PART III
III. Diving in General.
The west, or leeward side of GT has been a protected Marine Park since 1991. There is a patrol boat, but the only time I saw it was under tow after a storm flipped it. It is unclear how much funding there is for enforcement, however, I understand that the local dive industry has its own ways of "discouraging" violations. I can assure you I wouldn't Smitty, a massive DM for Sea Eye who can carry 6 tanks at a time, leaning on me for filching a grouper. A DM for Blue Water, Carl, is only slightly less physically intimidating.
The Grand Turk Wall runs for about 7 miles about 200 yards off the western shore & is the center of dive activity. It can start as shallow as about 30 feet & drop off to 7,000+ feet, making for some pretty sensational abyssal vistas. On the rare occasions when it is too rough to dive the west, the east can be done. It reportedly has very healthy reef with some swim through possibilities, but is shallower diving with no dramatic wall action.
There are about 14 moored sites. The major sites from north to south are: Aquarium, Rolling Hill, Gorgonian Wall, McDonalds, Amphitheater, The Annex, Finbars Reef, Black Forest, The Anchor, The Library, Cables, Coral Garden, Canyons, Tunnels, English Point, The Chair, Chief Ministers, Tiki Hut, Wind Mills & The Amazing Abyss. These sites are all very short rides, like 5-12 minutes, and the boats return to shore for fresh tanks & a break for surface interval. As such, they do not have heads, GPS, oxygen, radios or the like.
Speaking of the boats, they are almost exclusively 24' Carolina Skiffs (wide, flat bottom craft) with partial covers. Entry is by easy backroll & exit by a small rear ladder. Gear is typically doffed & handed up upon exit, but you need not do so. You can hardly imagine more relaxed diving than this. Usually carrying about 6 divers & a DM who also captains, there is absolutely no rush to do anything. You can buddy, follow the DM or go it on your own within reason. Depth limits are suggested but only recreational limits are given any vigor & even then not much. Often it was a good 10 minutes between the first and last divers both into & out of the water. The DM often surfaces after about 45 minutes or so, but you are free to explore below the boat until your air says "It's time."
The reefs are remarkably healthy, with a wide range of tropicals, sponges & corals. You could easily exhaust large sections of Paul Humann's ID books in a week's worth of diving here. There are regular sightings of nurse sharks, green & spotted morays, & hawksbill turtles. Lemon & hammerhead sharks are very occasionally seen, but don't count on it. There is the very rare reported sighting of a whale shark, but, then, where have you been that there isn't?
Of course, the area is famous for the humpback whale migration as they follow the Columbus Passage down to the Silver Bank off the Dominican Republic. This passage usually reaches its peak in Feb & Mar, but whales can occasionally be seen in Jan & Apr as well. Viewing is done by snorkeling for those who are up to it, and by boat for those who are not. Mantas are also about, with the best chances of a sighting around midsummer.
As for shore diving, it is mostly sand & turtle grass bottom until you hit the edge of the wall, which is about a 200+ yard surface swim from the dive shop beaches. Take a dive kayak. The land & wall do seem to draw closer in the south, so if you're committed to heavy shore diving via surface swim, check out the Arawak Inn.
IV. Dive Ops & My Dives.
Only three ops on island & these are briefly described, and websites given, in Chapter 1. All are lined up on Duke Street just across the road from the beach. Only about a 2 minute walk between them. The shops seem to work cooperatively, and, unlike other places I have been, I did not hear any make a disparaging remark about another. I was able to locate a 100CF tank at Sea Eye, which has several, and the 3 ops had no problem passing it around as I rotated among them.
All ops: (1) come to your hotel to do the paper work & haul your gear prior to the diving; (2) keep their boats out front on the beach; (3) set up your gear if you like; (4) have rinse tanks, drying rooms & secured gear storage facilities; (5) do the same sites; (6) leave at about 9:00AM for the first dive & dive at about the same times; (7) make no nudges about gratuities, either overt or otherwise; and (8) show a deep respect for the reef & are knowledgeable about the marine life. It was pretty amazing to see the Sea Eye crew get excited about the stingray feed (more about this later), or a flock of hunting frigate birds, or a passing school of baitfish breaking the water, when you know this must be the quadrillionth time they have observed such.
1. Sea Eye. I dove first with Sea Eye - can catch the owner, Cecil, underwater in some of their ads. DM was Smitty, a burly but gentle ex-police officer in the T&C's who left the force about 8 years ago because he wanted to interact with people "under more pleasant circumstances." Already the father of 6, including FIVE daughters, I suspect he also figured it was time to start hanging close to home so as to keep an eye on his interests. He is an instantly likable fellow & a good conversationalist once you get him going. They have a nicely cleaned up ex-drug running boat for trips out top see the humpbacks.
Blacksmith Rock, 65', 56". Spotted a gray pigmy filefish in a matching gray branching sea rod. Very impressed by the varied & dense tropicals, corals & sponges.
Library (AM), 57', 62". Lots of crevices in which to find things, such as small spotted morays & squirrelfish.
Library (PM), 61", 65". Several colorful lobsters, a small octopus & a beautiful, delicate orange ball corallimorph. Lit up a blue tang for a Nassau grouper to take, which it did, but is was too big to swallow, so he just swam around with the tail protruding from his mouth.
2. Blue Water. Owner, Mitch Rolling, left his home state of Iowa at age 18 to find his fortune. As GT looked a far better match for his budget than his first choice, the South Seas, he came & stayed for about 20 years & many thousands of dives now. One gets the feeling he would rather be a musician, however, and he performs Sunday & Wednesday nights at the Salt Raker. He has a CD for sale & apparently has self-produced 3 albums. With a good sense of humor, he can be quite the ham over a drink or meal. [NOTE: For those of you who may remember Dave, Mitch's dive & muscial partner, he left about a year ago & now runs a catering business on Nantucket with his significant other]. DM Carl is built somewhat like Smitty except in Sumo form. He is laid back even by GT standards, and on several occasions the delay between my asking & him answering a question was so lengthy that I wondered if he heard me. A very fine chap.
