edpdiver
Contributor
My wife and I just spent a nice week diving on the Turks and Caicos Explorer 2. We left home on Friday, May 13, and arrived in Provo that afternoon. We got in a day early because we were concerned that we or our luggage might not make it to the boat on time, owing to the tight connection in Atlanta. We stayed at the Comfort Suites for a night, which was fine. It was nice having a day to relax before starting out. We took a taxi from the hotel at about 3pm on Saturday, May 14, and arrived at the boat. We dove on Sunday through Friday, and departed the boat on the following Saturday morning, May 21. This trip was only our second liveaboard, so we do not have too much to compare to, but the layout of the boat, and the overall operation was very good. I would recommend it unequivocally. We were fortunate that there were only 7 divers on the boat (which accommodates 20), so it was particularly uncrowded. It was pretty clear that they were used to dealing with full boats, too. The cabin was nicely laid out, and the salon was where we spent most of our time when we were not diving.
One nice surprise was that the food was excellent. It was amazingly good, and everyone on the boat thought so. The cook had been on this boat for many years, and he clearly knew what he was doing.
The diving was very good. The reefs were healthy, with a good variety of fish and coral. We had recently been on a trip to Turneffe Island Lodge in Belize, and I would say that it is similar. Most of the dives were wall dives, and we say all of the usual Caribbean suspects in abundance. There were also a lot of reef sharks. On some dives, we would see as many as 6 black tip reef sharks that would meander around us. It was lots of fun. There were 5 dives scheduled for all of the days except for the last, when there were 2 dives. On the days with 5 dives, the dive times were 8am, 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4:30pm, and 8pm. I did not do any night dives (not a big fan), but the people who did enjoyed them. We dove sites mostly around French Cay, West Caicos, and West Sandspit (an area where they just recently placed moorings). They were very flexible, asking if we wanted to spend additional time at a site, or if we wanted to move early. With such a small group, they were more than willing to accommodate our requests, and there was always a good consensus (we dove with a nice group of people).
One bit of advice that I would give is to dive nitrox. Almost all of the dives had most of the interesting stuff at about 80 feet, and dive times would be very short without nitrox. Everyone on our boat was diving nitrox, and were glad that they did.
Here are some photos from the dive that give a little sense of what we saw.
The whole set of photos can be found here: 2011 turks and caicos - a set on Flickr
One nice surprise was that the food was excellent. It was amazingly good, and everyone on the boat thought so. The cook had been on this boat for many years, and he clearly knew what he was doing.
The diving was very good. The reefs were healthy, with a good variety of fish and coral. We had recently been on a trip to Turneffe Island Lodge in Belize, and I would say that it is similar. Most of the dives were wall dives, and we say all of the usual Caribbean suspects in abundance. There were also a lot of reef sharks. On some dives, we would see as many as 6 black tip reef sharks that would meander around us. It was lots of fun. There were 5 dives scheduled for all of the days except for the last, when there were 2 dives. On the days with 5 dives, the dive times were 8am, 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4:30pm, and 8pm. I did not do any night dives (not a big fan), but the people who did enjoyed them. We dove sites mostly around French Cay, West Caicos, and West Sandspit (an area where they just recently placed moorings). They were very flexible, asking if we wanted to spend additional time at a site, or if we wanted to move early. With such a small group, they were more than willing to accommodate our requests, and there was always a good consensus (we dove with a nice group of people).
One bit of advice that I would give is to dive nitrox. Almost all of the dives had most of the interesting stuff at about 80 feet, and dive times would be very short without nitrox. Everyone on our boat was diving nitrox, and were glad that they did.
Here are some photos from the dive that give a little sense of what we saw.
The whole set of photos can be found here: 2011 turks and caicos - a set on Flickr
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