Coral -- Colombian Style
Franklin Viola
Juan Valdez Meets the Deep Blue Caribbean in San Andres and Providencia
As I arrive on San Andres, the locals tell me that I am in luck. Winds here are generally steady out of the east, but a westerly wind has come up, creating a lee on the eastern side of the island. I will have a chance to see some dive sites that most visiting gringos never lay eyes on.
That's undoubtedly true. Then again, any San Andrés dive site is bound to be one that most dive-traveling gringos (or gringas for that matter) have never seen before. Talk to even the most travel-hardened groups of divers, even those with the extra pages sewn into their passports, and chances are that the only San Andrés they've ever heard of is a fault line that runs through California. Tell them there's another one, and that it is an island that's part of Colombia, and you're apt to get a reply like, "There's diving in Colombia?"
There is, and it's refreshingly pristine and still largely uncharted territory for those norteamericanos who associate Colombia with Juan Valdez (and Pablo Escobar), and remember it albeit vaguely as the place where Danny DeVito chased Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone. To most of us, when we think of it at all, Colombia is the go-to place for great coffee.But great coral? That's news.
MOUNTAINS AND SEA True, when you fly into Bogotá, Colombia's teeming capital and the gateway for most international travelers, you might get the idea that your travel agent is laughing her hind end off back home. The city of 7 million people
is high in the mountains, with dense forests all around, but no ocean as far as the eye can see. And modern city traffic is, indeed, dotted with the occasional burro laden with burlap sacks full of green coffee beans, and looking for all the world as if it is waiting for Juan to step into the scene.
Two hours in a commuter plane changes all that. San Andrés is actually much nearer to mainland Nicaragua in Central America than it is to mainland Colombia in South America, and it is comfortably and beautifully ensconced in the clear-blue western Caribbean, one of Colombia's two ocean fronts (the northeastern part of the country butts up against the Pacific). With a population of 60,000, the 8-mile-long island balances modern tropical hotels with strict laws regulating new development. Travel south of town, and you'll find few buildings other than the crumbling mansion that locals say once belonged to a drug cartel but that has long since been confiscated by the government. Though populated, much of the island is still beautifully natural.
BLUE WALLS AND PYRAMIDS That goes double underwater. Nelson Ramos, divemaster with PADI Dive Resort Divers Team, shakes his head in amusement as I tell him how surprised I am by Colombia. He's heard the reaction before a case of the destination's reputation not catching up with the times. And with a just-wait-and-see smile on his face, he turns the dive operation's 31-foot banda toward the east.
Nelson picks a spot called Grouper Palace on the Blue Wall, and we roll in. Minutes later I'm at 120 feet, hovering in front of a cavern populated with durgon, not the dive site's name attraction. And it's not mask squeeze that's making my eyes pop out feather black coral bushes surround the Palace. Somewhere, a thousand blue and misty feet below, the wall bottoms out a fact I decide to take Nelson's word for. We head up instead, past a wall covered in sea fans, gorgonian soft corals, and neon-green rope sponges, all standing at attention with almost no current. But the most striking inhabitants are large yellow tube sponges, each colonized by exactly one striped goby. I'm struck by the beauty of such minuscule life on a wall so huge. At the dive's end, Nelson doesn't even ask whether I want him to move the boat. One look at my face tells him I want to see it all over again.
But San Andrés had more to offer than deep dives and walls. On a shallow dive site called the Pyramid, we found a pair of large waving anemones, one with neon-green tips, the other purple, and plentiful fish, including French grunts and snappers. Drifting lazily over this life-filled site, I spotted an exquisite flamingo tongue cowrie, about the size of a thumb joint, its neatly outlined mantle seemingly too delicate for someplace as wild as the sea.
The next day, the wind is still gusting, shaking the 19-passenger puddle-jumper as I make the 50-mile trip north to a place shown on the map as Isla de Providencia, but known to most inhabitants as Old Providence or Providence. Compared to San Andrés, it is almost like journeying to a different country.
WORLDS APARTIn contrast to San Andrés' low hills, Providence is mountainous with only a thin ribbon of coastal buildings in scattered spots. Both islands share a rich history of pirates and English influence, but on modern San Andrés, Spanish is the dominant language. Providence is somewhat less influenced by mainland culture, and it's more obvious that, as far as the locals are concerned, the island's real language is Creole English.
Providence was first settled by a cadre of Puritans arriving on the Mayflower's sister ship, the Seaflower, in 1629. The English colonists found raiding and plundering Spanish treasure ships a good vocation, a situation that Spain tried to rectify by ousting the British in 1641. It worked, but for a later visit by the infamous Captain Henry Morgan, who would launch his attack on Panama from Providence.
The strongest influence on modern Providence's culture, though, was planters and their slaves arriving from other Caribbean islands, especially Jamaica. Many Providence islanders have lineages that go back hundreds of years, but there are few other signs of the island's history save the remnants of a single fort and the occasional cannon.
