krukster86
Contributor
I just wanted to give a writeup of my recent dive vacation to Turks and Caicos (Providenciales) with Dive Provo in August as a resource for anyone looking to do the same:
Diving with Dive Provo:
A nice well run shop with great communication via email. It is located next to the hotel that we were staying at (Ports of Call), so it was a breeze to walk to. For booking dives, I would suggest booking dive trips in advance as you get a discounted rate. Additionally, we overheard some walk ins trying to schedule some diving, but it sounded like they were booked solid for at least a week out. Mind you this was also "low season"!
Dive Provo does one two-tank trip a day, with the exception of Tuesdays, which has an option of a third tank dive. We booked a six-day package and we bounced around between West Caicos, Grace Bay, Pine Cay, and Northwest Point. For any trips to West Caicos, I HIGHLY recommend that you ask for Nitrox, as these dives are relatively deep and you will have a really short second (or third dive) if you are breathing air. All the diving was wall "drift" diving, but we never really experienced any significant current. There is a good balance of both Macrofauna and Megafauna on these dives, so it is good to keep your head on a swivel, as you may miss out on either! Some highlights for macro: neck/decorator crabs, beautiful nudibranch, baby smooth trunkfish, pederson shrimp, blennies and gobies. Highlights for megafauna: sea turtles, sting rays, nurse sharks, spotted and green moray eels, reef sharks, barracuda, spotted eagle rays, tiger groupers, dolphins, schools of jack. We had an amazing flyby encounter with a pod of dolphins underwater as we were coming up from our safety stop. Meeting eye to eye with a dolphin underwater was such a cool experience, I still get a chill thinking about it!
Your dive day begins at the dive shop each day. From there, you take a 10 minute bus ride to one of two marinas, where there is a roll call and check to ensure all your dive gear is on hand before departure. The trips out to Grace Bay are really short (15 minutes) and you get some fruit for a snack during your surface intervals. The trips out to Northwest Point, Pine Cay, and West Caicos are a lot longer (45 min to 1 hr and 15 min), and they provide you with some sandwiches as well. Keep an eye out for playful dolphins who will ride the wake of the boat and treat you to some acrobatics! If you are diving multiple days, you leave your gear packed up on the boat and the dive crew will set up your BCD and regulator on a tank when you come in the next day. I am not 100% sure if our gear was rinsed after each day, might have been more of a hose down of all the gear in the gear bag. The dive guides give a good briefing before each dive about the layout of the dive site, pathwways to take, what to see, dive profile / max depth, and their expectations for turnaround point, safety stop, getting back on the boat, etc. What we really liked about Dive Provo is that the dive guides are only there to point out cool stuff, and you are able to dive your own dive. This was great because my wife and I usually avoid the crowd, dive slowly and stop and look in every nook and cranny for an interesting critter. After 1 dive the guides pretty much can figure out "ok these guys are cool and I don't need to hover over them like a helicopter parent".
What I thought was interesting was the concentration of life here was a lot different than other places I have gone diving in the carribean. There were a lot of sharks, lobsters, encounters with dolphins, and a LOT of groupers. What I didn't see too much of: crabs, shrimp, smooth trunkfish, or spotted drums.
Our Stay in Providenciales:
We stayed at Ports of Call Resort right across the street from Dive Provo. Despite the name, it really is just a hotel without the all-inclusive offerings. You get a continental breakfast and a room, and you are on your own from there. I wasn't able to afford an all-inclusive resort, so I didn't mind at all. The only thing I didn't like about it, is that the rooms do not have a balcony for drying off your gear on your offgas day before departure. They do have a metal "cage" where you can do this, but they recommend that you rent a lock. I risked it without a lock for a 1/2 day and had no issues.
I brought my DSLR to take photos on land, but honestly, I didn't really see anything that caught my eye. Providenciales seemed to be pretty featureless.
For dining, what really caught me off guard was the prices. Turks and Caicos has like a 40% tariff on goods, so everything is expensive. We did a shopping run to an IGA for snacks and that came out to be around $50. Every time we went out to eat dinner in town, we spent between $60-130 for two people.
Recommendations:
Diving with Dive Provo:
A nice well run shop with great communication via email. It is located next to the hotel that we were staying at (Ports of Call), so it was a breeze to walk to. For booking dives, I would suggest booking dive trips in advance as you get a discounted rate. Additionally, we overheard some walk ins trying to schedule some diving, but it sounded like they were booked solid for at least a week out. Mind you this was also "low season"!
Dive Provo does one two-tank trip a day, with the exception of Tuesdays, which has an option of a third tank dive. We booked a six-day package and we bounced around between West Caicos, Grace Bay, Pine Cay, and Northwest Point. For any trips to West Caicos, I HIGHLY recommend that you ask for Nitrox, as these dives are relatively deep and you will have a really short second (or third dive) if you are breathing air. All the diving was wall "drift" diving, but we never really experienced any significant current. There is a good balance of both Macrofauna and Megafauna on these dives, so it is good to keep your head on a swivel, as you may miss out on either! Some highlights for macro: neck/decorator crabs, beautiful nudibranch, baby smooth trunkfish, pederson shrimp, blennies and gobies. Highlights for megafauna: sea turtles, sting rays, nurse sharks, spotted and green moray eels, reef sharks, barracuda, spotted eagle rays, tiger groupers, dolphins, schools of jack. We had an amazing flyby encounter with a pod of dolphins underwater as we were coming up from our safety stop. Meeting eye to eye with a dolphin underwater was such a cool experience, I still get a chill thinking about it!
