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Country: Turks and Caicos Area: Turks and Caicos
Water Temp: 23 - 30°C (73 - 86°F)
Visibility: 15 - 40m (49 - 131 ft)
Nurse Sharks Mating in French Cay – Jul to Sep
A location that is still relatively unknown, The Turks and Caicos Islands have some excellent unspoilt dive sites, crystal clear water and abundant reef life making this a premier diving area. The best known of the Islands, Providenciales is one of the main diving hubs of this stunning archipelago.
Book A Dive Center OnlineProvidenciales, also known as “Provo” is part of the group of islands that makes up the Turks and Caicos Islands. With 8 main islands and lots of tiny islands, Providenciales is the most popular and best known of all of them by holidaymakers. Located at the southern tip of the Bahamas most people see these islands as being located in the Caribbean Sea they are actually part of the Atlantic Ocean but this doesn’t affect the beautiful sunshine and warm waters!
The Turks and Caicos are surrounded by an extensive coral reef system which provides some excellent dive sites and marine life. Although often overlooked for more popular or well known dive destinations, this may be to the islands advantage as this means the dive sites aren’t super busy every day, and it is perfect for those who want to escape the stress and busyness of a crowded city. Whether visiting totally for its exceptional diving and unique animal encounters, or also for a relaxing break away from the crowds, Provo and the rest of the Turks and Caicos Islands are a destination that should be seriously considered by divers for a holiday. Definitely before the islands become popular with the mass holidaymakers and its unspoilt peacefulness is tarnished.
Welcome to Providenciales! Credit
The climate of the Turks and Caicos Islands is mostly dry, sunny and pretty constant throughout the year, which gives a perfect year round diving season. The water temperature varies from its coolest towards the end of winter of 23C to 30C in the peak summer months.
Wake surfing! Credit
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Provo is a very popular choice of location for divers who do visit the islands and you can see why when you arrive. It is lined on all sides with beautiful beaches, the largest being Grace Bay which is a spectacular 12 mile stretch of white sand lined with palm trees and is protected by the reef just offshore. This is very convenient for diving as you can easily reach the reef from the beach and allows easy shore dives as well as boat dives to the further afield sites.
Blue Chromis, Credit
A large area of the waters around Providenciales comprises the princess Alexandra National Park which is protected from fishing and maintains a healthy ecosystem which combined with the diverse range of dive sites situated around its islands creates some world class diving. There are exceptional wall diving sites, coral reefs accessible from the beach and old and new ship wrecks.
Blue Tang and Squirrelfish,Credit
One excellent dive is North West Point which is a vertical wall famous for its gold and purple tube sponges and Caribbean Reef Sharks can be seen here swimming along this wall in the dark blue depths. This is an excellent dive for everybody and can be dived at the depth suitable for each individual diver and there is more than enough marine life to see along the wall whether deep or shallow. The nearby uninhabited island of West Caicos also has some excellent wall diving with protected walls dropping to extreme depths of thousands of metres! Caribbean Reef sharks and large pelagic can also regularly be seen in these dive sites as well as North West Point.
Parrotfish,Credit
Turks and Caicos is one of the few destinations in the world where you can have the chance of swimming with Humpback Whales. These whales pass by from January to March on their migration to Silver Banks in the Dominican Republic to mate and calve. As well as memorable whale encounters, the waters around Provo also offer the chance to swim with dolphins. One Bottlenose dolphin in particular named “Jojo” is a famous resident of these waters since the 1980’s. Jojo is wild but very friendly, frequently visiting divers and seems to really enjoy human interaction.
Shark,Credit
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The islands have two international airports with one of them being on the island of Providenciales. This airport has connections to many cities all over the US. A lot of visitors also arrive at the islands on cruise ships, as this is on a Caribbean cruise route and most stop at Grand Turk. It is also possible to island hop between a lot of these islands by either boat or sea plane.
Just perfect! Credit
NWP dive site is spectacular for freediving as it has the most amazing clear water, visibility and marine life ranging from turtles, barracudas, moray eels, eagle rays, rays and reef sharks. Top of the wall lies in about 45 feet and drops down to 7000 feet.
West Caicos was not an option of location so I put the next closest island
Two great dives today in Turks & Caicos. We headed out to West Caicos with Dive Provo. Boat wasn't too crowded and the staff was top notch. Had some small issues with my secondary but other than that everything was perfect.
Tank 1 - not too much out of the ordinary to report on this dive, some others saw a shark but other than that highlights for us included a huge puffer fish (18-24 inches) and a coral formation that had 3 huge lobsters in it.
Tank 2 - the gully - We saw a shark from the surface in between dives. This dive location much better dive, right under the boat we caught a glimpse of a spotted eagle ray, there were a couple schools of yellow jacks circling below, there was also a large grouping of garden eels. While cruising along the reef, we saw a spotted moray complete out of its hole. Saw 2 huge french angel fish, a huge hogfish, some really nice mushroom & sponge coral.
Did not see Lionfish on either dive which was good.
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