Barbados, 11th-19th Feb 2002

In late January 2002 a holiday offer dropped on the doormat from BA. One of the locations was 7 nights in Barbados for only £680 per person, with an all-inclusive hotel package, which seemed pretty good. So by 10am that day I'd booked us a holiday there, and naturally the possibility of doing some diving there soon came up. We stayed at Sam Lord's Castle, which was built by pirate Sam Lord in 1820, and now a largish hotel. It was OK, although the food was not that wonderful and it was a long way from Bridgetown. Still you could get a local bus for $1.50 BDS per person (about 50p), which is an experience you must do if in Barbados. The bus drivers are all mad and drive at ridiculous speeds, plus the bus is normally full until people are hanging out the doors. Oh and they all have massive sound systems blasting out reggae for the journey. The hotel had 3 pools, 3 restaurants and the rooms all had air conditioning and a TV showing mostly US programs, not that I watched any.

Based on Jason's report I contacted the Dive Shop Ltd, owned by Haroon Degia. Haroon's father had emigrated from India to Barbados in 1953 and set up a dive outfit there, and when he died in 1992 Haroon inherited the business. The Dive Shop is located at Pebbles Beach, just outside Bridgetown in Carlisle Bay, and the dive boats are launched from the beach. This means wading out with your kit which is quite easy when it is calm, although a little more interesting if there is a big swell. Getting into the water was usually a backward roll, and getting out meant taking weightbelts off and then dekitting in water, a bit like RIB diving, and not a problem.

I'd not pre-booked any diving, merely phoned Haroon when I arrived in Barbados and asked to be collected the next day from the hotel on the south-east side of the island. The Dive Shop runs a shuttle bus to pick you up in the morning, and charged $5 to pick up and collect from the hotel, about 45 mins drive away, so well worth it (a 1-way taxi fare for the same journey would probably be $60 BDS or more). On arrival you have to fill in the usual disclaimers and then get kit ready for the boat. I'd brought my own, but the shop rents all the kit you need, and appeared to have good quality BC's and regs for hire.

The first dive was to be the Stavronikita, a 365ft Greek cargo vessel that caught fire in 1976 whle carrying a cargo of cement. It was brought into Bridgetown harbour where it remained for a couple of years until the island decided to sink it as an artificial reef. A team of demolition experts from the US Navy were brought in, and explosives were set off in the bows and stern. The stern charges went off first, and the ship settled upright in 40m, somewhat deeper than intended, with the top of the deck in about 20m and the top of the forward mast reaching 8m, from which a permanent buoy resides, making an excellent deco stop.

As it is a deeper dive, novices are restricted to the deck, however we were able to go with Klaus the divemaster down to the prop at the stern. The normal practise is to descend to about 6m and swim at this level until over the stern, then descend, to avoid wasting valuable bottom time. The stern is normally the point to start the dive as it is the deepest point - I logged about 38.5m next to the prop. From there you swim up the port side of the hull, and into the ship through one of the holes created by the explosives. Then through a doorway into the aft hold area where the huge propshaft can be seen. Moving up and forward through passageways, up stairways and through other doors etc. we finally made our way up to deck level and to the bows. With only a single aluminium 80 tank and not wishing to clock up deco, time to explore was of course short and we were up onto the deck at about 20-25mins and then did stops at 9m and 6m for 3 mins each. The viz was about 20m which Gabi, the other divemaster, thought was bad because of recent storms, but I thought was pretty good - you could see the wreck from the surface.

In the afternoon we dived Friar's Craig, a 170 foot freighter sunk in 1985 off Asta's Reef. A storm broke the ship up into 3 pieces, and the wreck is well broken although the engines are recognisable as is what appears to be a crane midships and the prop at the stern. We then drifted in the current along Asta's Reef which had some pretty soft corals, although the fish life was not as prolific as in e.g. Bonaire.

The second day's diving we did 'The Boot' a fairly uneventful reef, and Friar's Craig / Asta's Reef again. Then on the third day, a Canadian guy called Dave Buchanan and I wanted to do the Stav again, fortunately we were able to do it on our own, so wefollowed the path of the previous day and entered the wreck through a hole near the bottom of the stern, and worked our way forwards and up again. I took a few dead ends and one or two tight passages, finally ending up in the bows where an exit hole was too small for us to get out through, so we had to retrace our steps to the forward hold and exit there. Another great dive, 38.5m max / 36 mins and I managed to come out with 70 bar still, although Dave headed off from the deck a few minutes earlier as he was getting low on gas. I really enjoyed diving the Stav, you could explore the interior over several dives and still not get bored with it (at least if you love diving wrecks, that is!).

In total I did 6 dives costing $200 which did not seem unreasonable. I was pleasantly surprised by the diving in Barbados, I had never thought of it as a diving destination, but the diving was relaxed and suitable for novices to more advanced divers, and the wrecks should keep British wrekkies happy.

(c) Keith S. 2002