Dumb question about Grand Turk

[razor]

I used to goto Grand Turk(1982 timeframe) when I was alot younger and had no interest in diving. The was a military installation on that Island that supported launches from Cape Canaveral. Is that the same island that I hear about on this board. If my memory serves me it was pretty desolate and some of the guys I went with said the snorkeling was amazing.

If this is the same Island I would love to go back and do some diving there!

Can anybody add any insight.

BTW I used to goto Ascension and a large Island in the Bahamas called Andros. Does any body know of diving at those locations?

Regards

Ray

 

[donacheson]

razor once bubbled...
I used to goto Grand Turk(1982 timeframe) when I was alot younger and had no interest in diving. The was a military installation on that Island that supported launches from Cape Canaveral. Is that the same island that I hear about on this board. If my memory serves me it was pretty desolate and some of the guys I went with said the snorkeling was amazing.

If this is the same Island I would love to go back and do some diving there!

Can anybody add any insight.

BTW I used to goto Ascension and a large Island in the Bahamas called Andros. Does any body know of diving at those locations?

That's the same Grand Turk. Diving is very good there. It's still a bit quaint, but I suspect nothing like it was 20 years ago.

Small Hope Bay Lodge operates on Andros Island, quite near the US Navy facility. I haven't been there for several years, but SHBL used to be a lovely, rustic place offering varied (reef, wall, bluehole, and wreck) diving. The last time I was there, there weren't many large fish to be seen.


Regards

Ray

 

[5615mike]

razor

Do a search under Grand Turk. There are several people on this board who have huge amounts of info on GT and they have posted it on the board. I plan on making that trip next year myself. Did quite a bit of research on GT myself and the diving is outstanding. I like that fact that it is quite and not many people there. Very small island.

 

[donacheson]

donacheson once bubbled...

Interesting! The last 2 paragraphs of the previous mesage I posted were attributed to Razor. A bug? It appears as if one can edit the quotatation of the content of an earlier message.

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

5615mike once bubbled...
I plan on making that trip next year myself. Did quite a bit of research on GT myself and the diving is outstanding. I like that fact that it is quite and not many people there. Very small island.

I'll be there in January, 2004. When you going?

 

[ggunn]

donacheson once bubbled...


Interesting! The last 2 paragraphs of the previous mesage I posted were attributed to Razor. A bug? It appears as if one can edit the quotatation of the content of an earlier message.

If you type in your reply before the "end quote" tag, it looks like this...

whereas if you type it after the tag it looks like this.

 

[tvictory]

It's the same Grand Turk. The military installation is long-abandoned but is in fact the place where John Glenn was retrieved from his original space shot. The diving on Grand Turk is excellent. The island is quaint with wild horses and donkeys about. I've heard that in December large cruise ships will start calling at Grand Turk which will undoubtedly alter the island's character.

Small Hope Bay Lodge still operates on Andros. It's still a good place to stay but in recent years algae has overwhelmed the reef.

 

[scubaho]

Island is 6 miles long and 2-3 mi. wide. Small and friendly folks. I just got back mid Aug. from there and diving is one of the top 3 destinations in the caribbean.(IMHO). Most dive sites are 5-10 minutes away! Surface intervals are spent back at the dive shop. We dove with Oasis divers and stayed at the Osprey. Great wall dives and enjoyed the pier dives! At the pier you will find 2 varieties of seahorses, Shortsnout Batfish, Octos, Squid, puffers, and lots of other goodies! Some of our group saw spotted eagle rays, nurse sharks, 1 hammerhead was spotted also!

Spend the $125.00 extra and goto Grand Turk and forget Provo!

Hope this helps!

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

scubaho once bubbled...
1 hammerhead was spotted also!

I have never seen a spotted hammerhead!

 

[ScubaRon]

Yes it's the same Grand Turk.

Diving is very very good, but there is absolutely nothing else to do on the island. There are basically 4 small hotels, one restaurant and a small but nice museum. Oh, and 4 dive centers! No shops, no nightlife.

Diving is quite easy: the wall runs parallel to the coastline at about 200-600m distance. Small boats take you there and in between dives you usually go back to shore.

Snorkeling is quite poor except for a small reef at the far northern point of the island.
ScubaRon