Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine April 2017 | Page 233

Grenada
The ultimate wreck diving
destination
of the Caribbean
by Eveline Verdier, ScubaTech Grenada
G
renada offers some diving “out of this
world” with a huge variety of dive
sites for recreational divers, such as
sheltered and shallow coral gardens
with thrilling drift and wreck dives in the range of
8 to 40m. However, there is one dive in particular
that has been attracting many technical divers –
the “Bianca C”, the Titanic of the Caribbean.
Wreck diving is a big attraction for many divers. To
discover the history of the vessel, her adventures
and her end, often by mishap, is very fascinating.
They become artificial reefs and new homes for all
sort of marine life and attract also those divers who
like the mystery and exploration of shipwrecks.
The “Bianca C”, otherwise known as the “Titanic of
the Caribbean”, was a 600 foot, 22,000 ton cruise
liner owned by the Italian Costa Line which sank
in 1961 off the coast of Grenada. An explosion in
the engine room, which took two lives (the only
casualties of the sinking), led to a fire which spread
throughout the Bianca C and which burned
so fiercely that the hull glowed red and the sea
around the cruise ship 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 the
Christ of the Deep with his arms outstretched to
heaven situated on the Carenage in St. George’s.
The statue was donated to the people of Grenada
by the Costa Line, the owners of Bianca C.
Are you a shipwreck-lover or
a reef-specialist? Grenada
offers you both,
great shipwrecks and
beautiful coral reefs.