ScubaSherrill
Registered
My husband and I recently returned from a 10 day trip to Grand Turk. This was our first time to GT, although we dove with Explorer Ventures out of Provo 6 years ago.
We choose to dive with Blue Water Divers as they cater to on-island divers, versus some of the other operations who handle cruise boat divers (it does appear that the cruisers are given their own cattle boat and not often paired up with island divers). GT has a wall all along the west side of the island, about a 5-15 min boat ride from the shore. We were picked up at our apartment by truck or by boat, when the weather permitted. The diving in GT is quite good, rivaling Grand Cayman, with a nice wall, full of healthy corals, some big fish (grouper, nurse shark, stingray, turtles, barracuda). The topside reef is also quite nice, plenty of small fish and more garden eels than we've ever at all our dives sites combined in the past--they are abundant! We were especially blessed to see a baby humpback while doing our safety stop at the end of our first dive. We spotted it just off the wall, wasn't sure what it was because the viz was down and so we swam out to take a closer look. No sight of mom, the baby hung around only for about a minute then took off--it was so amazing. We had heard some calling way off in the distance and hadn't seen any sign of whales from the surface, so we were totally surprised.
All the dive operations dive from flat bottomed skiffs, 8 divers is typically considered a full boat. We were allowed to dive our computers. The daily routine was to board from the shore around 9ish, back roll into the water, first half of the dive on the wall, second half on the top reef, safety stop (anchor line available if needed), hand up your weights, roll out of your BC (the DM hauls it out of the water and sets up your second tank), rest between dives either on the boat or on shore. BWD supplied bottled water, bring your own snack. They did supply a rinse bucket for our cameras (salt water though, hard to get fresh water to the boats with their setup), not ideal but it worked. All in all, BWD was a good operation, friendly and knowledgeable DMs. As photographers, we appreciated diving with the same group of folks each day and not having to worry about casual divers from the cruise ships.
If you're considering visiting GT, there's a couple of things you should know. GT is definitely "old Caribbean"....very laid back and under-developed. There are a handful of hotels that are accustomed to divers, Osprey and Bohio are probably the two main ones. Restaurants are few and the prices are sometimes a little high for the quality of what you get, but it's not terrible. We chose to stay in the Crabtree Apartments and managed most of our meals at the apartment. Grocery shopping can be an interesting adventure and sometimes became our afternoon activity. Crabtree Apts were lovely and we will stay there again when we return.
If you are looking for an "off the beaten path adventure", you won't be disappointed. The local people couldn't be any nicer, our taxi driver Jack thanked us for visiting his island and gave us a hug goodbye
. Although it's not what I would call a beautiful island, it does have spectacular (and empty) beaches and a beautiful wall and healthy reef. Mitch Rolling (who owns Blue Water Divers) can be found playing guitar and singing in a some of the local establishments a couple nights a week. Communication on what's going on is strictly word of mouth; no concierge, no websites.
We choose to dive with Blue Water Divers as they cater to on-island divers, versus some of the other operations who handle cruise boat divers (it does appear that the cruisers are given their own cattle boat and not often paired up with island divers). GT has a wall all along the west side of the island, about a 5-15 min boat ride from the shore. We were picked up at our apartment by truck or by boat, when the weather permitted. The diving in GT is quite good, rivaling Grand Cayman, with a nice wall, full of healthy corals, some big fish (grouper, nurse shark, stingray, turtles, barracuda). The topside reef is also quite nice, plenty of small fish and more garden eels than we've ever at all our dives sites combined in the past--they are abundant! We were especially blessed to see a baby humpback while doing our safety stop at the end of our first dive. We spotted it just off the wall, wasn't sure what it was because the viz was down and so we swam out to take a closer look. No sight of mom, the baby hung around only for about a minute then took off--it was so amazing. We had heard some calling way off in the distance and hadn't seen any sign of whales from the surface, so we were totally surprised.
All the dive operations dive from flat bottomed skiffs, 8 divers is typically considered a full boat. We were allowed to dive our computers. The daily routine was to board from the shore around 9ish, back roll into the water, first half of the dive on the wall, second half on the top reef, safety stop (anchor line available if needed), hand up your weights, roll out of your BC (the DM hauls it out of the water and sets up your second tank), rest between dives either on the boat or on shore. BWD supplied bottled water, bring your own snack. They did supply a rinse bucket for our cameras (salt water though, hard to get fresh water to the boats with their setup), not ideal but it worked. All in all, BWD was a good operation, friendly and knowledgeable DMs. As photographers, we appreciated diving with the same group of folks each day and not having to worry about casual divers from the cruise ships.
If you're considering visiting GT, there's a couple of things you should know. GT is definitely "old Caribbean"....very laid back and under-developed. There are a handful of hotels that are accustomed to divers, Osprey and Bohio are probably the two main ones. Restaurants are few and the prices are sometimes a little high for the quality of what you get, but it's not terrible. We chose to stay in the Crabtree Apartments and managed most of our meals at the apartment. Grocery shopping can be an interesting adventure and sometimes became our afternoon activity. Crabtree Apts were lovely and we will stay there again when we return.
If you are looking for an "off the beaten path adventure", you won't be disappointed. The local people couldn't be any nicer, our taxi driver Jack thanked us for visiting his island and gave us a hug goodbye
. Although it's not what I would call a beautiful island, it does have spectacular (and empty) beaches and a beautiful wall and healthy reef. Mitch Rolling (who owns Blue Water Divers) can be found playing guitar and singing in a some of the local establishments a couple nights a week. Communication on what's going on is strictly word of mouth; no concierge, no websites.
