CelticRavenVA
Guest
* Note: As always, I am writing this from work and don't have time to proof read it*
Well on Saturday I just got home from spending a week in Club Med in T&C Turquoise. I must say it was a hell of a good time. The dive staff down there is great!
We arrived on Saturday around 1pm and proceeded to party as we waited our standard 24 hours, and waited for the last of our party to get in that evening.
First I want to dispel a few myths about club med.
One, It is full of old people. If the average crowd you consider old is 20-35, then you are correct. Were there old people there? Yes some... Were there people there I can hang out with? Yes, the age I saw went from 20-70, with a large concentration on the bracket mentioned above.
Two, Diving through club med is lame. Read on my fellow bubble blowers....
Sunday I was setup on the 10am boat out. Unfortunately the weather was a little bad with strong winds. When I say it was a little bad, there were 8 foot waves that were crashing over the fly deck on the boat. It was turned around and diving was canceled for the day. While at the airport I was speaking with a couple that was down there on one of Aggressor fleet boats and even they canceled diving.
Monday & Tuesday, with some still choppy waters we packed our gear and headed out to sea. As most of you know I am a fairly new diver with a few off the record dives with a buddy of mine prior to this trip. I completed my OW course in January, and was doing my referrals down in T&C over vacation. There were 3 of us doing referrals down there and outside of a few people who haven't learned the art of dramamen the event was nothing more then a little bumpy. I won't bore you with the details of the open water check outs on these two days since most people here have either done them, or teach them allot. I will make a comment though to the quality of my instructor, Bruce Patterson, who was new to the facility down there. He had arrived a week prior. Bruce was top notch to say the very least! Over time I have worked with many instructors in various sports, and recreational activates. Bruce is extremely patient, and very controlled and precise in what he wanted. Not to mention he made the check out dives fun. Usually getting our skills out of the way quickly and taking the group on a short tour of the areas. Bruce if you ever get on here and read this, way to go we all had a great time!
The water everyday, the lowest vis we had the entire week was 60 feet, and this was only in one location for a single dive. The rest of the time vis was over 80 sometimes up to 120.
Wednesday we headed to West Cacios. I was having such a great time with the instructors down there and they were so friendly I decided to do my Advanced Open Water this same week. We boarded the boat at 7:45am, and were underway on the hour and a half trip over to WC. My instructor this day was Naomi, our first dive was a deep dive at 100 feet. After an extensive equipment check on the boat we were off into the water and made a rapid decent down to 100 where we settled on a shelf in a large sandy area. (You could still clearly see the boat at the surface) After doing the basic deep water skills of looking at colors, and math problems to see if you were narc'ed. We went off for a half hour tour, and saw tons of wonderful marine life. Naomi, has a very sharp set of eyes on her as well and brought myself and my dive partner down to look at Christmas Tree Worms that she spotted from over 30 feet away. For those that don't know how big they are, maybe about 2 cm across, and 2 cm high, and they live on sponges. I guess this is the experience you get with having over 1600 dives under your belt like she does.
Our next dive, my partner was doing underwater photography and not to hold up the picture snapping I chose to do Fish Aware since we could do both of those dives and not delay each other. (My dive buddy was doing her AOW also) As we descended among other things we saw, tons of Queen Angelfish, Various butterfly fish, a BIG Green Morey Eel he was about 5-6 feet in length. The standard barracudas which we saw at least one on almost every dive. Lobster, black surgeons, which we also saw lots of, spotted drums, and others that I don't even remember or haven't had time to look up in the books yet.
Our third dive of the day, was a drift dive along a site called Alex's Wall. The site is named after the gentleman who works for club med that found it one day with a handful of instructors from club med. Now I must say this was certainly an impressive area! The life on the sea wall was plentiful and beautiful! Many of the same of the above but the drift dive groups were also paid a visit by a large eagle ray, which this area is known for. For a slightly amusing part of the story, if your and your dive buddy knows some sign language and signs I am sorry, be very clear when you do. It looks very close to out of air..... After my buddy finished laughing her ass off at me as I handed her my primary and started sucking on my AIR2, I sheepishly returned my primary to my mouth and went back to look at the wonderful life on the sea floor.
