August trip to Turks - how's the reef after 2017 tropical storms?

[Chuck Akers]

Greetings!

New forum user here. My wife and I are experienced divers (250-ish dives, PADI Open Water) and are considering an August trip to Turks & Caicos.

Wondering what folks know about the reef conditions. The island took a couple pretty hard knocks late last year from storms, so I'm wondering if the reefs got beat up. Also, I would appreciate any and all reviews of dive shops, resorts, restaurants, etc.

Thanks in advance!

Chuck Akers
Houston, Texas

 

[drrich2]

Reef Damage in T&C? Has content as late as Oct. 2017.

What did you like most about Turks & Caicos live-aboards? Content as recent as late September.

Might get you started till some other folks post.

Richard.

 

[Chuck Akers]

Reef Damage in T&C? Has content as late as Oct. 2017.

What did you like most about Turks & Caicos live-aboards? Content as recent as late September.

Might get you started till some other folks post.

Richard.

Thanks, Richard!

 

[k1netic]

Hey mate, I work on Grand Turk and can happily say we have no noticeable damage on the west coast of our island. The reef wall starts at 20 feet (dropping to 7000 feet) so is too deep to be affected by the swells that hit the island last September/October. The only difference we are experiencing right now is the rays are in fewer numbers down around Salt Cay but more are returning every day!

I cant report on the other islands reef quality but if you want to dive I would recommend the short flight from Providenciales over to Grand Turk for the wall dive alone.

Book that holiday and we will see you here!

Josh

 

[Doc Harry]

We went diving off Providenciales about 2 months ago, after the huricane. We had planned to go to Grand Turk, but the island still did not have electricity or water. We had never been diving off Providenciales before, so take my words with a grain of salt.

Providenciales sits on a large shallow shelf, so there is an intolerably long boat ride from the island to get out to the edge of the shelf (1 hour). We dove off Providenciales, the West Caicos, and the key at the far southern edge of the shelf. Water depth at the edge of the wall was about 40-50 feet. Due to this depth, you really need to be diving Nitrox to maximize your bottom time.

In the shallows on the shelf, there isn't much to see -- lots of sand and everything seems covered in sand. When you get close to the wall (within 100 feet of the edge), the reef gets really interesting and it looks great. Over the edge, the wall is pretty spectacular in places with very dense and healthy coral formations; reminds me of the Great Barrier Reef from 10 years ago. Lots and lots of reef sharks, too, more than we ever see off Grand Turk. We encountered some really, really strong current on our last dive (West Caicos), but otherwise the current was very slight for the whole week.

The boat rides on Provo were too long for my taste, so we don't think that we will go back to Provo. All in all, we prefer Grand Turk for ease of diving, short boat rides (100 yards), and beautiful walls, but Provo was wonderful and the locals were great.

We have been going to Bohio dive resort on Grand Turk for the past 5-6 years. We love it there, and can't wait to get back to Bohio this year. The top of the wall is 20-30 feet, so you really don't need Nitrox.

Bohio Resort, the wall is 100 yards offshore

Grand Turk Wall

 

[Saboteur]

Has anyone been to Grand Turk in the last month or so? Would appreciate a first hand (customer) report of the topside and subsurface condtions. I'm particularly interested if anyone has been to Bohio resort lately. Thanks.

 

[bobfmdc]

(This comment is not exactly responsive to the main question so ignore it if you want.)

From one response here and several other threads I have perused on SB, it appears that the underwater damage is small. In a pitiful way, that is not surprising, because many of the middle and southern sites were decimated by coral bleaching prior to the hurricane and sanding from the cruise ship channel (English Point is a notable exception).

That said, the main Grand Turk damage for the tourist (we have been there at least 12 times in 20 years) is price escalation. GT has always been expensive, relatively speaking. However, my quick survey of the hotel and guest house rates indicate a 20-30% increase compared to pre-hurricane rates last year. Dive rates, similarly have increased yet again. Our favorite dive shop dropped its 6-for-the-price-of-5 dive days discount and raised their base rates. The net effect is a 40% increase in dive cost.

By way of a positive note (act quick), Bohio is offering a 30% "discount" on their rooms through March 31, 2018. It turns out that you can go ala carte on rooms, food and diving for a 7 day trip about 10% cheaper than their current dive/room package ($3644 for 2 people for 7 days and 5 days of 2 tank diving). Please note that I am not advocating Bohio. I have never stayed there, but I know it is a beautiful place.

One final note from experience--time your trip according to the tides if you can. There is a shallow harbor on the northern end of Grand Turk that dumps into the ocean when tides are running out (going from high to low tide). It takes a couple of hours for the mess to get out to the wall from the high tide time, and a couple of hours for the sites to clear after the low tide point. I have been up there on a dive when the wall of dirty water hits and seen the vis drop from 100' of beautiful blue to 20' of yellow water in a matter of minutes. These are potentially the prettiest sites on the island, and are the closest to the Bohio.

 

[PatW]

I was at Grand Turk a month ago. The reefs looked fine. The corals did not seem to have suffered any noticeable damage. The reefs were not buried in sand which happens sometimes in major storms.

 

[Saboteur]

(This comment is not exactly responsive to the main question so ignore it if you want.)

From one response here and several other threads I have perused on SB, it appears that the underwater damage is small. In a pitiful way, that is not surprising, because many of the middle and southern sites were decimated by coral bleaching prior to the hurricane and sanding from the cruise ship channel (English Point is a notable exception).

That said, the main Grand Turk damage for the tourist (we have been there at least 12 times in 20 years) is price escalation. GT has always been expensive, relatively speaking. However, my quick survey of the hotel and guest house rates indicate a 20-30% increase compared to pre-hurricane rates last year. Dive rates, similarly have increased yet again. Our favorite dive shop dropped its 6-for-the-price-of-5 dive days discount and raised their base rates. The net effect is a 40% increase in dive cost.

By way of a positive note (act quick), Bohio is offering a 30% "discount" on their rooms through March 31, 2018. It turns out that you can go ala carte on rooms, food and diving for a 7 day trip about 10% cheaper than their current dive/room package ($3644 for 2 people for 7 days and 5 days of 2 tank diving). Please note that I am not advocating Bohio. I have never stayed there, but I know it is a beautiful place.

One final note from experience--time your trip according to the tides if you can. There is a shallow harbor on the northern end of Grand Turk that dumps into the ocean when tides are running out (going from high to low tide). It takes a couple of hours for the mess to get out to the wall from the high tide time, and a couple of hours for the sites to clear after the low tide point. I have been up there on a dive when the wall of dirty water hits and seen the vis drop from 100' of beautiful blue to 20' of yellow water in a matter of minutes. These are potentially the prettiest sites on the island, and are the closest to the Bohio.

I was going to take advantage of the special, but the resort is not at 100% since the storm. Still some repairs going on and the pool is out of service (this was a few weeks ago). Best to check before you go if the pool is an issue for you.

 

[drrich2]

That said, the main Grand Turk damage for the tourist (we have been there at least 12 times in 20 years) is price escalation. GT has always been expensive, relatively speaking. However, my quick survey of the hotel and guest house rates indicate a 20-30% increase compared to pre-hurricane rates last year. Dive rates, similarly have increased yet again. Our favorite dive shop dropped its 6-for-the-price-of-5 dive days discount and raised their base rates. The net effect is a 40% increase in dive cost.

Appreciate this bit; I've repeatedly read that Provo is an expensive dive destination (at least if done land-based, not live-aboard), often compared to Grand Cayman in terms of cost. I don't recall hearing that about Grand Turk, so good to know.

Richard.