Villas in Turks and Caicos

[badmrchris]

A few friends and I are looking to book a trip to Turks /Caicos for June of 2006. There will be somewhere between 6-10 of us, about half of them divers. We have been looking into renting a beachside villa, and almost all of them are located in Provicenciales for $800-$1000 USD per person per week. Unfortunately, none of us know a thing about this island. Is there a specific place on the island we should stay to facilitate our diving? Is shore diving even a viable option? What do boat dives run? Should we forego the villa, tell our non diver firends to pound sand and focus on a resort that caters to divers or a liveaboard? How far does the dollar go down there?

Any help is appreciated…

 

[Damselfish]

No shore diving to speak of in Provo. (I think I've heard of one spot you can but might even be remembering that wrong.) So you would be doing boat dives leaving from a marina someplace. There's aren't really any resorts on Provo that cater to divers specifically, but the Aggressor and T&C Explorer leave from Provo. (Grand Turk has shore diving and somewhat more diver-oriented places, but the other folks might be bored unless they're self-entertaining.)

Check out this map - http://www.provo.net/PNetMap.html. Some boats leave from Turtle Cove marina at the middle of the north side. Probably not what you want except maybe for a night dive, the diving accessible from there mostly isn't that great. Other boats leave from South Dock, they go to the good diving, like at West Caicos. Caicos Adventures is recommended often on this board, they're a good op and I was happy with them. They will pick you up from most of the main hotels, but probably not if you're far away from everything, so you would need to check that out if you want to get picked up. Or you can drive yourselves to the marina obviously, you'd just want to be sure you aren't surprised by a long commute over bad roads each morning. (The main roads are ok, but there's lots of dirt roads too.) There is also an operator Big Blue which leaves from Leeward marina (east end.) I think someone reviewed them here recently and said they went to good sites.

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

You will find Providenciales to be on the pricey side. If you get a villa try and do breakfast lunch and snacks at the house and save your money for dinners out. The boat rides to the really good diving are 45 mins. to an hour. Plan on being out from 8 to 2 or 3. If you stay down near South Dock you will have a short commute to the boat but a long ride to most everytthing else on the island. I suggest a villa in the Turtle Cove area personally. Its near the turn off for the south dock and also relatively close to Grace Bay and some really good restaurants. Look into condos too.

 

[Rwhiting]

We stayed here for a week in July of last year and loved it. Fabulous, almost private beach, very nice accomodations, 10 minute drive to South Dock, 15 minutes to Grace Bay. Unlike some internet sites for villas, what you see on this link is what you get. I second Caicos Adventures for diving - great boat, DMs and choice of dive sites. Have a blast!

http://crystalsandsvilla.com/

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

We stayed here for a week in July of last year and loved it. Fabulous, almost private beach, very nice accomodations, 10 minute drive to South Dock, 15 minutes to Grace Bay. Unlike some internet sites for villas, what you see on this link is what you get. I second Caicos Adventures for diving - great boat, DMs and choice of dive sites. Have a blast!

http://crystalsandsvilla.com/

Nice house. What did you think of Sapodilla Bay?

 

[DocVikingo]

Hi Chris,

Shore diving is very limited on Provo, but there is some. Check out White House Reef and Smith's Reef. They're easy to find--any dive shop can give you directions.

Have fun.

DocVikingo