Diving South Caicos? Is it any good?

[AggieDiver]

DP

 

[AggieDiver]

TP

 

[Cornellxc]

Just letting y'all know, expect the unexpected when it comes to booked flights in TCI. As much as I want to think that the RD people have there ducks in a row with all this stuff, TCI is a different animal. I don't know of anything that runs smoothly there when government/businesses are involved (except for rum of course). Anyway, winter time they tend to just randomly cut off the last flights of the day due to darkness or booking logistics. I hope I'm wrong but I will be shocked if there's not a level of clusterfxck with this whole operation.

 

[AggieDiver]

Thanks for the heads up on that. They have relatively recently installed lights at the South Caicos airport, so I am not sure darkness is the limitation it might have been in the past. In looking at the schedule recently, the last flight was moved an hour later than what I had been seeing, and at least on the Saturday I am booked in March, it appears they are using the Brasilia, not the Twin Otter, for that last flight for larger capacity. So I do think that Intercaribbean is trying to be responsive to what the RD folks are trying to accomplish.

 

[cm2012ss]

S

South Caicos is spectacular diving. Slim Pickens on accomodation/diving. Give Sailrock a call and see who's currently running dive charters. I have a house on GT, absolutely go.

South Caicos reef is bleached. Very sad. Expensive. I’d go to Cozumel!!!!!!

 

[AggieDiver]

S

South Caicos reef is bleached. Very sad. Expensive. I’d go to Cozumel!!!!!!

Interesting first ever post. Tell us more about your recent trip there. Who did you stay and dive with? What dives sites were you on that gave you this opinion?

 

[cm2012ss]

Stayed at East Bay Resort dove with Reef Divers. Dove The Grotto, Good Call, Hawksbill Hostel, The Arch, The Airplane

Very rough windy conditions Day 2 of cancelled diving.

 

[tridacna]

I agree with @cm2012ss

Reefs ARE bleached. Diving is meh and very easily blown out. Fabulous resort but not such fabulous diving. One week in October with two days of diving lost to wind.

 

[drrich2]

Very rough windy conditions Day 2 of cancelled diving.

Diving is meh and very easily blown out.

One week in October with two days of diving lost to wind.

I'm interested to see if this issue proves to be a common one going forward, as more trip reports filter in over time.

Some destinations are prone for being prone to get 'blown out' of diving a day or two from time to time (hello, Cozumel!), some may have more restricted issues (e.g.: I've read the shore diving at Cobalt Coast Resort in Grand Cayman gets blown out fairly often; CocoView Resort in Roatan's night diving was blown out a few days my week in May, but day diving was fine), and some places rarely have issues (e.g.: Bonaire's mainstream west coast diving).

If South Caicos is an up and coming contender as a mainstream Caribbean dive resort destination, and the competition is fierce, how likely people are to miss diving due to weather might be good to know.

 

[tridacna]

I'm interested to see if this issue proves to be a common one going forward, as more trip reports filter in over time.

Some destinations are prone for being prone to get 'blown out' of diving a day or two from time to time (hello, Cozumel!), some may have more restricted issues (e.g.: I've read the shore diving at Cobalt Coast Resort in Grand Cayman gets blown out fairly often; CocoView Resort in Roatan's night diving was blown out a few days my week in May, but day diving was fine), and some places rarely have issues (e.g.: Bonaire's mainstream west coast diving).

If South Caicos is an up and coming contender as a mainstream Caribbean dive resort destination, and the competition is fierce, how likely people are to miss diving due to weather might be good to know.

They dive on the windward side. Leeward is too shallow. This makes it very susceptible to problematic wind gusts.