Tourism officials predict Grenada's 2,000 hotel rooms will double within the next couple years, and a recent visit to the island helped me understand why.
Grenada doesn't suffer from some of the problems that plague its neighbors. It doesn't have the crime of Trinidad and Tobago, or what some consider the over-development of Barbados.
What it does have:
• World-class diving and fishing.
• Trees dripping with mangoes, bananas, papayas and cocoa pods.
• An unusually mountainous interior for a Caribbean island not much bigger than Martha's Vineyard.
• Development rules that limit most buildings to no more than three stories.
• Some of the softest sand these soles have ever felt on the nearly 3-mile long Grand Anse Beach, which was all but deserted when I was there in late June.
• Friendly people, despite their disconcerting penchant for carrying machetes.
• The nickname "Spice Island," thanks to the nutmeg, cinnamon and other seasonings that sprout so effortlessly from the rich, volcanic soil.
And then there's the weather. Average annual temperatures hover around 80 degrees, cooled by the natural air conditioning of the constant trade winds.
The only thing better than the air is the water: bathtub warm and colored in a telltale Caribbean blue. Getting in the water at least once a day should be mandatory, whether it be to sail the calm passageways north to the Grenadines, go sport fishing or diving, or simply wade chest-deep into the Saran-Wrap-clear sea.
For my daily dose of agua, I squeezed my feet into some flippers, donned a snorkeling mask and went exploring in Moliniere Bay, about a 10-minute boat ride from St. George's.
While I didn't see as many colorful fish as I'd expected, I did come across some spooky-but-intriguing underwater sculptures. More than 60 of these submerged works of art from sculptor Jason Taylor are peppered throughout the bay. I can personally vouch for five, the eeriest of which was a man at a desk in front of a typewriter. The sculpture garden is only about a year old, but the algae-covered desk worker looked like he'd been sitting on the sea floor since Columbus sailed these waters.
And these waters make for some enviable sailing year-round. Grenada's position on the southern tip of the Windward Islands, a mere 100 miles off the coast of Venezuela, means it's generally considered outside the hurricane belt. Although that didn't stop a nasty storm named Ivan from ripping off roughly 90 percent of the island's roofs in 2004.
Ivan's wrath left Grenada with a largely blank canvas, and the country has made the most of its misfortune. Many of the decimated homes and businesses that had been shoddily constructed were rebuilt to code.
"Things look a lot better now," said taxi driver Algie McDonald, who had a "glass half full" take on Hurricane Ivan. "We lost some things -- our spice crops were hurt bad -- but we gained a lot, too."
He was equally chipper about the 1983 U.S. invasion, or "intervention," as Grenadians call it.
"Everybody was happy with the outcome; there's no resentment," McDonald said.
"People here are always happy," he added. "We're in Grenada."
