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We arrived a day early, Friday, the 27th and stayed at the Comfort Suites at Grace Bay. It was a very nice place, we had rooms facing out to the pool. The Comfort Suites is not directly on the beach.
We had dinner at Lattitudes, in the "Ports of Call" shopping center. The beer was a bit better than the meal, but all-in-all we enjoyed ourselves.
The beach was about a 3 minute walk from our room. Grace Bay is one of the nicest beaches I've been too. Soft powdery beach sand, no rock or coral "surprises" upon entering the water. Another nice touch are the beach loungers that are stacked up on the beach for your use, we only had to bring towels, reading material and sunscreen with us.
Saturday - 9/28
Arrived at Turtle Cove at 4:00pm to board the M.V. Sea Dancer. We were welcomed
aboard by Karen, the captain, and the rest of the crew: Darren (videographer),
Nina (hostess), Matt (photographer), James (engineer) and Franklin (steward),
and our chef Stan. We were assigned to cabin 9 on the Dolphin deck. Once unpacked
we had a briefing on what to expect for the week, in terms of diving, evening
entertainment and video/photography and "boatique" services. (The
Sea Dancer has a lovely little shop with lots of goodies.) The dives were set
up such that we only visited two different sites a day. The first site was done
twice and the second site were where the two afternoon dives and the night dive
took place. I might have preferred adding in another dive site for a bit more
variety. The boat ride was always pretty short from one site to the next. The
boat stayed anchored overnight at the last dive site of the day, and usually
moved to a new site/Cay during breakfast.
We had a mahi-mahi fish dinner around 6:30, then Marcel, Annmarie, Charlie, Dan and I took a walk around Turtle Cove. Stopped for a drink at one of the hotel/restaurants where they were having a party for the grand opening of a newly remodeled hotel/restaurant. I think it was the Turtle Cove Inn. They served extremely potent vodka shots to everyone. And they served hor d'ourves on silver trays. Lots of the locals were there and some were real fancied up in their best duds. We looked like tourists. Back to the boat, early to bed -- diving tomorrow !!! Hurrah !!!
It was a nice day, breakfast at 7:00AM (ham & cheese omelet), dive briefing at 8:00AM. It was hot. Looked like Hurricanes Kyle & Lily were going to stay clear of us today. Seas were calm, and it was mostly sunny. Here's a map of the places we dove in the TCI's.
We were at a site called: Amphitheatre (very near Black Forest site). This being our check out dive, we didn't stay down too long or go too deep. It's a very nice site, but the viz was pretty bad. Looked like the tropical storms and hurricanes were going to intrude on our diving after all. (This was my 150th dive!)
| juvenile Clown wrasse |
Parrotfish |
Nassau Groupers |
Queen Angels |
| Caribbean reefsharks |
Butterfly's |
Barracuda |
French Angels |
| Bar jacks |
Damsels |
Ocean trigger |
Gray Angels |
| Indigo Hamlets |
Tiger Groupers |
Queen trigger |
Trunk & Cow fish |
Total Bottom Time: 66 mins., Max Depth: 80', Air consumption: st: 3200psi/end: 1400psi, EAN: 32.4, Visibility: 50+/-', Weather: mostly sunny, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
2nd dive, Amphitheatre The visibility improved a bit. A good dive. Nothing extraordinary seen, just the usual suspects.
TBT: 71 mins., Max Depth: 66', Air: st:3200/end:1000, EAN: 32.5, Vis 60', Weather: mostly sunny, Sea: mostly calm, Water temp: 84°
Lunch time! BBQ spicey chicken, noodles in curry sauce and salad.
3rd Dive - The Dome. This was a cool site. In about 40' of water at this site is a large metal geodesic metal structure that was put in place by a crew from a French television show (Pago Pago) that was similar to the "Survivor" series that is so popular here now. Players would compete in a series of trials and endurance contests. Contestants had to free dive down to the dome and collect "pearls" which were used toward game points and they also would use some to "buy" air from one of 3 "mermaids" stationed around the dome: supposedly, only 2 mermaids had air in each of their extra SCUBA tanks, one of them did not. As you can imagine this caused some panic in the contestants when they were desperate for air. Can you spell EMBOLISM? The Provo hyperbaric chamber was soon filled to capacity much too often. The show was canceled. Big surprise. The pearl collecting machine is still there, now lying on it's side and becoming encrusted with algae and corals, as is the Dome itself. A Hawksbill turtle calls this place home and usually sleeps here nightly. The wall, which begins at about 50 feet, is adorned with huge crimson gorgonians, lilac rope sponges, enormous orange elephant ear sponges, black coral and many reef fish.
