Bonaire, Turks and caicos and Grand Cayman...Which one?

[CanadianTravelAgent]

diversteve is right...what do you want to see while you are diving?

Bonaire has amazing life - some fish species that I haven't seen up in Turks/Cayman. However, no big life as has been pointed out. I find shore diving to be much more difficult. We opted to go out on the boats and just did a few shore dives. The pier was an amazing dive. Sorry to hear the site will be impacted by cruise ships. It's been many years since I've been.

Turks and Caicos - I've been to all of the islands except for South Caicos. Depending on the time of year, you could do Grand Turk or Salt Cay and get the thrill of a lifetime with humpback whale encounters (Feb-March and snorkelling). Short boat rides to dive sites. Provo - I will take the longer boat rides any day for almost guaranteed shark encounters at West Caicos, French Cay, and Sandbourne Channel. We've even seen manta rays and hammerheads in the channel. We recently stayed at Beaches and they took us over to French Cay in the same amount of time as it took to get to West Caicos. The only other time I've been to French Cay was on a liveaboard. When we travel with kids, Beaches is our only option and we've managed some amazing dives with them. But there is no shortage of condo or villa-type accommodations if you want both a resort feel and the option of doing your own cooking or dining out. Every meal I've ever eaten on Provo has been incredible. On Provo, most of the best restaurants are within other resorts, so you might find yourself walking along the beach rather than walking through "town".

Cayman - I've only been to Little Cayman. The wall is beautiful and pristine with lots of fish life. Might get a glimpse of a shark from a distance. No town to walk around here! I've been looking at The Reef Resort on the east end of the island for a client. Looks like it might be a good spot for both all-inclusive and diving on Grand Cayman - but it is far from the main drag of 7 mile beach.

 

[Alex777]

"but it is far from the main drag of 7 mile beach."

About a 1-hour drive.

 

[buton]

I might be thinking about bonaire... still the shore diving idea looks like is a lot of effort in draggin tanks back and for, unload load etc....which hotel in bonaire has the best house reef,, i will not mind some boat diving and in the afternoon use the house reef to dive a little more..

 

[diverjen]

I might be thinking about bonaire... still the shore diving idea looks like is a lot of effort in draggin tanks back and for, unload load etc....which hotel in bonaire has the best house reef,, i will not mind some boat diving and in the afternoon use the house reef to dive a little more..

That's a whole different thread and its been asked a lot. I am such a newbie and have only been there once but did a lot of research and also wanted a fantastic house reef with a streamlined setup. We chose Bari reef ( in front of Den Laman and Sand Dollar) which has some of the best fish diversity in the Caribbean. We were not disappointed and did a lot of dives there all were great and we did not get bored with it. There are other favorites if you search "house reef" in the ABC forum you will get a lot of answers.

 

[mikeycanuk]

Beaches resort? Seriously....

Provo has nice places to eat however we got back to our villa around 3-4pm and were starving. So we tended to eat in the villa and have a few Turks Head while cleaning our wetsuits and other gear. So we only ate out once in 7days and that was our day off before we flew out. Sure the sharks are cool but the boat rides are too long. We did Salt Cay the 8 days prior to Provo. Being done by noon was the bomb. Going to Grand Turk for the full 2 weeks this Dec /Jan. hopefully the best of both salt cay and Provo.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[jameseg]

Some great advice so far. I've been to all three (except I went to Cayman Brac, not Grand Cayman), and you really can't go wrong with any of them. One consideration, which I haven't seen yet, is which islands will be eaier to travel to in the future, when you have the mother in law and baby in tow. Do those islands later, and do the more challenging (from cost or logisitics perspective) one now. I'm not sure which one that is, to be honest, but perhaps others can comment.

As far as my preference, I would lean towards Bonaire. All of our trips to these places were fantastic (note that T&C was via liveaboard, which influences my opinion a lot), but there was something very special about Bonaire. The freedom to dive whenever, the adventure of pulling off at random points on the road and diving there, the terrific restaurants after a long day of diving, the simplicity of booking the trip....all of it added up to an unforgettable vacation that I plan to repeat some day. And that's saying something, as my wife and I tend to prefer trying new places over revisiting ones we've already been to.

Hope that helps,
James