Bianca C - Diving in Grenada with ScubaTech Dive Center
The Titanic of the Caribbean
Otherwise known as the “Titanic of the Caribbean”, this 600 foot 22000 ton cruise liner, sank in 1961. An explosion in the engine room (which killed the only two casualties of the sinking) led to a fire which spread throughout the ship and which burned so fiercely that the hull glowed red and the sea boiled! All passengers and crew were evacuated and taken to safety by a flotilla of small craft and looked after by the local people. A thank you for their bravery and generosity is still evident today in the statue of Christ with his arms outstretched to heaven situated on the Carenage in St. George’s. The ship sank while under tow by a British naval vessel. She broke her tow line and instead of ending up beached on Point Salines (as was planned), her rudder seized full to starboard, she veered off out to sea. Before they could reestablish a line to her, she sank.
She now lies in 50m of water at the base of Whibbles Reef. The Grenadian Government (at the time of writing) has asked that she is not left permanently buoyed. This means the most usual method of diving her is a free descent through the blue to her decks at an average depth of 33m. The bottom of the swimming pool is at 38m and the tip of her bow is at 30m. A drift along her length between the two in the prevailing gentle (usually) current takes you past many points of interest. The collapsed funnel still sporting a large letter C indicating the “Costa” line. Some of the lifeboat davits make useful landmarks on your way to the bridge. The bridge has now been completely flattened but the view across the fore deck reveals broken stairs, winding winches, fallen spars covered in soft coral and the remains of the forward mast still standing upright. Shoals of small fish, which in turn are surrounded by numbers of larger fish, surround this mast. The top of the food chain is most usually a large barracuda or two, although Black Tip sharks and Bull sharks have been spotted.
Forward from here takes you to the tip of the bow and the chance to hang at 30m and look down the hull to 50m and marvel at the sheer size and realize why she earns the title “Titanic of the Caribbean”. Because of her depth a dive on air gives a bottom time of 14 minutes for a no stop dive. Making the short swim to Wibbles reef to enjoy the plentiful coral and fish life that abounds normally extends the total dive time. Another method to extend your time not just underwater but on the wreck, without having to make decompression stops, (and without fitting half a dozen metal D rings to your BCD), or making any changes to your normal diving equipment, is to dive with enriched air nitrox. If I am preaching to the converted then all you need to know is that we have the facilities to blend the full range of nitrox mixes. If this seems dangerous “tecky speak”, I can assure you that the PRONRC NITROX course allows you to understand what breathing a slightly different mix of gas offers every diver, not just those wanting to push the boundaries.