Between the second and third dives, they had a bbq on the boat for us when we surfaced. The Sea Ray became Shea Bruce, to a spread of steaks, chicken and hot dogs, and cold cut subs. The food was great, and unless you are going on a live aboard where you have your personal chef, excellent for a day trip. We headed back from West Cacios exhausted and very happy with a great day of diving.
Friday, Last day before I head home
my partner has finished her AOW and it is just Naomi and I diving together today. There was a large influx of divers last night and the boat is pretty packed. Some of these divers weren't the brightest group of the bunch either, but that is another story. Doing navigation and multilevel computer/wheel diving on this trip. Focusing heavy on my computer and how to use it in order to make safe dives descending to 80 feet and working our way up. We dropped to 80 feet which was our planned depth, and started to hover. Straight below us about 10 feet Naomi's eagle eyes caught something and we checked the computers, and re worked the dive plan to compensate for the additional time. (Wow we didn't just look at the numbers on the computer and go for it! Big score for the dive staff again IMHO.) We dropped down the wall slightly further and behold an enenime that was about as large as 2 softballs. These are rather rare in this area from what I am told and they are also one of the things I wanted to see the most. After staying and looking at this creature in awe, we turned left and headed down the wall ascending to 60' where 2 dolphins got curious and came to check us out. They made 3 passes within 10 feet of us and headed down toward the bottom not to be seen again. My buddy was right, the first time you see them you are awe stuck. I was shocked and excited, and noticed I was sucking through my air like a cheerleader.... Ummm never mind... I was sucking though air pretty quick. After the dolphins descended we moved up to a sandy shelf around 40 feet and slowly headed back to the boat. Garden eels populated the sand bed and we had a reef shark following us most of the way back to the boat.
All in all the resort was wonderful, the dive staff was great, the food all around was great. The casino up the street was lame, I have had better games playing at the fraternity house in college. I would recommend the location and resort to anyone interested in going to Turks and Cacios.
The other thing I reccomend is making sure you have your own computer before going here. The dives are intresting enough and plentiful enough that you can get into trouble quickly with out one.
Well on Saturday I just got home from spending a week in Club Med in T&C Turquoise. I must say it was a hell of a good time. The dive staff down there is great!
We arrived on Saturday around 1pm and proceeded to party as we waited our standard 24 hours, and waited for the last of our party to get in that evening.
First I want to dispel a few myths about club med.
One, It is full of old people. If the average crowd you consider old is 20-35, then you are correct. Were there old people there? Yes some... Were there people there I can hang out with? Yes, the age I saw went from 20-70, with a large concentration on the bracket mentioned above.
Two, Diving through club med is lame. Read on my fellow bubble blowers....
Sunday I was setup on the 10am boat out. Unfortunately the weather was a little bad with strong winds. When I say it was a little bad, there were 8 foot waves that were crashing over the fly deck on the boat. It was turned around and diving was canceled for the day. While at the airport I was speaking with a couple that was down there on one of Aggressor fleet boats and even they canceled diving.
Monday & Tuesday, with some still choppy waters we packed our gear and headed out to sea. As most of you know I am a fairly new diver with a few off the record dives with a buddy of mine prior to this trip. I completed my OW course in January, and was doing my referrals down in T&C over vacation. There were 3 of us doing referrals down there and outside of a few people who haven't learned the art of dramamen the event was nothing more then a little bumpy. I won't bore you with the details of the open water check outs on these two days since most people here have either done them, or teach them allot. I will make a comment though to the quality of my instructor, Bruce Patterson, who was new to the facility down there. He had arrived a week prior. Bruce was top notch to say the very least! Over time I have worked with many instructors in various sports, and recreational activates. Bruce is extremely patient, and very controlled and precise in what he wanted. Not to mention he made the check out dives fun. Usually getting our skills out of the way quickly and taking the group on a short tour of the areas. Bruce if you ever get on here and read this, way to go we all had a great time!
The water everyday, the lowest vis we had the entire week was 60 feet, and this was only in one location for a single dive. The rest of the time vis was over 80 sometimes up to 120.