I check into the Posada del Mar, on the normally protected Freshwater Bay and an easy walk from two of the island's four dive shops. Meeting up with Felipe Cabeza, owner of PADI Dive Resort Felipe Diving, we map out a plan for the day: drive across the island to launch on its lee side and dive the closest thing we can find to a protected dive site.
The main road around Providence is surprisingly good, but the spur road leading to Manzanillo, where we'll load up, is decidedly more third world. At the end of the trail, though, we're greeted by a postcard-perfect picture: a South Pacific-style white sand crescent with coconut palms poking out and a small food shack Roland Roots Bar, an island institution we'd experience later.
Loading Felipe's 30-foot open boat, we head for a reef Felipe calls Ximena's Place, in 95 feet of water. As expected, the visibility is far from the usual 100-plus feet, but it's plenty clear enough for us to begin to see what Providence has to offer. Blue parrotfish welcome us to the feast as they graze contentedly on coral, and a 5-foot-green moray comes most of the way out from behind its rock to welcome us. An abundance of soft and hard corals form a backdrop, and a sizable spiny lobster makes a cameo toward the end of our dive.
When we surface, Felipe offers me something from a small white bag. I expect another exotic fruit treat like the guava paste Nelson's team stocked in San Andrés, but find instead fresh conch fritters a great way to warm up.
Back at the hotel, with the sun setting and scattered rains falling, I run into a group of Brazilian travel agents on a familiarization tour. Over Cuba libres, we share our impressions of Providence, using a combination of Spanish, English and Portuguese that yields a surprisingly coherent conversation so much so that we decide to have dinner together at nearby Café Studio. The seafood mix includes lobster, conch and the island specialty, crab "toes." These are the claws of the giant land crabs found throughout the island, which are a supremely tasty Providence staple. Each summer the crabs create a unique spectacle when they come down from the hills for a mating ritual in numbers high enough to force road closures.
PROTECT AND PRESERVE The next morning, Felipe and I go to the local office of Coralina, an unusual government environmental agency that oversees the region. The San Andrés-Providencia archipelago, which also includes a number of mostly uninhabited outer islands, is the heart of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, sanctioned by the United Nations in 2000. At nearly 116,000 square miles, it's the largest in the Caribbean and encompasses a whopping 10 percent of the Caribbean Sea. In collaboration with local fishermen and divers, a subset of the area was also set aside more recently as Colombia's first Marine Protected Area, with strict no-fishing regulations in areas the fishermen and divers helped identify as the most in need of protection.
Coralina, established in 1993, protects the region. Unlike the typical government agency, Coralina operates autonomously, insulated to a degree from political influence because it is governed by a board of directors that includes both government officials and locals, each having only a single vote. Another critical contrast from the norm is that Coralina oversees both the islands and the surrounding waters, so it can develop policies that govern and protect both more effectively.
The group also runs annual reef surveys and conducts training programs for fishermen, dive operators and school children. Coralina's executive director, Elizabeth Taylor, tells me that she believes increasing dive tourism is essential to protecting the region, because it will improve the economy and help fishermen displaced by emerging regulations.
CLEAN TAXIS Later that day, we make our way back around the island to another idyllic white sand beach at the Hotel Miss Mary restaurant for an incredible lunch of pasta and island crab. Our cab never shows up to take us back, so we start walking the two miles to the hotel. I joke with Felipe that the guidebook says it's easy to catch cabs on the island. "But not in the rain," he says with a laugh. "They don't want to dirty dem taxi."
The rain was light and warm, though, and the walk turns out to be a great way to see the island. Giant cotton trees loom with tall root blades, along with a range of other tropicals, such as mango trees and the occasional breadfruit. Toads call out to one another from the damp. They sound like a group of kids back in the trees, all making popping sounds by pulling their fingers from their cheeks.
I comment on the lack of development, and Felipe explains that the island's laws prevent nonresidents even those from mainland Colombia from owning property outright. The few high-end vacation homes are owned by people from Bogotá who have to establish partial ownership with a local.
By afternoon the bay has settled enough for us to launch from the dock, just behind Felipe's shop on the beach. On our first dive, we drift toward a spot called Nick's Place, exploring at about 60 feet the edge of a mellow wall that drops to 140 feet with multiple ledges. Over the drop, I see a huge school of Creole wrasses, with a few large parrotfish and black grouper in the mix. I happen upon a spotted moray showing off his pearly whites, and then drift on to look at some giant barrel sponges, large enough to dwarf Felipe's 210-pound frame, even with his four years' growth of dreadlocks waving in the current.
ARE YOU A TURTLE? The next morning takes us to the most spectacular site of the trip Turtle Rock, which descends from 75 feet down to 120, forming, with the adjacent wall, a fissure wide enough to swim through. At the top of the 35-foot-diameter rock, I admire a tree of bushy black coral jutting out about five feet. We cruise with a school of ocean triggerfish and find more black coral. As on many of the sites on thistrip, we also find plenty of black durgons, their velvet-black bodies outlined in deep blue.
