Diving South Caicos? Is it any good?

[eleniel]

I am pretty sure I would be the one calling the dive if the swells are 5 feet or more. That is a one way ticket to a miserable afternoon feeling seasick for me to try to dive in conditions like that. I assume in the 4-5' swells they were doing the surface intervals back at the dock?

Surface intervals were at sea (with the exception of one interval). A few divers had pretty bad issues with seasickness most days.
The biggest issue though really was getting people back on the boat after the dive. They ended up using a line and the divemasters pulled people up to the ladder (and then up onto the boat) while timing the swells so divers were much less likely to get beat to death by the ladder. I'm pretty comfortable timing boarding and even I ended up with more than a couple bruises (and I'm the graceful one).

 

[Cornellxc]

1-1.5m swell from the East is the norm not the exception from December-April. We’re able to have much more consistent diving on grand turk because the wall is on the west side and benefits from the islands shadow. I’m interested to see what happens with all the money they’ve invested. I know a number of their dm’s are sending applications to GT operators. I’m hoping they succeed for the good of south caicos but they are going to consistently run into problems during the winter due to swell.

 

[AggieDiver]

I haven’t even managed to set foot on South Caicos yet, and my opinion at this point is that I will never go back. This has been an absolute nightmare trying to get there and I am not even all the way there yet. We missed the last flight to SC yesterday afternoon due to the absolute shitshow that is the PLS airport and have been sitting in the PLS domestic departure lounge since 745a waiting on our “830a” Intercaribbean flight. It is now 1130a and we have no definitive word on when or how they actually plan to get us to South Caicos, but miraculously they have managed to get three flights out to Grand Turk in that same timeframe. They are over 3 hours late and we have not heard the word “sorry” once and they all seem to act like we are imposing on their day by asking why they cant let us go in stead of one of the Grant Turk groups.

The diving could be better than Little Cayman and I wouldn’t be willing to go through this to get there. I am thinking the Reef Divers folks are going to face a VERY difficult task getting the rate of return visitors they are used to on Brac and Little if they insist on running packages from Sat to Sat.

 

[AggieDiver]

I will say at this point that what I posted above was born out of extreme frustration with the lack of communication from Intercaribbean. I will have a longer post and trip report when we get back to sum things up, but sitting here at the end of the week, this place has a lot going for it, and there are situations under which I would come back. But for a pure diving trip, I would not pick it over Little Cayman unless I was all about wanting to see eagle rays, sharks, and huge stingrays. The reefs and fish populations on LC are much healthier, and there is more to see on the average dive, but the eagle rays and stingrays really are massive here On South Caicos.

 

[Cornellxc]

Unfortunately, you picked a week where PLS was as messed up as I've ever seen it. I returned on Monday but had 2 cancelled intercaribbean flights on my way to and from GT. TCI is an adventure at the best of times. I would strongly recommend not booking weekend travel if at all possible during the busy season. Sorry you had to deal with it, I know your frustration. At least the food at Gilleys is good. Interested to hear the trip report. We had lots of whales last week, hope you at least got to hear some.

 

[AggieDiver]

Yeah, I think a base condition for any trip back to South Caicos is going to be that we will not travel on Saturday. That will butt up hard against Reef Divers’ desire to book all their packages Sat-Sat for their best package rates. We will see how that works out for them.

 

[tridacna]

Yeah, I think a base condition for any trip back to South Caicos is going to be that we will not travel on Saturday. That will butt up hard against Reef Divers’ desire to book all their packages Sat-Sat for their best package rates. We will see how that works out for them.

Beside the fabulous rooms, what was your opinion of the diving?

 

[AggieDiver]

Beside the fabulous rooms, what was your opinion of the diving?

Well here is the rub...we were supposed to get there Sat afternoon and do 2 tanks a day for 6 days. Instead, due to screwups by Southwest and Intercaribbean, we got there Sunday afternoon. We were both exhausted and feeling run down for at least a day after we got there. The winds were blowing about 20-23 mph from the E and SE every day. So we didn’t even try any afternoon dives, we skipped one set of morning dives when it was really rough and we both didn’t feel up to diving, and the op was unable to go out on Friday morning because it was too rough. So I am basing this on 6 dives at 5 sites, and they are pretty much the five sites closest to the channel coming from town. Bear in mind that my sample size is quite limited and probably doesn’t include the best sites they have to offer.