Wednesday we headed to West Cacios. I was having such a great time with the instructors down there and they were so friendly I decided to do my Advanced Open Water this same week. We boarded the boat at 7:45am, and were underway on the hour and a half trip over to WC. My instructor this day was Naomi, our first dive was a deep dive at 100 feet. After an extensive equipment check on the boat we were off into the water and made a rapid decent down to 100 where we settled on a shelf in a large sandy area. (You could still clearly see the boat at the surface) After doing the basic deep water skills of looking at colors, and math problems to see if you were narc'ed. We went off for a half hour tour, and saw tons of wonderful marine life. Naomi, has a very sharp set of eyes on her as well and brought myself and my dive partner down to look at Christmas Tree Worms that she spotted from over 30 feet away. For those that don't know how big they are, maybe about 2 cm across, and 2 cm high, and they live on sponges. I guess this is the experience you get with having over 1600 dives under your belt like she does.
Our next dive, my partner was doing underwater photography and not to hold up the picture snapping I chose to do Fish Aware since we could do both of those dives and not delay each other. (My dive buddy was doing her AOW also) As we descended among other things we saw, tons of Queen Angelfish, Various butterfly fish, a BIG Green Morey Eel he was about 5-6 feet in length. The standard barracudas which we saw at least one on almost every dive. Lobster, black surgeons, which we also saw lots of, spotted drums, and others that I don't even remember or haven't had time to look up in the books yet.
Our third dive of the day, was a drift dive along a site called Alex's Wall. The site is named after the gentleman who works for club med that found it one day with a handful of instructors from club med. Now I must say this was certainly an impressive area! The life on the sea wall was plentiful and beautiful! Many of the same of the above but the drift dive groups were also paid a visit by a large eagle ray, which this area is known for. For a slightly amusing part of the story, if your and your dive buddy knows some sign language and signs I am sorry, be very clear when you do. It looks very close to out of air..... After my buddy finished laughing her ass off at me as I handed her my primary and started sucking on my AIR2, I sheepishly returned my primary to my mouth and went back to look at the wonderful life on the sea floor.
Between the second and third dives, they had a bbq on the boat for us when we surfaced. The Sea Ray became Shea Bruce, to a spread of steaks, chicken and hot dogs, and cold cut subs. The food was great, and unless you are going on a live aboard where you have your personal chef, excellent for a day trip. We headed back from West Cacios exhausted and very happy with a great day of diving.
Friday, Last day before I head home
my partner has finished her AOW and it is just Naomi and I diving together today. There was a large influx of divers last night and the boat is pretty packed. Some of these divers weren't the brightest group of the bunch either, but that is another story. Doing navigation and multilevel computer/wheel diving on this trip. Focusing heavy on my computer and how to use it in order to make safe dives descending to 80 feet and working our way up. We dropped to 80 feet which was our planned depth, and started to hover. Straight below us about 10 feet Naomi's eagle eyes caught something and we checked the computers, and re worked the dive plan to compensate for the additional time. (Wow we didn't just look at the numbers on the computer and go for it! Big score for the dive staff again IMHO.) We dropped down the wall slightly further and behold an enenime that was about as large as 2 softballs. These are rather rare in this area from what I am told and they are also one of the things I wanted to see the most. After staying and looking at this creature in awe, we turned left and headed down the wall ascending to 60' where 2 dolphins got curious and came to check us out. They made 3 passes within 10 feet of us and headed down toward the bottom not to be seen again. My buddy was right, the first time you see them you are awe stuck. I was shocked and excited, and noticed I was sucking through my air like a cheerleader.... Ummm never mind... I was sucking though air pretty quick. After the dolphins descended we moved up to a sandy shelf around 40 feet and slowly headed back to the boat. Garden eels populated the sand bed and we had a reef shark following us most of the way back to the boat.All in all the resort was wonderful, the dive staff was great, the food all around was great. The casino up the street was lame, I have had better games playing at the fraternity house in college. I would recommend the location and resort to anyone interested in going to Turks and Cacios.
The other thing I reccomend is making sure you have your own computer before going here. The dives are intresting enough and plentiful enough that you can get into trouble quickly with out one.