TBT: 60 mins., Max Depth: 79', Air: 3100psi/900psi, EAN: 32.6, Vis 60', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
4th dive - The Dome - saw some large permit and a spotted moray eel. Mask kept fogging up. Made the vis even worse. :) My new mask was a problem most of the week and I took to diving with my leaky mask and carrying my new mask and filling it with sand and scrubbing it to try to get all of the very stubborn silicone out of it. Or I would start a dive with my new mask, and when it became unbearable, I'd switch to my leaky mask, which was the lesser of two evils; I could at least see out of it.
TBT: 31mins., Max Depth: 40', Air: 3300psi/2500psi, EAN: 32, Vis 40', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
Passed on the night dive, showered got ready for cocktails and dinner. I didn't
do one night dive this trip (Nancy did all of them!). We had steak and baked
potatoes for dinner. After dinner we watched Darren's film of one of his trips
to the Red Sea. It was beautiful, he's an excellent videographer. Now the Red
Sea is even higher on my list of places to go.
Mix of sun and clouds today, had pancakes and sausage for breakfast. The coffee is very good but too strong. I think Stan makes it around 5:00AM, and I don't get to it til 7:00AM. I did only 3 dives today. The visibility was way off, so I gave up after the 3rd dive.
1st dive site: Stairway (Provo)- Nice dive site, the wall descends like steps, thus the name of the site. :) We saw 3-4 large groupers, 2 puffers a spotted drum and a spotted moray eel. There was also a very big crab on one of the steps around 60' - he stayed out it the open for a while before retreating into a crevice on the wall.
TBT: 45 mins., Max Depth: 77', Air: , EAN: 32.7, Vis 50-60', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: slight surge at 15-20', Water temp: 84°
2nd dive: Sunday Service - This site is in West Caicos. The dives here are really nice, the coral, gorgonians and reef fish are in abundance and healthy. There is a sand chute going down the wall at this site and we were told that there are two Mantis shrimp that live at 65' and at the edge of the sand chute near the coral heads. We didn't see them at the beginning of the dive and after 10 minutes or so decided to go along the wall and check back at the end of the dive. We saw a small school of barracuda and an Eagle ray, it was the first Eagle ray I'd seen this week. On our way back from the wall we started looking for the Mantis shrimp. Dan was settled in the sand and had his camera in front of him, ready to start filming if we saw one of the shrimp. Well we still didn't see anything, but Karen did, she came over to where Dan was and pointed out that he'd nearly buried a Mantis shrimp with his housing ! Unreal, this thing was big and blended into the sand nearly completely. It came a few inches out of its burrough and it was a real site. It has the most bizarre eyes; they're like pods with several free-moving pupils in each one. Weird, but very cool. I spent 10 minutes watching it pushing sand out of it's home.
TBT: 53 mins., Max Depth: 74', Air: 3100/800, EAN: 32,6, Vis 60', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: slight surge, Water temp: 84°
Lunch ! Baked macaroni & cheese, deep fried conch and salad. Yum. Another hot day, too few clouds...
3rd dive: Rock n Roll - This site is at French Cay. We saw two eagle rays on this dive, there are also very friendly reef sharks here. They've been fed and stay around the boat whenever one is in the area. They circle around at 15-25' and get real close, the divemasters mentioned that we might even get bumped. Thankfully that didn't happen. They did get within reach though. Darren did have a bit of a time with the one small male that hangs out with the females, and he had to use his camera housing to keep from being nipped in his leg. He banged him on the snout with his housing to discourage him. He went away. I think it's a bad idea that they've been feeding them. I imagine there will be an accident one of these days and the humans will deem it necessary to kill the shark(s).
TBT: 52 mins., Max Depth: 75', Air: 3100/1100, EAN: 32, Vis 40', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: light surge @20', Water temp: 84°
4th/5th dive: Rock n Roll - Didn't do it.
Relaxed the rest of the afternoon, got some sun.
Not for too long, it was too hot on the sun deck.
Had a very nice dinner of Cornish game hens, rice and peas, corn and salad.
We had cherry cheesecake for dessert. We sure didn't go hungry on this trip,
Stan only does one portion size: Grandé.
The day started being overcast, then changed to a mix of sun and clouds. Had scrambled eggs and bacon with a bagel for breakfast. We were going to the beach today. French Cay is a wildlife sanctuary for birds and iquanas. We were only allowed on the sand, not the vegetation. We saw Pelicans, but no iquanas.
