I've been meaning to do this for a bit so here it is - my trip report for Turks and Caicos Explorer Ventures. We were on the boat the second week in February....Our first live-aboard was Aquacat so I think we were a bit spoiled.
First off, when flying into Provo, understand that unless you are at a resort or on the boat, there is absolutely nothing to do on the island. From what we are told, it is also not that safe to be on the island outside of the resort areas....it looked to be a pretty poor island even though it did not sustain too much hurricane damage. We flew direct from JFK on American Airlines - no trouble at all. Were picked up at the airport and brought to a restaurant to grab a bite to eat until the boat was ready (our flight got in at 1030, but you can't get on the boat until 3pm). They have a regular cab driver -who will always tell you its his birthday and will always take you to the same place, but it's fine to kill some time there.
We got to the boat and basically took our shoes off, put them in a laundry basket and didn't have to put them back on for a week- which was great. Our cabin was across from the Galley - not noisy, but it always smelled pretty good. One thing - We did notice the boat could use some sprucing up -it smelled a bit musty, and the toilet on the dive deck could use a little overhauling. Nothing too bad though. There was some storage under the bed by way of drawers, a small closet, and night stand with drawers. Beds were comfy and air conditioning worked fantastic. Most other folks have said it - you sleep, eat dive, eat dive, eat dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep repeat - I didn't do all the dives because my ears starting bugging me towards the end of the week, but my fiance' did 24 out of 27. The diving is predominantly wall-diving with few shallow dives and almost no drift diving. Because it was a single hulled boat (large yacht) when it gets windy, or a little spat of bad weather comes by the boat does toss and turn a bit. I did not get sick at all - except for the first night. But we figured out if we turned ourselves around in bed to rock with the boat not against it, we never had a problem, as a matter of fact - it helped me fall asleep each night. Although the 2 cabins on top are billed as VIP cabins, the higher up you go, the more the boat pitches and sways...we were perfectly happy where we were.
The crew was great -the captain was great - the diving was great. The food was not so great but I'll get to that in a minute
Crew: As could be expected, made sure you were awake every morning for breakfast. They set the boat clocks an hour ahead so for the whole week you are maximizing your daylight diving hours - we thought this was pretty cool. The captain was always on the dive deck, checking in with us and when our camera flooded on the third day of diving, he was actually able to rescue the camera itself with some quick maneuvers. The case, well, that's another story! Everyone was funny ,friendly, and a pleasure to be around.
The diving-also great - saw many reef sharks and eagle rays galore. Turtles, octopus, decorator crabs, and some monster green moray eels. We were told status post the hurricane that the urchins and many eels had vanished but are slowly returning. We also saw lionfish And, as much as we know they don't belong in this part of the ocean, they were beautiful to look at. Lobsters, banded and cleaner shrimp, gobies, nudibranchs, parrot fish, angel fish, trunk fish, honeycombed cowfish (my favorite). We even saw soap fish and file fish. A really nice variety. Night Dives were fun and noone rushed you to get back into the boat. A really nice feature of this trip was that you were not forced to go on a guided dive. if you felt comfortable with your navigation and wanted to do your own thing, you could -which really made for a lot of fun on some of the dives. My favorite by far was the dome or something like that - a large metal structure under water that used to be some type of free diving game show. Either way, it made for some really awesome reef life. Giant grouper were around too - they like to stare at you - funny.One of the biggest highlights of the week was that we saw on numerous days the migrating humpback whales. A group of divers were even taken in the dingie to snorkel with them. One whale had a complete breach right in front of the boat about 100 yards from the divers and whale song was often heard under water ( Not by me - I never caught it but oh well.) I dove in a 3mm all week and had no issues while some folk were freezing in a 5mm with a hood, gloves, and booties so i guess it really depends on you. Hot showers were always available right out of the water on the dive deck. We dove nitrox the whole week except for when completing our deep specialty....I highly recommend the nitrox.
Our only real gripe the whole week was with the food and the chef. My fiance' has a bad fish allergy and we made them aware ahead of time. Twice the chef served a caesar salad, which we informed him had anchovies in the dressing. His response was something to the effect of oh well I guess he isn't going to eat the salad. He was never offered a plain salad or a new salad with different dressing. We were also looking forward to fresh fruits and vegetables on the boat because as active divers, that's what keeps you going. We were disappointed that the majority of the vegetables were frozen and prepackaged and that fresh fruit was not a regular thing during the week. There was a lot of fried food, a lot of pre-packaged frozen food, and a lot of just plain old regular stuff. I'm not saying it tasted bad, but we were hoping for a little bit more of the fresh selection (like I said, spoiled from Aquacat.) A lot of the snacks were things like chips, taquitos etc...and I guess we were just hoping for something a little different. Now, when we left another cook came on board so I don't know how often they switch. There was always fresh coffee, soda, water, and crystal light available as well as beer.
Note- We brought a few stacks of crystal light, propel, and gatorage on the go and just dumped them in our sigg water bottles and we were fine the whole week.
So, would we do it again- absolutely, but we have a few other places to check out first!
Also, you don't need to pack a lot of clothes- we left the boat for dinner friday night but it was casual. A few bathing suits, shorts, t-shirts, maybe jeans if you wore them on the plane- no socks needed, a sweatshirt or fleece or light jacket, sun block, a baseball or sunhat, sunglasses, and that was basically it.
