Provo, Turks and Caicos

Wow. 
The first word that popped into my head when looking at the water of Grace Bay, Providenciales - Wow. 

Absolutely the most stunning blue water I've ever seen, whether in the shallows of Caicos bank

 or along the wall off West Caicos,  the hues were amazing.

    Less than 3 hours from Charlotte, Providenciales (Provo for short) is one of the smaller, less developed islands in the region.  With no deep water port, cruise ships don't call, and most of the condos and resorts are relatively small and none would be considered high rises.  Large parts of the island are undeveloped and much of the surrounding water is protected marine parks. 

    Touching down on Provo brings you to one of the smallest, most laid back airports in the region.  A short, though not cheap, taxi ride with one of the islands more interesting characters - "keep your feet on the floor, no smokin or drinkin, and no bags in your laps!" - and we were at our home for the week, Coral Gardens.  Set right on the beach at the center of Grace Bay in the area known as lower Bight, CG has several buildings of condos ranging from the big, luxurious penthouses to the smaller, more budget friendly.  CG also hosts one of two Caicos Adventures shops which offers diving and snorkeling trips plus dive instruction, and a beachside bar and grill, Somewhere Cafe.

    With an 8:30 or so (it is island time, after all) pick up at CG each morning by Matt, one of the DM's and bus drivers with Caicos Adventures, we did 10 dives over the next 4 days, all on the west side of Provo or West Caicos with the exception of our night dive off the beach in front of the condo.  The wall along the west side of Caicos bank makes for oustanding diving.  The highlight for me was the almost constant presence of large gray reef sharks cruising the wall.

   Of course there was plenty of other life to see.  Large nassau and tiger grouper; queen, french and gray angels; 4-eye, banded and long-snout butterfly; queen, princess, stoplight parrots; ocean trigger, black durgon, and queen triggers; schools of silver and yellowtail snapper and schoolmasters; harlequin bass, fairy basslets, hamlets, wrasse, goby, banded coral shrimp, arrow crabs.  Oh, and some very friendly hawksbill turtles.

   Unfortunately, there were also plenty of lionfish to be found.  While they have started to allow limited hunting, all of the DM's and other T&C regulars have noted significant changes in the numbers of fish present on the reefs since the lionfish numbers have exploded.

    As for the rest of our trip (the part not spent underwater), we also had a terrific time.  Of course, a good amount of this time was on boats motoring back and forth between the harbor and dive sites.  While a little windy, we were blessed my mostly sunny skies and temps about 80 every day.  Afternoons were generally spent sitting on the beach with a cooler of Presidente or Turks Head beer.  We ate in a number of nights, with the local IGA having a nice selection to choose from though more local fish would have been nice.  We also had two fantastic dinners out - one at Mango Reef at the Alexandra resort, and one at Hemingway's at the Sands.  The shrimp pasta at Mango Reef was terrific and Hemingway's offered fresh wahoo.  To round out the trip we spent one day just driving around the island.

    Not sure when the next trip will be - starting a new adventure next week as I leave HP to join the new software team at Dell.  I will definitely visit T&C again, perhaps next time hitting Grand Turk to try the wall diving there.  For now, it's back to quarry weekends helping with dive checkouts.