1st dive site: Double D's - Saw a black sea cucumber, and tons of fans and soft coral everywhere. It was like swimming in a living soup pot there were so many little wrasses, goby's and reef fish around us. The colors were great, even though the visibility wasn't that good. There was a very large Elephant Ear coral @100' and it does look like an elephant's ear. We also saw more reef sharks.
TBT: 53 mins., Max Depth: 90, Air: 3200/1200, EAN: 32, Vis 50', Weather: overcast, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
2nd dive: Double D's - We saw a small Hawksbill turtle, that was fun to see, love those guys. Also a rare treat was a Dog snapper and Permits. There were lots of jacks, slippery dicks, tobacco fish and sharks. The coral at this site is amazing, lush, colorful and abundant.
TBT: 59 mins., Max Depth: 50', Air: 3100/1200, EAN: 32, Vis 50', Weather: clouds/sun, Sea: light current at 25-30', Water temp: 84°
Lunch ! Ribs, baked beans, potato salad and M&C - excellent lunch, ate way too much.
3rd dive: Snorkeling off French Cay - This is a really teeny-tiny "island" - didn't take long to traverse the whole perimeter. The water was a clear beautiful turquoise and about 90° degrees. The crew had hoped that we would be able to snorkel over mating nurse sharks. The previous week there were literally hundreds of them here... alas, we saw nary a shark. Had fun snorkeling though. We saw Pelicans and three Haitian boat wrecks, but no iquanas. The boat wrecks were a pretty sad sight. Apparently, as many as 50 people would pile into these hand made boats and try to get to Cuba or America rather than stay in Haiti. Many don't survive the trip, but if they do, the Coast Guard brings them back home. The boats were small, maybe 20-30' in length, and had tree trunks as masts. Although not a far distance, it must be a terrifying trip in such a craft, no matter the weather.
4th dive: G-Spot - There are HUGE Barrel sponges here, some large enough that Dan could stand inside and barely have his head stick out the top, but of course we didn't actually try to get in the barrel, that would have been a major no-no. This is a beautiful site, the wall drop off is fantastic. There were sharks, jacks and snappers in full force. Even with the viz really off, it was still beautiful. On a clear day I'll bet you could see indefinitely.
TBT: 58 mins., Max Depth: 63', Air: 3100/1200, EAN: 32, Vis 50', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: light current, Water temp: 84°
Had a nice evening and another good dinner: chicken, rice and peas, salad and Key Lime pie for dessert.
Another cloudy start today, had French toast for breakfast, couldn't finish it all...
1st dive site: Elephant Ear Canyon - West Caicos. A very nice dive site. Sandy bottom with the wall dropping off at around 80'. Saw 6-8 Southern rays combing the sndy bottom for breakfast. A Spotted drum, a pair of barracudas and lots of jacks. Elephant ear coral of course.
TBT: 66 mins., Max Depth: 81', Air: 3000/700, EAN: 32.5, Vis 60+', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
2nd dive site: Elephant Ear Canyon - Saw even more rays on this dive, and lots of Queen conch too. An Atlantic Spade fish passed by, there were lots of reef fish on the coral heads at the top of the wall. While stalking a southern ray, a Peacock flounder swam over and stopped directly under me and didn't seem at all intimidated or shy as they normally are.
TBT: 50 mins., Max Depth: 74', Air: 3200/1300, EAN: 31, Vis 60', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: light current, Water temp: 84°
Lunch ! Stan made us Cheeseburgers in paradise with french fried potatoes, and no draft beer (we're still diving).
3rd dive site: Rock Garden Interlude - Great dive, lots to see on this site. Free swimming spotted eel, a very large Grouper, that wasn't a Tiger or Nassau...? A sea cucumber, southern rays, blue chromis everywhere, a reef shark, Tiger and Nassau groupers, and Marcel found an itsy-bitsy little eel in a coral outcropping. There were also two barracudas chasing each other back and forth under the boat.
TBT: 67 mins., Max Depth: 63', Air: 3100/900, EAN: 31, Vis 50-60', Weather: clouds, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
4th dive site: Rock Garden Interlude - More groupers, quite a number of Queen triggerfish, and 3 or 4 lobsters, along with the plethora of reef fish that we've been seeing all week.
TBT: 52 mins., Max Depth: 44', Air: 3000/1100, EAN: 31, Vis 50', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
Nina and some of the guests put on a fashion show after a lovely dinner or roast duck with orange sauce, plaintains, peas and rice and cole slaw. Marcel and Nancy were "chosen" to help James (ship's engineer), model some of the lovely apparel that was available from the "boatique." What a hoot. Marcel had fun I think, he's got some talent for the stage. ;-) Not so sure about Nancy. James looked smashing in his bikini and red wig.