A fish I've never seen before catches my eye, so I take some careful mental notes. About six inches long, it is stark white with black markings distinct enough that I think later identification will be easy using a fish book. I'm wrong. I've been through every book on my shelf, and I can't find it just another discovery in the waters of the Caribbean.
We finish up with a visit to a shallower reef near Pedro's Place, where the main attractions are large game fish, including hogfish and red snapper. Large cones of great star coral loom all around, and the occasional trumpetfish drifts vertically through the soft corals in between.
At dinner that night I ask Felipe about his favorite dives when the wind is out of its more usual direction. He laughs and says that, of course, it is Felipe's Place, his eponymous collection of ledges.
"You can't ask what is there, ask what is not there, because everything's there," he tells me.
PIRATES AND PROTESTANTS Before my flight on the last day, I rent a golf cart and circumnavigate the island's 10-mile-rim road. Save for the few very small villages, the place is almost completely undeveloped. The mountains are a uniform wild, dense green. I pass two men clearing a plot of land with machetes and a loaded horse on the road, then come around to a small military base. Virtually anywhere else, the posts for the barbed-wire fence would be painted in olive drab. But here, they shine in bright Caribbean pastels.
I stop briefly in the main town, efficiently named Town, for some juice and an ATM visit. A man and his son come through using a motorcycle and a stick to herd a small group of cows. Just around the corner is the colorful floating bridge connecting Providence to its smaller sister island, Santa Catalina. A walkway beyond ends at a small sign that explains the spot is where pirates were hanged and Protestants were burned. Without skipping a beat, the same sign points out that there are mangroves and seagulls nearby.
I buy some Bush Rum, with its hand-printed labels, and wonder if they will ever make it past customs. And then I wonder anew at these islands. Coffee and corals who knew?
Special thanks to Proexport Colombia , Dairo Snorkeling Center & Ecoturism , Divers Team , Felipe Diving, and Body Contact Travel Agency ([email protected]__).
Deco Stops In Old Providence, hotels are generally small and locally owned. For the best proximity to dive shops, get one of Hotel Miss Elma's four beautiful wood-paneled rooms, or try a package deal from one of four other Decameron affiliates (decameron.com). Whether you stay there or not, don't miss Miss Elma's crab sandwiches, and wash them down with Colombia's Kola Roman red soda. For traveling the island's 10-mile loop road, take your pick of bicycle, motorbike or golf cart. Get a kayak to explore the mangrove channels of McBean Lagoon National Park, or cross to scenic Crab Cay. Amble over the Lovers' Lane Bridge to Santa Catalina, visit the historic fort, then go snorkeling through the cave beneath the Morgan's Head formation at the point. The mixed seafood plate at Café Studio is a dinner must-have. At the end of the day, kick back in a hammock at the Roland Roots Bar with a coco loco mixed in a freshly macheted coconut. If your timing is right, there will be a bonfire to celebrate the full moon over Manzanillo Bay. On weekends, watch cat boat races on the east side of the island and horse races on the beach at South West Bay, or rent your own horse there for a trip into the mountains. Visit during May or June and you should have glass-calm seas, high temperatures and a chance to see the bizarre spectacle created each year when the island's land crabs come out of the hills en masse.
The Guide to Providencia
- average water temp: 79-82°F
- what to wear: A 3 mm shorty should be enough at any time.
- average viz: 80 to 150 feet
- when to go: Year-round, but best in August and September, and hot in the summer
Must Do High Point Don't just wonder what it's like from sea level. Make the hour-and-a-half trek to the top of El Pico (The Peak), the highest point on the island at 1,180 feet. Enjoy a commanding view of the surrounding reefs.
Must Dive Felipe's Place Tour this collection of ledges, abundant in coral and varied sea life, popularized by Felipe Cabeza of PADI Dive Resort Felipe Diving in Providencia.
Turtle Rock On this dive you'll find a 35-foot-wide rock descending from 75 feet to 120 that is rife with black coral.
Spiral A descending tunnel from 80 feet to 115 feet is a highlight of this fissured route that begins on the edge of a cliff and spirals downward.
Tete's Place A coralline shoal that's shallow and close to the shore. Features pillar coral mixed with octocorals and large schools of fish.
Confusion Coral, octocorals and sponges populate this site that had many names prior to its current one. Its steep slope begins at 60 feet running south to about 130 feet in depth. Travel TipsTake a flight from any of several Central and South American starting points to San Andrés. From there, catch one of the daily 30-minute flights to Providence aboard one of Satena Airline's 19-seaters.
Must HaveUse your surplus pesos on a hand-carved turtle painted in a scheme so colorful it's sure to be a conversation piece back home. Don't forget some of the island's Bush Rum for conversations of a completely different sort.
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