Corn Island, Chuuk Lagoon, Galapagos: Undercurrent 11/2025

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Our subscribers often travel to unique and under-advertised destinations and hotels, and periodically, I select a few reports to condense and share with readers. I've always been a fan of small, unadvertised, out-of-the-way places, so I've highlighted a few here, as well as some destinations that have had problems future travelers should be aware of.

If any of these tales interests you, go to the reader reports on our website, and you'll find the author's email address. They have agreed to share information by email with any Undercurrent reader who asks. Ask about the coral health, whether there were any big fish, the cleanliness of the accommodations, anything. And I'm sure your fellow Undercurrent subscribers will be pleased to tell you about their experiences.

Here are several destinations you might want to know more about, and a few others with a problem their management needs to resolve.

Off the Beaten Path

About as far from the beaten path as you can get in the Caribbean is Nicaragua's Little Corn Island and Derek's Place. Harvey Monroe (Santa Fe), who has more than 1000 dives, visited in August and reports: "The island is primitive with no motor roads, but walking paths all over the island, which pass through the jungle going north to Derek's. There are several small hotels. We dived from pangas, with 3-5 divers, at Derek's son's operation. The shallow reefshad typical algae overgrowth. The deeper reefs had goodto very good coral. Many sites had a good variety of fish,turtles, rays, some pelagics, and nurse sharks. There wasan exceptional shallow cave site with swim-throughs withthousands of silvery minnows. Turtle Rock had resident raysthat followed us around during a very good night dive. At one site with towering rock/coral formations and white sand, curious hammerheads showed up. This is a reasonably priced old-style Caribbean atmosphere with English spoken as much as Spanish. The depth was generally no more than 70 feet. Little in the way of Sargassum weed was seen as compared to the Yucatán." www.dereksplacelittlecorn.com...

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