Get a scuba diving fix at this little-known Caribbean isle resort

Before it opened in 2021, the 75-room Golden Rock Resort on St. Eustatius island was 40 acres of empty rocky terrain.

From the front of the small passenger plane, I watched the navigation display in the pilot’s cockpit. A tiny, teardrop-shaped destination lit up the screen.

I recalled zooming in on this island on Google Maps before my January trip. Its name, St. Eustatius – or “Statia,” as locals call it – was nowhere to be found. This made sense: Only around 3,270 people live on the roughly 19-square-kilometre Dutch-Caribbean island located between St. Kitts and St. Maarten. Statia is not a popular tourist destination, it has no white-sand beaches to lounge on or swim in. Yet as the plane descended over the limestone cliff sides, with a verdant green dormant volcano towering above, I wo