OK, I coulda put this into my "Grand Turk for a week, and then Bahamas?" thread, and I *promise* to do a proper trip report later, but... wait'll ya read this. 
BTW, if you've been reading any of my related threads, I came here looking for mantas.
:lol:
So I got to Grand Turk yesterday, nice place, quiet. Staying at The Salt Raker Inn, which has a lot of history, but not a very good sense of time! (This'll make sense in a sec)
So, I set my battery operated clock to the time on the phone... unfortunately (NOT!), the phone clock was about 50 minutes slow. So, in the morning, I get to Oasis Divers Shop thinking it's about 8:30am, when in fact it's 9:20am, and I;ve missed the first boat!!
Bummer. (NOT!!)
Everett very nicely agrees to send me out on one of their 24-footers alone with a DM, and another DM comes along to pick up a dropped weight belt (Tiro and Sean, respectively, for those that have been here). Psyched!!
So that's pretty cool. We go out for the dive, I am properly impressed by the 7000 foot wall. And then, on the way back to the boat, AWESOME, a pod of 5 dolphins, including a baby! Maybe 20 feet away!
We follow them a bit, but they dart off... we head back on top of the wall, and DANG, another pod of 4, definitely a different group.
I have died and gone to heaven!!! I was having trouble keeping water outta my mask, smiling so big!
So, we safety stop and end the dive. We get up, we;re dealing with gear, and Tyro (who has an insanely great sense of the waters around here), shouts out "There they are!... And there are some more!!... and...."
Turns out this was a pod of 40-50 ATLANTIC DOLPHINS!!!
So now we're all about keeping them entertained... boat turns, fast, slow, snorkeling, you name it. Did one snorkel at maybe 25 feet with three dolphins maybe 5 feet away, as long as I could... I dolphin kicked, of course.
Dolphins EVERYWHERE... all three of us couldn't help but scanning and pointing... There! There! There!
I don't know if this actually helped, but on the day before I came here, on a whim I stopped by a Petco and actually bought a silent dog whistle (around 7-8kHZ, I'd guess) and a training clicker... this morning I was lying down on the bow of the boat, one hand trailing in the water, wildly clicking or whistling, and groups of 3-5 dolphins kept swimming in to pace the boat right under me, turning on their sides or even all the way upside down, hopefully, I think, checking out the weird noises coming from the human!
We had 40 minutes or so with'em. :07:
And if I had set my clock right, and gone on the 9am boat, this wouldn't have happened.
BTW, if you've been reading any of my related threads, I came here looking for mantas. :lol:
So I got to Grand Turk yesterday, nice place, quiet. Staying at The Salt Raker Inn, which has a lot of history, but not a very good sense of time! (This'll make sense in a sec)
So, I set my battery operated clock to the time on the phone... unfortunately (NOT!), the phone clock was about 50 minutes slow. So, in the morning, I get to Oasis Divers Shop thinking it's about 8:30am, when in fact it's 9:20am, and I;ve missed the first boat!!
Bummer. (NOT!!)
Everett very nicely agrees to send me out on one of their 24-footers alone with a DM, and another DM comes along to pick up a dropped weight belt (Tiro and Sean, respectively, for those that have been here). Psyched!!
So that's pretty cool. We go out for the dive, I am properly impressed by the 7000 foot wall. And then, on the way back to the boat, AWESOME, a pod of 5 dolphins, including a baby!
Maybe 20 feet away!We follow them a bit, but they dart off... we head back on top of the wall, and DANG, another pod of 4, definitely a different group.
I have died and gone to heaven!!! I was having trouble keeping water outta my mask, smiling so big!
So, we safety stop and end the dive. We get up, we;re dealing with gear, and Tyro (who has an insanely great sense of the waters around here), shouts out "There they are!... And there are some more!!... and...."
Turns out this was a pod of 40-50 ATLANTIC DOLPHINS!!!
So now we're all about keeping them entertained... boat turns, fast, slow, snorkeling, you name it. Did one snorkel at maybe 25 feet with three dolphins maybe 5 feet away, as long as I could... I dolphin kicked, of course.
Dolphins EVERYWHERE... all three of us couldn't help but scanning and pointing... There! There! There!
I don't know if this actually helped, but on the day before I came here, on a whim I stopped by a Petco and actually bought a silent dog whistle (around 7-8kHZ, I'd guess) and a training clicker... this morning I was lying down on the bow of the boat, one hand trailing in the water, wildly clicking or whistling, and groups of 3-5 dolphins kept swimming in to pace the boat right under me, turning on their sides or even all the way upside down, hopefully, I think, checking out the weird noises coming from the human!
We had 40 minutes or so with'em. :07:
And if I had set my clock right, and gone on the 9am boat, this wouldn't have happened.