Amphitheater, 99', 50". Follow a sand plain as it narrows, enter a "V" in the reef at about 45' & follow the steep slope down as deep as you want. By the time I checked my gauge, I was at nearly 100'. The wall sports some very healthy wire coral & gorgonians. Back on the sand, a small colony of garden eels let me approach closer than anywhere I have been - I could actually see their faces.
Sand Canyons, 57', 60". Spotted a brown pigmy filefish in a brown sea whip.
3. Oasis. Owner Dale, an easy going woman who left the ad biz in Atlanta about 2 1/2 years ago, was the most accommodating of the DMs I experienced in terms of pointing out neat stuff, such as a fingerprint cyphoma. DM Austin is the antithesis of Smitty & Carl, being tall and slender. With his black baseball cap & small, oval shades, I suspect he may be somewhat of a ladies man. He provided very thorough dive briefings, which he concluded with a short & nonintrusive prayer. He worked hard to find things, like the resident seahorse at Rolling Hills. [NOTE: Those of you who have been to GT very recently & had the pleasure of meeting Titan, Dale's black & white Great Dane, will be saddened to hear that he died of pneumonia while we were there]. [HAVE A LARGER BOAT FOR TRIPS TO THE WHALES & SOUTH CAICOS, BUT SEEM TO KEEP IT A SECRET].
Black Forest, 81', 58". The healthiest stands of black coral I have seen, bar none. Amazing how nice things can be when people aren't raping them to make cheezy jewelry. These outstanding corals, however, were eclipsed by the fabulous fan-like deep water gorgonians which spread as far as the eye could see. Saw about a 4 1/2 foot nurse shark swim by at the reef top. While a great shark lover, nurses don't generally do much for me, but I must admit they are considerably more interesting when swimming vigorously at close range.
Rolling Hills, 61', 66". Home to GT's only known seahorse, a large mature male who is usually around but eluded us despite Austin's best efforts to locate him.
Tunnels, 92', 56". Enter a short swim through, just big enough for one, at about 55' & exit at about 85'. Again, great corals & sponges. At top of reef there were schools of creolefish, juvenile princess parrotfish & bluehead wrasse fry at every turn.
English Point, 77', 56". Nice schools of mahogany snapper, as well as creole wrasse mixed with their frequent traveling partners, the boga. There is a large anchor around which reef has formed which you probably will not see unless the DM points it out. Found a juvenile hawksbill turtle in a crevice, which came out & swam along slowly for quite some distance, seemingly curious about me.
So as not sound like "Skin Diver" magazine, there were some things about GT diving I would change if I could. For me (and I heard others voice a similar sentiment), the diving does not have enough variety, as even the lovely wall & reef can get a bit tedious after a while. The place would be far more interesting if it had some wrecks, pinnacles, muck dives, more consistent big critter action, drifts along the wall on high voltage currents, or something else to switch up with once in a while. But, of course, except for the wrecks, this just can't be created. Sea Eye & Oasis need to spend the money on gas & offre frequent day trips to the wall off South Caicos, the wreck of the Endymion off Salt Cay, etc., and a nice change of pace.
Another thing I would change is the viz. Not that the viz was especially poor - it wasn't. Perhaps I am just spoiled by the likes of Coz quality water, or perhaps there was some lingering effect of the recent coral spawn, but I really wished for some 125'++ days to appreciate the tremendous wall. I understand such viz can occur in late summer/early fall - I hope so.
V. Things to do.
1. Play golf on the rattiest pitch & putt type course you've ever seen, I guarantee. On Waterloo, out by South Dock, it costs $25 for all day, including clubs, balls & tees. You can't tell fairway from rough, and in either you'll have a very challenging time. Nothing like the lovely course in Provo, but, then, you can't even look at that for $25.
2. [MAY HAVE FOLDED] Rent a good looking scooter from Val's for about $35/day & tour the island. Go the far NE of the island and view a cool old light house. Val's is located behind the Triangle Gas Station over by the Diplomat Cafe. Drive left & wear a helmet.
3. Go horseback riding with Gail. Your hotel can easily arrange this.
4. Visit the museum over on Front Street. Well worth the $5.00. Go before 2PM & get a guided tour - you'll learn far more that way.
5. Do the afternoon trip over to small, uninhabited Gibb's Cay where there is a barbecue. Then go free-diving for conch, which is prepared fresh in a salad for all to share. I learned lots about conch, including how to determine maturity, remove the critter from the shell, and even how to sex type. There are fish & conch leftovers to feed a group of southern stingrays, including some good sized ones, a somewhat skittish eagle ray & a couple of juvenile lemon sharks. This is done just standing in the water or snorkeling. Beats GC's Stingray City all to hell. Rum punch is served before returning to GT.
6. Get a beachside table at the Water's Edge & sip a Jimmy Buffet "boat drink" while watching the sunset.
7. Have lunch or dinner at the Diplomat Cafe, where the food is reasonable, atmosphere friendly & you can play a $.25 one-armed bandit or video poker machine.
8. Have dinner at the Regal Beagle. Easy to find with its red door.
Good food & reasonable prices for GT.
9. Go fishing. Your hotel can easily arrange this.
10. Visit one of the island's prides, the new prison. They are especially pleased with the new egg project."
Until next time, I remain,
DocVikingo