Barracuda Point, Carriacou is a premier dive site off the coast of the Grenadine island of Carriacou, one of the last tropical paradises on the planet. The diving sites around these crystal-clear, turquoise waters offer the most thrilling scuba diving opportunities in the world.
Scuba diving is an art and a science that, once mastered, allows you access to other worlds beneath the sea. To that extent, it’s a bit like training to become an astronaut, but rather more accessible. And the strange worlds you’ll discover down there are richer and more rewarding than anything you’d encounter on Mars. Underwater forests of twisted coral and an abundance of exotic, gorgeously-coloured and often downright grotesque aquatic life is waiting for you once you’ve learned the basics of scuba diving.
There are 20 prime diving sites off the island, most of them around the southern half, and all of them are accessible by boat from the beaches in less than 20 minutes. Most places, you have to schedule in a whole day for getting out to a diving site and back again, but one of the attractions of Carriacou for divers is that they can combine the diving with other activities.
There are the National Parks to explore, the Botanical Gardens in Hillsborough with their fabulous fauna and a load of other distractions. Diving enthusiasts bringing their families along can spend part of the day with them and the rest on their hobby, instead of feeling like a self-indulgent absentee parent storing up trouble for a backlash after returning home.
The diving sites are graded in terms of proficiency, with some more suitable for beginners and others more of a challenge for experienced divers. The beginners’ sites just tend to have more stable currents and be less deep, but they give access to an equally rich fauna and flora so there’s no sense of missing out on anything.
Barracuda Point is listed as suitable for experienced divers only, because of the fairly strong currents. The site is located off Sister Rocks, two rocks protruding from the Caribbean that create the currents, like the monster Charybdis in Homer sucking water in and out three times daily. It’s difficult not to draw comparisons with legendary landscapes and characters in this magical part of the world that’s so different from the humdrum daily life we’re used to.
At Barracuda Point, Carriacou the dive begins at 9 metres and continues to 23 metres, so it’s pretty deep. This dive is good for drift diving – allowing yourself to go with the currents and feel you’re flying through the water as you would in a glider through the air, getting about as close to a fish’s experience as it’s possible to get.
One of the two rocks, the Little Sister, affords opportunities for wall diving, i.e. diving along an underwater cliff face, obviously not suitable for beginners.
Amongst the wildlife you can see and photograph down here at Barracuda Point, Carriacou are nurse sharks, giant moray eels, turtles and of course barracudas, in their natural and exotic rock garden habitat.
But don’t worry, the sharks and barracudas aren’t about to tear you apart. The main things to beware of will be trying to catch anything or trampling the reef.
Happy diving!
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