Questions about T&C starting depths

[Damselfish]

We've only dove Turks and Caicos once (a week on the Wind Dancer when it was doing Grand Turk & South Caicos) then spent some time diving West Caicos with Caicos Adventures. I was thinking of doing the T&C Aggressor or Explorer sometime soon, but my husband isn't keen on the idea. From what he remembers, all the sites on West Caicos started deep. He's a big guy who uses air a bit, and also a photographer. Diving deep is not a problem but he prefers sites where a lot of time can be spent shallower, rather than on a wall that starts at 60ft and nothing but hanging in the water column above that. (Yes we are fans of Little Cayman.)

So my question is, can someone who's been on one of those boats tell me what the sites they are diving start at? Everything I read talks about max depths. If they do some sites around NW corner, what are they like? How about French Cay, or anyplace else they go? I'm thinking/hoping maybe they have some good shallower sites to do so they're not trying to do 4-5 deep dives a day, but I really have no idea.

 

[mikerault]

I have only done Grand Turk. There are a range of depths there, and over a dozen or more dive sites where the wall top ranges from 20-30 ft down to 60 ft and of course the wall tips over to 3000 plus. Sorry, not much help I guess. Usually at GT they do a deep dive first, start at the top of the wall then over it to the planned depth. As long as it was two of you they probably would allow you to stay at the top of the wall as long as you paralleled the group or stayed near the boat.

Mike

 

[Tom Winters]

The drops aren't sheer - he can putter around on the shallow stuff and work his way down to whatever depth he feels like.

 

[divengolf]

I just got back from a week on the T&C Explorer. We did mostly West Caicos due to weather, but spent some time at French and Northwest Point off Provo.

Typically the wall starts in 50-70 feet and goes from there. But there is plenty to see and photo from the top of the wall landward. We generally started down on the wall and worked back to the top. Probably spent 50%+ of our time above the crest of the wall. Most of us were photos, and we found a lot to shoot in the shallow (<50") areas. The boat typically moors in the shallows so you've got to swim back to it in the shallows anyway.

On the Explorer, he can request a 100 CF tank. I used one and was close to the last one onboard most of the time. Don't know about the Aggressor, but most liveaboards will provide larger tanks if you ask in advance.

PM me if you want any more info on Explorer.