Got up a bit earlier than usual and went up to the sundeck to see the end of the sunrise - it was simply gorgeous with sun rays and vivid colors splashing up from the horizon. Quite a site. I'm told there was a thunder storm in the wee hours of the morning. Dan and I never noticed, slept straight through it. With our berth being in the bowels of the ship and no windows who could tell? I had a mushroom and cheese omelet for breakfast.
1st dive site: Gullies - Saw little Pedersen cleaning shrimp. Queen triggers, a shark, barracuda, a humongous lobster, groupers, and a spotted eel, and a scrawled filefish. It was a nice wall dive.
TBT: 66 mins., Max Depth: 73', Air: 3100/1100, EAN: 30, Vis 50', Weather: clouds/sun, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
2nd dive site: Gullies - Finally saw an anemone. 2 Spotted drums, lots of grouper, a baby barracuda, slippery dicks, queen conch everywhere, queen angels, scrawled filefish and lots of jacks.
TBT: 71 mins., Max Depth: 76' , Air: 3200/1100, EAN: 30.8, Vis 60+', Weather: sunny, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
Lunch ! Assorted sandwich meats, mac salad, hot wings, salad and cookies.
3rd dive: Driveway - Lots of juvenile and immature fish on the reef: groupers, angels, triggers, wrasse. Saw a fire clam and lots of yellowhead jawfish. Another shark too. Got a reverse squeeze coming up from the dive, wasn't good.
TBT:65 mins., Max Depth: 70', Air: 3100/1400, EAN: 30.7, Vis 60', Weather: sunny, Sea: calm, Water temp: 84°
4th dive: White Face - Nice dive site. Found a large dead sand dollar on the descent. There were a few large crabs around, a green moray, a lizard fish and the ususal suspects. Saw an itsy-bitsy spotted drum and a big one. When we headed back toward the boat near the end of the dive, we noticed that there were two reef sharks (male & female) that kept circling around under the boat. They were circling in about a 80-100' circumference, just going round and round. They did that all during the end of my dive and all through my safety stop. I liked swimming with all the big-eye jacks under the boat, it was an enjoyable way to do the safety stop. They typically hung at 15-25' and they didn't seem to mind me or Nancy swimming through them.
TBT: 62mins., Max Depth: 74', Air: 3100/1200, EAN: 31, Vis 50', Weather: sun/clouds, Sea: slight current, Water temp: 84°
Our final dive today, then we head back to Turtle Cove. Had eggs "McStan" for breakfast. It was an early day. Our dive was at 7:00AM, we didn't have breakfast until after the dive.
Dive site: The Crack - The last dive wasn't much to speak of. Notable sites: 1 Cero, a humongous crab, 2 coral banded shrimp, 2 Ocean Triggers, a Southern ray, and two large fissures in the wall. My ears bothered me on the descent and the ascent. Vis was kinda bad too.
TBT: ? 35mins., Max Depth: ? 60', Air: 3000/?, EAN: 32, Vis 40', Weather: Sunny,
Sea: choppy, Water temp: 84°
Had to disembark the Sea Dancer at 8:00AM. Nancy, Charlie, Marcel, Annmarie and me and Dan walked around Turtle Cove for a while to kill time. We had until 11:30 to return to the dock for our shuttle to the airport. It was really freakin' hot. We walked around til about 9:30 then caught breakfast at a nice restaurant at the marina. Got to the airport without incident. Met up with James and Matt: James was heading to DisneyWorld with some buddies to go surfing at the waterpark, and Matt was having immigration woes and had to get outta Dodge, as they say. So he was thinking of hanging with James and learn to surf on a perfect 6' wave at the waterpark.
Didn't take long to get through customs in Miami, said so long to James and Matt, then the 6 of us headed up to the restaurant in the airport hotel to kill most of the 4 hours that we had to wait for our flight to Boston.
Our flight arrived in Boston 45 minutes early !! Took 15 minutes or so to get our luggage, then Charlie and Nancy headed off to find their limo home and Annmarie, Marcel Dan and I headed up to where our limo was hopefully waiting to take us home. Got home a little before midnight. Had a great trip.
This was Aquatic Excursions final trip... we've had some wonderous and fantastic trips with Ross, I hope we'll dive with him again in the future. I hate him for making me have to plan my own dive vacations. ...although, Charlie is pretty good at trip planning... :) all may not be lost yet.
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