Turks & Caicos trip report

Just returned from Turks & Caicos Provo on Sunday night and wanted to do a trip report.
I’m not much good at turning thoughts into words but I’ll give it my best shot.

In a nutshell it was great. The weather was perfect the entire time with water temps hovering around 80 degrees and air temps in the mid to upper 80s.

I dove with Provo Turtle divers for three of the four days I dove and found them very accommodating with knowledgeable and friendly staff which allowed you to dive your own profile up to 45 min. bottom time.

I stayed at the Beaches resort and dove with them one day and even though the dives were included in the price I opted to spend the money with Turtle divers. The Beaches boats and crew were top notch but it was “follow the dive master only” diving and since I was having a blast on my first foray into underwater photography, I got tank banged a few times for lagging back and trying for the best shot.

We dove Grace Bay 2 days and West Caicos 2 days. The only day the boat went to Northwest Point I was not diving. I had to spend some time with my wife I guess.

West Caicos was by far the better of the two. It’s a uninhabited island about an hours boat ride from Provo with a very sheer wall starting around 50 feet down to 6000 with and abundance of sea life. Rather than list all the fish I saw suffice to say there was the usual assortment of brightly colored marine life that I couldn’t get my fill of watching and photographing. Hopefully some of the 8 rolls I took will be keepers.

Grace Bay is just off the beach from all the major resorts on Provo itself and makes for an easy boat ride to the sites. These are all shallower reefs that drop off to about 140 to the first shelf. The coolest was a site called Graceland, which just so happens to have a resident Barracuda by the name of Elvis. He’s about 5 foot long and just seems to hang around the mooring line waiting for handouts I’m sure.

The highlight of the trip though was the Humpback whale encounters. On West Caicos the Capt. spotted a pair as we headed back to Provo. He stopped the engines and two dive masters and two paying costumers were able to get fins and mask on as the whales turned around and swam directly under them within 10 feet.
They were pumped, to say the least, as they climbed back on the boat. I went for my topside camera as I had already stowed all my gear and I regret not ripping it out of my bag and going overboard with them.

My turn did come on my last day of diving on Grace Bay. As I got back on the boat from dive #1 they had just spotted one moving by. One fellow got in and was treated to about a 10 second stare off as the whale just stopped near the bottom and checked him out. The rest of us got in after that and the boat Capt. was able to kinda coral him/her, don’t know which, to within about 15 to 20 feet of us. It was only maybe 20 to 25 feet long but was an awesome sight to behold as it glided effortlessly by. Really makes you realize how out of our element we are below the surface.

Bottom line it was a wonderful vacation with some awesome diving. Now I can’t wait to get back into these "warm" Jersey waters and try my new CLX 450 dry suit I just picked up last night. Soon, very soon.

Great trip report!

Originally posted by FredWreck

I dove with Provo Turtle divers for three of the four days I dove and found them very accommodating with knowledgeable and friendly staff which allowed you to dive your own profile up to 45 min. bottom time.

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Allowed you to dive your own profile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This comes as a bit of a shock, but what is there other than diving your own profile? Only on lessons have I had to dive withsomebody else in charge, and even then have always had to plan my own dives (open water dive 1 - instructor sais that we are diving to X metres, and he expects us to be down for no longer than Y minutes, and then sends us off to actually plan the dives on the tables).

Are there places out there that expect you on certain dive sites to dive certain profiles? I've had charter boat skippers express a desire for max dive times less than 3 hours (A lot of UK divers do decompression dives on the BSAC tables), but generally I've been told the depth, given a rough description of the site, and then been asked for my plan. I've never had a bottom time restriction placed on me whilst diving from a charter boat.

If there are, can you all let me know, so that I can avoid them please!

Jon T

Allowed you to dive your own profile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I worked for PTD in the Turks and Caicos Islands for two years, and we always let the divers plan their "dives and dive their plans". However we also asked that they keep them down to 1 hour as a consideration for the lesser experienced divers.

There are a couple of companies down their that do have a depth limit (less than the rec limit) and a follow the leader, shepard & sheep dog style of diving.

I had an experance with a Beaches group one time, who were diving off our big boat (Newton 42') where the group and divemasters had gotten into the water and after the last had gone down I set my gear up and jumped in telling the Capt that I'd be back in 30 minutes.

As i decended I ran into the whole group with the divemasters and they were still under the boat. Question: How long does it take a group of 20 divers to all get in the water and follow the lead dive master? To f****** long! Anyway I decended down to about 120' over the wall and was bombarded by tank bangers (scaring the fish) and thumb jerkers until I asended. I started along the wall when the tank bangers start again telling me to join the group. At this point I bailed on the dive and caught a tan.

So there are still alot of companies doing the limit stuff, probably a CYA action on the Corperate office side of the businesses.

Calm Breezes and stay wet...