With that said, I thought the reefs looked very unhealthy, particularly in less than about 35 feet of water, and there was a distinct lack of small to medium sized fish. And the typical schooling fish like grunts and snapper were smaller and sparser than we are used to seeing elsewhere. On the other hand, we saw at least one shark on every deep dive, several huge turtles, including a very large male hawksbill, the largest eagle ray I have ever seen, and large resting stingrays on every dive. We saw two humpback whales during the surface interval between dives, the other divers saw wild dolphins underwater just before their safety stop on an afternoon dive we skipped, and I am pretty sure I heard both whales and dolphins nearby while diving.

So while the reefs were not lush and covered with schools of fish, there was not necessarily a shortage of exciting things to see. I think super macro photogs and fish nerds would be bored out of their minds, but pelagic fans might really enjoy the diving there. For me, it was less enjoyable than Little Cayman, largely because of the more structured and follow the leader guided dive style, the reef condition, and the choppy conditions (we usually go to LC in Aug-sep when it is flat as a pancake). I would like to go back sometime and get a larger sample size on which to fully form an opinion, but my opinion as of now is that I like it better than Coz due to the pelagics on offer and the lack of currents (not a drift diving fan) but I would put Brac and Little quite a ways above it.

 

[tridacna]

Well here is the rub...we were supposed to get there Sat afternoon and do 2 tanks a day for 6 days. Instead, due to screwups by Southwest and Intercaribbean, we got there Sunday afternoon. We were both exhausted and feeling run down for at least a day after we got there. The winds were blowing about 20-23 mph from the E and SE every day. So we didn’t even try any afternoon dives, we skipped one set of morning dives when it was really rough and we both didn’t feel up to diving, and the op was unable to go out on Friday morning because it was too rough. So I am basing this on 6 dives at 5 sites, and they are pretty much the five sites closest to the channel coming from town. Bear in mind that my sample size is quite limited and probably doesn’t include the best sites they have to offer.

With that said, I thought the reefs looked very unhealthy, particularly in less than about 35 feet of water, and there was a distinct lack of small to medium sized fish. And the typical schooling fish like grunts and snapper were smaller and sparser than we are used to seeing elsewhere. On the other hand, we saw at least one shark on every deep dive, several huge turtles, including a very large male hawksbill, the largest eagle ray I have ever seen, and large resting stingrays on every dive. We saw two humpback whales during the surface interval between dives, the other divers saw wild dolphins underwater just before their safety stop on an afternoon dive we skipped, and I am pretty sure I heard both whales and dolphins nearby while diving.

So while the reefs were not lush and covered with schools of fish, there was not necessarily a shortage of exciting things to see. I think super macro photogs and fish nerds would be bored out of their minds, but pelagic fans might really enjoy the diving there. For me, it was less enjoyable than Little Cayman, largely because of the more structured and follow the leader guided dive style, the reef condition, and the choppy conditions (we usually go to LC in Aug-sep when it is flat as a pancake). I would like to go back sometime and get a larger sample size on which to fully form an opinion, but my opinion as of now is that I like it better than Coz due to the pelagics on offer and the lack of currents (not a drift diving fan) but I would put Brac and Little quite a ways above it.

You nailed it. Good review. For me, the acommodation was better than the diving. And the conditions are iffy at best. I’m hearing story after story of missed dives. I’m off to LCBR in Nov/Dec.

 

[AggieDiver]

To be fair, if I went to LC in late October and only dove the south side due to NE winds and high seas, I would probably have a different opinion of that place as well. I have missed quite a few dives due to rough seas in Oct in LC. The RD folks have only been there since September, and it sounds like winter is fairly windy. Will be interesting to see if anything changes in June-Aug if the Bermuda high drops those winds any.