Kandive 2005
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Turks and Caicos

By Kandie and Drew Vactor

We ended our 2004 trip on the Aqua-Cat in the Bahamas by asking the group where they wanted to go in 2005. It was not unanimous, but it was overwhelming -- they wanted to return to the site of our 2002 adventure, the Turks and Caicos Islands. Since our last visit, the boat had been changed and was now the Turks and Caicos Aggressor II. They spent over $4 million dollars tricking it up and it was sweet. We were also fortunate to have the owner, Captain Piers van Welt at the helm. With over 18,000 hours underwater, he still loves diving and is a fountain of information. By the end of the week, he even got us on his schedule, after admonishing us the first day as we lazily got ready to dive:
"Never have so many moved so slow to do so little."

We were in a group of islands still unknown to most, Southeast of the Bahamas and Northeast of Cuba, just north of the Dominican Republic. We had a few "newbies" onboard, but most of our regulars joined us on this exciting adventure into the pristine waters and reefs of the Atlantic ocean.

The anticipation had been growing all year as we exchanged emails during our full schedule of teaching computer classes on cruise ships.. Our group arrived from the Bay area, from Denver, from SoCal, from NoCal, from NC and from Tucson. Some of us met first in Grand Turk for a few days on the underused golden sand beach at the Osprey Hotel and some serious diving with Cecil Ingram's Sea Eye (get it? CI?) divers. One day we walked down Front Street at mid-day and only two cars passed us. You should see how slow it gets if you are there on the weekend.

We went diving on many of the same reefs as 3 years prior, except the old town pier has been removed and the area barricaded. The highlight of the week came when we saw a crowd near shore and went to see what was stirring up the locals at that hour of the morning. It turned out to be the first Manatee seen in those parts in over 10 years. We quickly dug out some underused snorkels and quietly slipped into the water. It was huge, but gentle. From a distance, you could see where the stories of mermaids might have some from, but up close its figure just really was not all that attractive.

On Saturday, the three Rotarians in the group got together around the pool with the hotel's wireless access point, and made up a Rotary meeting online at Rotary eClub One. We then reboarded Sky King, for the 30 minute hop to Providenciales, locally known as Provo, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The approach pattern took us right over the Turks and Caicos Aggressor, our home at sea for the next week, berthed in Turtle Cover harbor. As a British Crown Colony, they speak the language, but are a little confused about driving on the left with left hand drive cars. The Caicos (from "Cayos" or "small islands" in Spanish) are group of sparsely populated islands on a "bank" or pinnacle in the Atlantic ocean, just north of Hispanola. That puts it northeast of Cuba and south of the Bahamas. It has the flavor of the Caribbean, but is clearly geographically more like Bermuda, due to the 7,000 foot deep channels surrounding the bank and separating the Caicos bank from the tiny island of Grand Turk, the nation's capital, 22 miles away. Provo is about the only place there is anything that could be called a population center. The entire country only has about 30,000 residents.

The T&C Aggressor II, or even shorter, TCA II, was built from the hull up in 2003. It is an extraordinarily well equipped 120 foot dive boat that holds 20divers and a crew of 6. The excellent crew made certain that it was typical of the wonderful experiences we have had on all Aggressor boats. They live up to their motto in grand style: Eat, Sleep and Dive.

Overnight onboard Saturday night and then on to the first dive sites at West Caicos and the beginning of up to 5 dives a day for 5 1/2 days. A few of our group logged all 27 available dives. Others enjoyed the in-room DVD's, the hot tub, or relaxed with a good book on the sun deck. Our loan snorkeler enjoyed the calm water and with the 100 foot visibility, was able to see much of the reef. Water temps were pleasantly in the high 70s, but even those who usually avoid neoprene were glad to have at least 3mm wetsuits.

Here is the Captain's Log from our week:

Turks & Caicos Aggressor II

Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 at 08:00 AM
Entry By: Turk & Caicos Crew

April 30-May7, 2005 The start to our first normal week in a while couldn't have been better,a full boat, great group and lovely weather.

The first dives on Sunday were at the Crack where we had a pleasant surprise, although the usual Diamond blennie is still AWOL (we fear the worst) we noticed a few new youngsters starting to move in so here's hoping. The afternoon and night dives were at the Stairway where the cleaning stations were in full swing with some large Nassau grouper getting their wax and polish.

From there it was on to West Caicos to dive Elephant Ear Canyon and Driveway, here we had a visit from a pod of dolphin some were even lucky enough to be in the water diving them.

During the night we headed to French Cay so that we were ready first thing to dive Rock 'n Roll, then G-spot where the sharks put on their best and a couple of turtles tried to out do them for photo-shot opportunities.

Then back to West Caicos to RGI and White Face/Anchor ,we managed to spot a golden moray or two and a huge green moray, some southern sting rays hunting in the sand and flying gurnard.

After that we went back to North West Point and Gullies and Black Forest with pipe horse fish being the find of the day only narrowly beating out all of the other competitors.

Thanks to Kandie and Drew for getting a great group together and thanks to all of the Desert Divers for a wonderful week.

Happy birthday to Jan, I hope you liked the chocolate cake.

Congratulations to Drew for dive 900 and Jefri for no.100.

Also welcome to the new divers in the group we hope you have many happy hours blowing bubbles.

The crew for the week were Cpt. Piers, Lucie, Christopher,Dave and Gary

As we traveled farther from Provo, where the day boats find it harder to go, we were thrilled to be back on the pristine reefs with their unspoiled lush, dense andbeautiful hard corals and sea fans. In fact, the sea fans at G-Spot on French Cay are like a forest in 50-70 fsw, covering the 7,000 foot wall. On the flats at the top of the wall, at 45 fsw, huge barracuda were on the prowl, large reef sharks swam around us, hawksbill turtles checked us out and beautiful reef fish were abundant.

Weather was calm and the Sunsets were incredible, often causing us to get up from dinner to take pictures and watch for the Green Flash.

One diver was certified on Grand Turk and two others were doing their first post-certifications dives. We completed Rescue and Nitrox certifications onboard as well and celebrated a birthday. Two divers reached their magical 100th dive during the week.

Most of our pictures were taken with our new Konica Minolta X50, 5 megapixel digital camera with underwater housing. We did not have the connector for the external flash, but got excellent pictures nonetheless, including some fabulous video of a sea turtle and at the very end of the very last dive, the only spotted eagle ray we had seen all week.

It only took about a week to get over the 3 time zone change. Since we moved shortly before the trip, we really may never get caught up at home, but we will try to get some additonal pictures on this site in the near future. Turks and Caicos once again turned out to be an excellent location for diving and everyone had a wonderful experience. Our gills are now starting to dry out and we are working on next years trip.