Beaches Turks and Caicos questions

[Big John]

Longtime diver who has been out of diving for a while, just getting back up to speed and completed my AOW yesterday. My non-diving family and I are booked at Beaches T & C in March. I keep hearing different things about the diving program there. Do they have a skills test and what does it include? Is it crowded diving and hard to get spots on the boat? Would I be better off booking a dive through one of the islands other outfits?

Anything you can offer to get me up to speed on what to expect would be appreciated.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I was there in 2006 and dove through the operation at the resort. As I recall the dives were "full" but not uncomfortably. As for the skills, yes they did have you do a pool dive to display basic skills....reg retrieval, mask removal and buoyancy. It takes about 25 minutes start to finish for all of the people to do and only happens one day so it is OK.

I was not really impressed with the diving (I love every dive but to varying degrees) there but know a lot of people love it so I might suggest booking with Dive Provo or some other external outfit if they can arrange picking you up. It is possible that they would take you to different site which may be more impressive. Either way, it is better than what I get here (maybe not for you in NC).

FWIW, I was there in January and had three days of diving cancelled due to conditions and it was actually cold with the wind. I actually wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt two days which is bad for me. I did not take many pictures and the ones I did take were just with a Canon camera with the Canon housing (no external strobe etc.) so they are not the greatest.

 

[ScubaAl]

I was there some years ago, can't remember the year, but hurricane floyd went by to the north. Made for some high winds and blowing sand. So what ever year floyd was, was the year I was there.
They made you do the skills back then also. Just like Scubasteve001 posted. For many divers I would say the operation was fine. Max depth was 80ft if I remember correctly. That was on the first dive 60ft on the second. Again going from memory. Dove with them two days. On the second day, second dive upon returning to the boat I was reminded by one of the young DM's that I had slipped below the 60ft limit.
Even thought the diving was included, I opted to go with another dive charter in order to have a little more freedom.
Al