Your dive day begins at the dive shop each day. From there, you take a 10 minute bus ride to one of two marinas, where there is a roll call and check to ensure all your dive gear is on hand before departure. The trips out to Grace Bay are really short (15 minutes) and you get some fruit for a snack during your surface intervals. The trips out to Northwest Point, Pine Cay, and West Caicos are a lot longer (45 min to 1 hr and 15 min), and they provide you with some sandwiches as well. Keep an eye out for playful dolphins who will ride the wake of the boat and treat you to some acrobatics! If you are diving multiple days, you leave your gear packed up on the boat and the dive crew will set up your BCD and regulator on a tank when you come in the next day. I am not 100% sure if our gear was rinsed after each day, might have been more of a hose down of all the gear in the gear bag. The dive guides give a good briefing before each dive about the layout of the dive site, pathwways to take, what to see, dive profile / max depth, and their expectations for turnaround point, safety stop, getting back on the boat, etc. What we really liked about Dive Provo is that the dive guides are only there to point out cool stuff, and you are able to dive your own dive. This was great because my wife and I usually avoid the crowd, dive slowly and stop and look in every nook and cranny for an interesting critter. After 1 dive the guides pretty much can figure out "ok these guys are cool and I don't need to hover over them like a helicopter parent".
What I thought was interesting was the concentration of life here was a lot different than other places I have gone diving in the carribean. There were a lot of sharks, lobsters, encounters with dolphins, and a LOT of groupers. What I didn't see too much of: crabs, shrimp, smooth trunkfish, or spotted drums.
Our Stay in Providenciales:
We stayed at Ports of Call Resort right across the street from Dive Provo. Despite the name, it really is just a hotel without the all-inclusive offerings. You get a continental breakfast and a room, and you are on your own from there. I wasn't able to afford an all-inclusive resort, so I didn't mind at all. The only thing I didn't like about it, is that the rooms do not have a balcony for drying off your gear on your offgas day before departure. They do have a metal "cage" where you can do this, but they recommend that you rent a lock. I risked it without a lock for a 1/2 day and had no issues.
I brought my DSLR to take photos on land, but honestly, I didn't really see anything that caught my eye. Providenciales seemed to be pretty featureless.
For dining, what really caught me off guard was the prices. Turks and Caicos has like a 40% tariff on goods, so everything is expensive. We did a shopping run to an IGA for snacks and that came out to be around $50. Every time we went out to eat dinner in town, we spent between $60-130 for two people.
Recommendations:
- CocoVan: A very hip and trendy food vendor based out of an old Airstreamer camping van. They alter the menu every couple of weeks based on what is fresh. We loved it so much we went back again a second time!
- Caravel: Delicious food and drinks. Must be relatively new as there weren't a lot of people there, even at 6/7 PM.
- Turk Kabob: Cheap good Greek/Turkish food. The only place that had dinners at prices that I was used to seeing!
- Kalooki's: A very festive dining establishment downtown that had some cool tropical drinks and delicious seafood. A bit pricey, but I think it was the best food for the money. The herb crusted snapper was amazing!
- Snorkeling at Smith's Reef: Need a taxi to get to Turtle Bay, but honestly, this was well worth it. We snorkeled on our off-gas day and were pleasantly surprised to see healthy coral, sea turtles, lobsters, moray eels, triggerfish, and wrasses so close to shore!
- Thursday Night Fish Fry: Cool for a few minutes, but then you realize that almost every food stall is selling the same food. Either eat your food standing up, or walk it to the beach and find a place to sit in the sand. Chilling at the beach and listening to music from the festival was cool though.
- Crackpot Kitchen: This place was recommended to us by taxi drivers, our hotel, and online. When we went, the service was terrible, wait time for food/service was long, and the food was pretty poor for the price compared to other restaurants with similar prices
- Roads are British style, so you are driving on the left side of the road. Note that some cars have left or right side drive! I am not sure if it is the same for all rental cars. Be prepared to become familiar with roundabouts!
- Unless you are renting a car, taxis are the way to go. Rather than yellow taxi cabs, you are going to be looking for white passenger vans. Getting to/from the airport was around $33 each way. Prices are regulated by the government, and set at fixed increments based on distance, and its cash only. For example, from Ports of Call to Turtle Bay, it is $16 each way. After talking to a few cab drivers, they say you can hail one of these off the street, but we have had better luck with going to a place with a phone and having someone call us a cab. We did have a bad experience where I tipped a driver extra well to pick us up two hours after drop off for a return trip, and he never showed up!
