Question Diving Grand Turk vs West Caicos and French

[AnaBannanaaa]

Hello Scuba Board,

We are hoping to make a trip to Turks and Caicos. I read a good amount about Provo and Grand Turk and their respective dive sites. I understand Provo dives are further from the shore and Grand Turk dives are closer to the shore. Also, I have a good feel for the vibe of each area from my reading.

We like fishy sites, lots of corals. We like big fish specifically turtles and eagle rays, but don’t want to go to sites just for shark action. We like swim throughs but do not necessarily want to dive just to do swim throughs. We like interesting landscapes.

We plan to do a few days in Provo to do the West Caicos and French Cay dives, is it worth to go to Grand Turk just for diving the Grand Turk wall? We will be there in Feb during the migration, and not sure if that makes the Grand Turk wall extra special?

We are thinking of passing on diving at North West Point at Provo. Black coral forest dive spot sounds interesting, but it seems we may see a lot of the North West Point stuff on West Caicos. Would you agree?

Your personal experiences would be helpful to hear. Tired of chatting with the bots.

 

[matt9122]

We just got back from a trip and dove the west side. We mostly stayed on the NW and down to West Caicos. The walls were beautiful with barely any current and great viz. Plenty of mooring balls too. I didn't get over to Grand Turk, as I was told the west side is the best diving. I also didn't make it down to French. I'll be curious to find out next year how it compares. If youre on your own boat, I'd say to go explore, if not, I'd just stick with that west end.

 

[tdfuller]

We just got back August 8th. Our second time to Caicos and second time to Beaches Resort. Not been to Grand Turk yet. All dives off Providenciales; usually right off the north side and Grace Bay Beach, but in April 2024 we took a boat and did some dives off the south side of Providenciales. Seems like I saw just as much different wildlife right off the reef off Grace Bay Beach with shallower dives; which were with less experienced divers or divers working on getting certified.

The August 2025 trip my two oldest kids changed their mind while on the trip and decided to go scuba for the first time, after I failed to convince anyone in my family during/after the April 2024 trip. Turns out seems like noticed more wildlife with them on these shallower dives than with dives without them, when I was with similar AOW certified divers many of whom seemed to talk about "how deep" they dove as much as "what they saw."

Here are two vids I made from both trips. May not help much. Made with my Garmin VIRB Ultra 30 which is built for aviation videos but I take in a waterproof case while diving. The first video I noted by titling in it a handful of fishy things we spotted besides just sharks.





Both vids are 1080p HD wide.