Our People – Claire, PADI MSDT
Claire, a previous Eco Dive team member, joined us in 2012 and was one of the familiar faces for many of our guests and scuba diving students over the last two years. Now sporting the high heels and pressed shirt look (woohoo!) our guests may run into to Claire at an after work lime or posing as a guest on the odd day off. Always a happy face and a helping hand she has a knack for bringing manta rays out to play and joins the best of us in celebrating frogfish, seahorses, rays, and turtles… We are very happy to feature Claire today and send a shout out to her hubby who happens to be hanging with our past and future guests up north in the cold for a few weeks.
Dive Site – Shark Reef
Dive profile 25’/8m – 60’/18m
Located on the southern side of Grenada’s southwest corner Shark Reef, perhaps better known as baby shark reef, or at times sting ray reef – is a long east-west running section of sloping reef on the southern side of Glover’s island. A drift dive, Shark Reef is exposed to the Atlantic, and is therefore subject at times to strong currents which attract abundant pelagic life. Southern stingrays, juvenile and adult nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays and turtles ride the swift current or rest on the sea floor. Lobsters, crabs, sea stars, queen conch and other mollusks cling to coral mounds or ply the sand patches. Grouper, yellowtail snapper and other open-water fish hunt amongst streaming sea whips, sea rods, soft corals and schools of French Grunts. A lovely dive for adventure seeking Open Water divers, a nice second dive shallow profile for the advanced divers and a great place for underwater videography. A definite favourite of many of our divers!
Hawksbill Turtle seen resting on the southern edge of Shark Reef in the sand channel.
Feature Creature – the Southern Stingray (Dasyatis americana)
The Southern Stingray occurs in tropical and subtropical waters of the southern Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean. Most often seen buried in sand or hunting for crustaceans over sand patches they are often seen in Grenada floating over a reef between sand channels and are often being followed by bar jacks or yellopw tail snappers. Included here is a great little video on the Southern Stingray, its identification and life cycle.
Below is seen a picture taken by our lovely guests Massimo and Helen last spring and also below a short video of a huge adult Stingray cruising into the current on Shark Reef.
