Provo Dive Operations Recommendations

[cblauner]

Folks;

I am going to Turks and Caicos (Provo) for vacation in a few weeks and my son (16) and I want to do a lot of diving. I am looking for recommendations about the best dive operator on the island.

A couple of things I am looking for are: Nitrox, and UW Photographer friendly. We also like the ability to set up our gear on the boat the first day and not really deal with our gear until the last dive at the end of the week, but that is not an absolute requirement.

Any thoughts and recommendations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Charles

 

[koozemani]

Don't know about the nitrox, but flamingo divers offers the rest. They're a small husband wife operation with no more than 8 divers. Actually, in hind sight, two of the divers were diving nitrox. 6 of the others divers had brought their own gear which was waiting for them on the boat each morning. They usually head out to west Caicos.

I also used dive Provo. They're a much larger op with bigger more crowded boats. Service was still good though.

 

[editmojo]

Flamingo has nitrox. Not cheap on Provo. I think $15 extra a tank. Mickey does his own air fills but gets nitrox from a fill service. He will keep your gear and have it waiting for you each morning. Book early as they limit the trips to 8 divers. They will pick you up if you are staying on or close to resort row on Grace bay. They will take you to the better southern sites.

Flamingo would be my first choice. Also dove with Ocean Vibes and Turtle divers. OV will hit the south sites also. Bigger boats with more people but I was there in August so it was not very crowded. Turtle Divers is out of Turtle Cove on the north side and only took us to the very busy north wall sites. Diving was ok but you needed a traffic cop as all the resorts hit those site pretty hard.

 

[tkaelin]

My 17 year old daughter and I dove T&C in July. We dove with dive provo and stayed at the Comfort Suites. They fit your description. Drop off your gear arrival day or first day of diving and they will have it all set up for you every day and they switch the tanks between dives. Camera friendly with camera only rinse tanks and they will hand you your camera and take it from you on entry/extis. I really liked the outfit. See my review on trip advisor. The 3 tank safari was enjoyable - well worth it if you have the time and the weather is good. We had long dive days - which we loved. On the 3 tank safari we made it out to French Caye - we were at the dive shop at 8 AM and I don't think we returned until 6 PM. On our two tank to West Caicos we were back around 4 PM. On our two tank to Grace Bay we were back around 2 PM. Mandatory 1 hr surface intervals between dives. Would recommend.

 

[kavatski]

Another vote for Flamingo Divers. We've dived with them on all three of our previous TCI trips and am actually trying to book with them again right now for our next visit. Great people and service. We have gone out with them with as few as two other divers on the boat and enjoyed the more personal experience (vs. a large boat).

That said, we've also dived with Ocean Vibes on a day when Flamingo were booked, and they were also excellent. Their boat is larger, but the day we went I believe there were only 5-6 of us, so it worked out well.

 

[Wah]

If you are going in September, than your only options are Dive Provo and Caicos Adventures. I know this because I am going labor day week and I contacted a few dive ops and they all told me that they were closed for the month of september. They all referred me to the two I just mentioned. I ended up reserving with Caicos Adventures.

EDIT: You may want to check with the dive ops you are interested in booking with just to make sure. I know for the week that I'm going they will be closed but I'm not sure when they are starting up again.