CaribbeanGrenada

Grenada’s underwater sculpture garden is awesome and should be a must see

By September 4, 2018 No Comments
Me with the Underwater Sculpture

In 2006 Jason deCaires Taylor began placing underwater sculptures in Molinere Bay on the west coast of Grenada (just two miles north of St George). Thus, the British artist started making the first underwater sculpture garden. Since that time other local artist have added new sculptures.Underwater Sculpture - Lost Correspondent

This was a snorkel site I have been looking forward to seeing for years and so should you! When I first arrived this year, the water was a little murky and we had no real clue what we were looking for or where to exactly look. The first one we finally saw was Grace Reef, which was also Taylor’s first piece. It was a bit spooky as you swim up and see a dozen concrete bodies laying on the sandy bottom. Steve said if he did not know we were looking for sculpture it would have freaked him out (although I think it still did a little, haha). Since then I have been back two more times and found almost all of the underwater sculpture.

Underwater Sculpture - Grace ReefAll of the underwater sculpture sit on a sand bottom, between different rock outcroppings, in 10-30 feet of water. They are viewable with a snorkel from the surface. With that said, if you can free dive down a little bit or scuba dive then you will see them even better. Starting with Grace Reef (which was near the center of the bay two moorings from shore) I found everything in a rough circle going clockwise. They are:

Grace Reef –16 different ladies laying on the sand scattered around a small area

Small ring – not more than 15-20 feet away is a ring of 8 five-foot-tall statues

Underwater Sculpture - Christ of the AbyssVicissitudes – this is another ring of statues right next to the smaller one, but it is much bigger (25ish) and falling apart.

Unstill Life – swim a bit west (away from shore) and you will find a small table with a fruit bowl and pitcher. Although now the pitcher is broken and someone put a wine bottle into the base.

Nutmeg queen – heading to the right (north) over a rock you will see three pieces. The first one I could not figure out what it was (whoops), the second is a huge nutmeg, and the third is a lady on another huge nutmeg offering nutmegs to God.

Christ of the Abyss – continuing on you will find a statue similar to Christ of the Abyss in the Florida Keys and Italy.

Lost Correspondent – a little further you will find a guy working on a typewriter at a desk. Apparently before it got covered in coral you could read several newspapers on the desk.

Underwater Sculpture - FaceLady on bench with ring – The farthest one to the north is my favorite and is a lady on a bench taking a photo of another ring of people. The cool part is that someone has put real sunglasses on her and put an I-Phone in her hand.

Silent Cry – Now heading back to Grace Reef is what appears to be a face. I have read that it is supposed to be in a tree root with a face in it to represent the forest.

Sienna – This is a figure kneeling in prayer.

Mermaid – This is a mermaid laying on her hip and elbow and is about four feet long

Petroglyph alley – This is a small canyon with the sides covered in plaques of petroglyphs. Also, there is a statue of a monkey with a bowl on its head. This one is off the circle a bit but is just to the left (west) of the last three.

Two that I have not found yet, but seen pictures of are:

Fall from Grace – This is a guy on a bike and seems to be up against the rocks.

Tam CC Project – This is 16 college students’ heads fused into the crack of a rock.

You can reach Molinere Bay by joining a dive boat or taking your own boat directly there. What I ended up doing is taking the boat to Dragon Bay, one bay to the north. This is a fantastic little bay and is easy enough to either dinghy around to the sculpture garden or swim over there. Just as an FYI for you is that even though there is a nice sandy bottom you are not supposed to anchor here. Here is my little trick for you. There use to be three mooring on the south wall of the bay and the blocks and lines are still there. So, carefully drive just where the sand turns to reef and look for the huge concrete blocks under the water and have some swim down and grab the mooring line on the seafloor and hand it to the person on the bow.

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