load up the back with scuba tanks and dive gear, drive until you find a yellow rock marking a shore dive, and jump in.

I’ve built some great memories that way. One day, while shore-diving on Karpata, I came upon a moray eel and a Nassau grouper hunting together. Presumably the moray was entitled to anything that tried to escape into the nooks and crannies, while the grouper had first dibs on anything that bolted for the blue. But apparently the grouper didn’t like the way the arrangement was working, because halfway down the slope, he darted in and … ate the moray. Or at least he tried to. The two were still tumbling along, half the eel in the grouper’s mouth, when they disappeared into the depths.

Great stuff. But while it’s true that ample shore diving is the icing on the cake when it comes to diving Bonaire, it helps to remember to eat a little cake while you’re at it, as well. And on Bonaire, “cake” comes in a dive boat.

“My personal recommendation,” says Bruce Bowker, “is to divide your time up between the two.”

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Bowker, who came to Bonaire in 1973 to work for Capt. Don Stewart with the old Aquaventures dive operation at the Hotel Bonaire, was the first full-time instructor on this Dutch Antilles island. A pioneer who found and named many of today’s dive sites, Bowker started his own resort — the well-known Carib Inn — in 1980, and today is as much a fixture on the island as the iguanas and the flamingos. He notes that some of Bonaire’s sites, including Rappel (which Bowker once reached by roping down a cliff) are only practically accessible by boat.

“Then there’s Klein Bonaire,” Bowker adds. “I’d say that about half of the charters that leave our dock are headed for sites on or around Klein Bonaire.”

Klein Bonaire, the smaller sister of Bonaire, is part of the Bonaire Marine Park and is a sea turtle nesting area. Turtles are often seen on dive sites around it – none of which are reachable by rental car.

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But even on the main island, there are still advantages to be had in boat diving.

“For a couple or a pair of friends visiting Bonaire, diving by boat compares very favorably to the cost of renting a car or truck, and for that, you get local-expert insight on how to dive the site,” notes Bowker.

He notes, for instance, that the wreck of the Hilma Hooker (a drug-running freighter that sank at its moorings back in 1984 while the courts deliberated its fate) sits in 100 feet of water, often leading to divers going lower than they’d intended on the wreck.

“Because of the depth, we only dive the Hilma Hooker with our boats in the morning,” he notes. “And we also advise people on how to safely navigate the wreck. This is not an artificial reef project that was cleaned and ‘safed’ before sinking. We advise people on what not to miss and what to steer clear of, so they can avoid entanglement hazards.”

Then again, there are some Bonaire classics that preclude the use of a boat. Town Pier, often described as the world’s most famous 15-foot dive, has to be dived with the harbormaster’s permission and in the company of a divemaster, and rewards the patient with diminutive frogfishes, seahorses and a host of other macro-size sealife.

“Carib Inn gets a lot of return business, and many of our repeat visitors like to visit sites by boat first each season, to see what’s new and what’s changed,” Bowker says. “Then they rent a car and come back to take a second look at their favorites, at their leisure. That’s a uniquely Bonairean experience, and one that really helps you to enjoy the character of our diving.”

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