Information on Turks and Caicos Trip?

[Mayor]

In a few weeks I will be off to T&C so I booked with Caicos Adventures for three days. The other days I will spend some time with the Beaches Resort dive op. I'm keeping an open mind about the op and the locations they take us to. The camera and gear is all ready so I will post my trip report with pictures in a few weeks. Kind of like a thank you for helping out. Man, I can not wait to get wet.

I did have a chance to do a little pool time with an 500psi AL80. This got me close to where I need to be for salt water. Thanks for all your help with this trip. The SB members always get me to the better ops and dive locations!

One quick question. How is the golf course on the island? Should I bring my clubs?

 

[Big John]

Mayor - I dove with Beaches a couple of weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They do make you do a check out in the pool if you do not have a recent logged dive, 3 months I think. It is about a 10 minute process, gear set up, giant stride, and mask clear. The diving at West Caicos is better and fortunately weather forced us into diving there or Northwest Point more days than Grace Bay. When it gets churned up in the bay Beaches will make the 45 minute run to WC. Beaches tanks are AL80 or smaller, I asked about the availability of larger tanks and they were unable to get them, they do get nitrox from another dive op but it is $20 a tank. For a dive op that is both high volume and free I thought they did a great job. Dives were timed to 45 minutes which seemed to be a pretty good run time. Caicos Adventures leaves from the Southside Marina that Beaches uses when it runs to WC and the looked to be a good op, a trip booked with them would at least guarantee you a run to WC.

As for the Golf, I kicked that nasty habit years ago,but the course is a mile or two from the resort and looks nice. It is fairly flat but from the road looked to be in great shape and well maintained.

John

 

[Mayor]

Trip Report...

My wife and I dove with Beaches and also enjoyed the experience. The staff was very good and really went out of there way for you. Of course I still tipped them like every other op even if it was included in the trip. We had to dive 60ft/45min profile due to my wife's OW card but that was ok. The advanced group did a 100ft/45 min profile but really never went below 80ft. They did make the trip out to the northwest point two days which was very nice. The only thing that started to bug me was the short bottom times. Beaches tanks are AL80 that were always short filled to 2700. Not a big deal when I'm back on the boat in 45min / 50min with 1500 but what a waste of a tank. Aldora in Cozumel really messed me up with huge bottom times. Anyway here are a few shots I took with my little point and shoot. Enjoy the dive and tell Marco I said hi!

North Wall
Chimney
Pinnacle
Grouper Hole
Football Fields
Thunderdome
Aquarium
The Crack
Piranha
Theater

 

[Mayor]

Here are a few more.

 

[Mayor]

Now the last of them.