Americans of a certain age may remember the tiny island nation of Grenada as the site of a short military invasion during the early Reagan years. Ethan Gordon thinks of Grenada as one of his favorite Caribbean diving venues. “You have a number of positive qualities at Grenada,” Ethan began. “Topside, there’s a lush, green island. The people of Grenada are extremely warm and outgoing. Below, you have something that’s truly unique for the Caribbean, in fact for the world—the Bianca C.”
Grenada lies just south of the Windward Islands, with the Caribbean Sea to the south and west and the Atlantic to the east. The nation consists of the main island of Grenada (where most of the population resides) and eight smaller islands. Forged by volcanic activity, Grenada is mountainous, with one peak (Mount St. Catherine) reaching more than 2,700 feet. A rainforest thrives in the shadows of St. Catherine; much of the rest of the island is cloaked in a variety of spice plants—nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves chief among them (Grenada is the world’s second-largest producer of nutmeg, with Indonesia being the primary exporter). “When you get off the plane, you’re struck by a terrific fragrance, the aroma of spices and flowers,” Ethan said. “Between the mountains, the jagged coast, and the secret waterfalls you can hike into, Grenada is exactly what you’d envision a tropical island to be. There’s a good infrastructure for visitors, in terms of hotels and other services. But all the hotels are locally owned; because there are no big flights that go in, there are no international chains. The character and charm of the island is intact.”
And then there’s the Bianca C—a 600-foot luxury cruise liner that rests upright at a depth of 165 feet near Whibble Reef, southwest of Grenada’s capital city of St. George’s. “The Bianca C is one of only a handful of luxury-liner wrecks in the world that can be reached by recreational divers,” Ethan continued. “Some divers don’t have the least bit of interest in wreck diving. To them, staring at a hunk of metal instead of a reef seems ridiculous. However, there’s something special about the Bianca C. Even people who don’t enjoy wrecks are drawn to it, and can dive it repeatedly.”
The Bianca C began life in France as the Maréchal Pétain. Shortly after her launch in the spring of 1944, she was sunk near Port Bouc by retreating German naval forces. She was resurrected after the war and refitted as a cruise ship, La Marseillaise, and made her maiden voyage to Japan in 1949. After a brief stint as the Arosa Sky in 1957, she was sold to an Italian shipping firm in 1959 and rechristened the Bianca C. After further retrofitting, she began running a route from Naples to Venezuela, which included a stop in Grenada. During one of these stops off St. George’s, on October 22, 1961, there was an explosion in the Bianca C’s boiler room, which led to a conflagration that’s said to have brought the water around the ship to a boil. Thanks to the rapid response of the crew and the selfless assistance of St. George’s residents, who swarmed to the ship in any vessel that would float to aid passengers, only two lives were lost. Soon the Bianca C was consumed by the sea a second—and final—time.
“Local dive shops like to call the Bianca C the ‘Titanic of the Caribbean,’” Ethan said, “and in terms of sheer scale, the comparison is not overblown. When you’re on the bottom at the front of the ship, the bow flares out at a height of six-and-a-half stories. The flared bow is reminiscent of the advertising posters the cruise lines used in the twenties and thirties. It’s awe-inspiring.” While the years are beginning to take their toll on the Bianca C (most of the central structure has imploded), much of its infrastructure remains intact, including the promenade decks and the foremast. Even one of the swimming pools on the deck is extant, allowing you to take a dip, as it were. One can’t begin to take in the immensity of the Bianca C in one dive; at least two or three dives are necessary to make your way around the wreck.
A number of corals and sponges have taken up residence on the remnants of the Bianca C, in turn attracting an abundance of marine life, including Atlantic spadefish, moray eels, reef sharks, large barracudas, and rays. “I have to say that the Bianca C is perhaps my great photographic nemeses,” Ethan confided. “Getting the shot I want, looking up at the flaring bow of the ship with a diver next to it for scale, has been hard to nail. The water can be a little murky at that depth, there’s a little current, the sun goes in and out, and the threat of narcosis gives you very limited time at that depth. Every time I visit, I try to get this shot; the challenge keeps motivating me to go back. Hopefully I will get it soon. After almost fifty years at the bottom, the superstructure of the Bianca C is starting to cave in.”
If the 100-plus-foot dive that a tour of the Bianca C entails is beyond your comfort level, Grenada offers a number of other wreck diving opportunities—twenty in total—in depths of as little as thirty feet. These include the freighter HEMA 1 at ninety feet; the “Quarter Wreck” at thirty feet, which consists of the rear portions of a freight vessel; and the San Juan, a seventy-foot fishing vessel, also at ninety feet. “The San Juan rests on the Atlantic side of the island, in the middle of a barren plain,” Ethan said. “Nurse sharks stack up around the boat like cord wood. I’ve seen them in there three or four sharks deep.”
ETHAN GORDON is a freelance photojournalist focusing on diving, fishing, and travel. His work has taken him from the cold waters off New England to the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Coral Sea, and the Caribbean. Ethan has photographed thousands of marine creatures from around the world; his topside photography makes his assignment work stand out. Ethan has been honored twice by Skin Diver magazine and Asian Diver, which included his images in their prestigious Photo Annual Collector’s Editions, and once by Sport Diver, which included one of his images in their first Photo Annual Collector’s Edition. His work has been published in National Geographic, Outside, Outdoor Life, and many other magazines. From May 2005 to February 2008, Ethan served as editor of Fathoms. A PADI master scuba diver trainer, he has nearly 2,800 dives under his belt, and since 1989 has taught scuba diving to hundreds of people and has received awards for his teaching. Ethan holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University.
Getting There: Grenada is served from the United States via Air Jamaica (800-523-5585; www.airjamaica.com) and American Airlines.
Best Time to Visit: Winter and spring see less rain; June and November tend to be the wettest months during the rainy season.
Accommodations: The Grenada Board of Tourism (473 440-2279; www.grenadagrenadines.com) highlights lodging options on the island of Grenada.
Dive Shops/Guides: There are many dive shops serving Grenada; Ethan has had excellent experiences with Aquanauts Grenada (800-513-5257; www.aquanautsgrenada.com).
If you wait long enough in the waters off Kona, something big—in this case, a humpback whale—will likely show up.