Hope this is helpful.
-M
First off, when flying into Provo, understand that unless you are at a resort or on the boat, there is absolutely nothing to do on the island. From what we are told, it is also not that safe to be on the island outside of the resort areas....it looked to be a pretty poor island even though it did not sustain too much hurricane damage. We flew direct from JFK on American Airlines - no trouble at all. Were picked up at the airport and brought to a restaurant to grab a bite to eat until the boat was ready (our flight got in at 1030, but you can't get on the boat until 3pm). They have a regular cab driver -who will always tell you its his birthday and will always take you to the same place, but it's fine to kill some time there.
We got to the boat and basically took our shoes off, put them in a laundry basket and didn't have to put them back on for a week- which was great. Our cabin was across from the Galley - not noisy, but it always smelled pretty good. One thing - We did notice the boat could use some sprucing up -it smelled a bit musty, and the toilet on the dive deck could use a little overhauling. Nothing too bad though. There was some storage under the bed by way of drawers, a small closet, and night stand with drawers. Beds were comfy and air conditioning worked fantastic. Most other folks have said it - you sleep, eat dive, eat dive, eat dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep repeat - I didn't do all the dives because my ears starting bugging me towards the end of the week, but my fiance' did 24 out of 27. The diving is predominantly wall-diving with few shallow dives and almost no drift diving. Because it was a single hulled boat (large yacht) when it gets windy, or a little spat of bad weather comes by the boat does toss and turn a bit. I did not get sick at all - except for the first night. But we figured out if we turned ourselves around in bed to rock with the boat not against it, we never had a problem, as a matter of fact - it helped me fall asleep each night. Although the 2 cabins on top are billed as VIP cabins, the higher up you go, the more the boat pitches and sways...we were perfectly happy where we were.
The crew was great -the captain was great - the diving was great. The food was not so great but I'll get to that in a minute
Crew: As could be expected, made sure you were awake every morning for breakfast. They set the boat clocks an hour ahead so for the whole week you are maximizing your daylight diving hours - we thought this was pretty cool. The captain was always on the dive deck, checking in with us and when our camera flooded on the third day of diving, he was actually able to rescue the camera itself with some quick maneuvers. The case, well, that's another story! Everyone was funny ,friendly, and a pleasure to be around.
The diving-also great - saw many reef sharks and eagle rays galore. Turtles, octopus, decorator crabs, and some monster green moray eels. We were told status post the hurricane that the urchins and many eels had vanished but are slowly returning. We also saw lionfish And, as much as we know they don't belong in this part of the ocean, they were beautiful to look at. Lobsters, banded and cleaner shrimp, gobies, nudibranchs, parrot fish, angel fish, trunk fish, honeycombed cowfish (my favorite). We even saw soap fish and file fish. A really nice variety. Night Dives were fun and noone rushed you to get back into the boat. A really nice feature of this trip was that you were not forced to go on a guided dive. if you felt comfortable with your navigation and wanted to do your own thing, you could -which really made for a lot of fun on some of the dives. My favorite by far was the dome or something like that - a large metal structure under water that used to be some type of free diving game show. Either way, it made for some really awesome reef life. Giant grouper were around too - they like to stare at you - funny.One of the biggest highlights of the week was that we saw on numerous days the migrating humpback whales. A group of divers were even taken in the dingie to snorkel with them. One whale had a complete breach right in front of the boat about 100 yards from the divers and whale song was often heard under water ( Not by me - I never caught it but oh well.) I dove in a 3mm all week and had no issues while some folk were freezing in a 5mm with a hood, gloves, and booties so i guess it really depends on you. Hot showers were always available right out of the water on the dive deck. We dove nitrox the whole week except for when completing our deep specialty....I highly recommend the nitrox.
Our only real gripe the whole week was with the food and the chef. My fiance' has a bad fish allergy and we made them aware ahead of time. Twice the chef served a caesar salad, which we informed him had anchovies in the dressing. His response was something to the effect of oh well I guess he isn't going to eat the salad. He was never offered a plain salad or a new salad with different dressing. We were also looking forward to fresh fruits and vegetables on the boat because as active divers, that's what keeps you going. We were disappointed that the majority of the vegetables were frozen and prepackaged and that fresh fruit was not a regular thing during the week. There was a lot of fried food, a lot of pre-packaged frozen food, and a lot of just plain old regular stuff. I'm not saying it tasted bad, but we were hoping for a little bit more of the fresh selection (like I said, spoiled from Aquacat.) A lot of the snacks were things like chips, taquitos etc...and I guess we were just hoping for something a little different. Now, when we left another cook came on board so I don't know how often they switch. There was always fresh coffee, soda, water, and crystal light available as well as beer.
Note- We brought a few stacks of crystal light, propel, and gatorage on the go and just dumped them in our sigg water bottles and we were fine the whole week.
So, would we do it again- absolutely, but we have a few other places to check out first!
Also, you don't need to pack a lot of clothes- we left the boat for dinner friday night but it was casual. A few bathing suits, shorts, t-shirts, maybe jeans if you wore them on the plane- no socks needed, a sweatshirt or fleece or light jacket, sun block, a baseball or sunhat, sunglasses, and that was basically it.
Hope this is helpful.
-M
We would all love to see topside and underwater!
