Grand Turk Diving Review

[2112]

I just spent a wonderful day diving in Grand Turk. I made arrangements with Blue Water Divers on-line for a 2 tank morning dive at 9:00 am. I took a taxi into town early (around 7:20) and walked around Cockburn Town for an hour and a half taking pictures until it was time for my dive trip. A taxi from the ship into town cost US$5.00. After I was finished with diving (about 12:30), I took a taxi back to the port (again $5.00) and I spend the rest of my time in Margaritaville and at the beach. My ship departed at 2:30 so I was back on board at 2:00. I left my camera, wallet and glasses with Blue Water Divers in their shop and everything was safe when I returned.

 

The diving was good, but I wasn't blown away by it. It was above average for the Caribbean, but not world class (it was no Palau or the Red Sea). The coral was very healthy, but neither site was as "fishy" as I like. Not as many sponges as Cozumel or many other places in the Caribbean. I did see several turtles on both dives, a couple morey eels, and large groupers. There were some coral heads that were very lush with soft coral. The vizibility was great (maybe around 80'). Everyone on the boat (other than me) has returned year after year and all have said that the reefs are as good as they have ever been. Would I go there for a stand alone dive vacation, probably not. Would I dive there on another cruise ship day - in a heartbeat!

 

I was very happy with Blue Water Divers. They had 2 boats going out. I went out with a group of 4 (including me). The divemaster was the owner of the shop itself (Mitch). Our first dive was on at Rolling Hills on the northern portion of the wall. The wall starts at about 35' and Mitch lets you set your own profile. I had a max depth of 120' for about an hour. The surface interval was on the boat for a little over an hour. The second dive was at the Anchor on the center portion of the wall. Once again I had almost an hour of bottom time (80' max depth). I found it interesting that there are only 4 dive operations on the island with plenty of different dive sites and yet another operation dropped a big group of divers in the water at the next mooring from us.

 

Blue Water Divers charged $80 while the cruise ship charged $120. I'll bet the cruise ship group was much larger and I'd be surprised if they got more than 40 minutes of bottom time - so I was very happy I booked with them. My only complaints about Blue Water Divers were that it sometimes took 2 days to get a reply to emails and they did not have anyplace to rinse my gear with fresh water. Other than that, they were great and I would certainly dive with them again.

 

I don't have an underwater camera, but I have topside pictures on my website at http://www.pbase.com/2112/grand_turk

[sportsterjohn]

I dove with Blue Water Divers back in September, was a great experience. We did different dive sites but out DM said many of them were very similar. Basically a 30 or so foot drop then a wall that goes down very deep. There was a hammerhead sighting on our dive, I didn't get to see it though, guess I was too busy checking out the turtles.

[Hogladyrider]

Nice photos, we're headed there on Elation in January it looks very inviting for sure!:)

[ZippySuzy]

Great pictures, thanks for sharing them!