Grand Turk in the Caicos and Turk islands
Mitch and Jena Carl

In the beginning of march 1999 we took a trip to Grand Turk in the Caicos and Turk islands. I was taking my brother and his wife and my friend and his wife on their first dive trip. I did a little research and tried to find a dive destination that was an easy place to dive. We were also looking for a place without the glitz and glamour. We just wanted a small quiet island to relax on. If this is what you are looking for, Grand Turk fits the bill. The people of Grand Turk are very laid back and quiet and the island itself has no casinos, no cruise ships and not alot of tourists. Though the people tend to be on the quiet side, when they do party, they party long and loud. We happened to be down there when they were having some important political elections. It wasn't uncommon to see (or hear!) a little hatchback car with two huge megaphones attached to the roof with the driver belting out his thoughts on why PDM should be put into office. At night there were car parades through the streets with lots of loud music, honking of horns, and lots of dancing in the streets. While some might have become annoyed by this, I found it to be entertaining and fun to watch.

We stayed at the Grand Turk Inn, which is across the street from the beach. the inn only had seven rooms and was an old plantation mansion. The rooms we got were the standard rooms and were small. My brother had the deluxe room which was a tad bigger. The one complaint I did have about the rooms were the showers were horrible. They were very small and the water came out in a lukewarm dribble. I need a good powerful, hot shower after a day of diving! |The inn had a restaurant right outside our rooms, and for the most part the food was very good. Of course the local fish was excellent as well as the lobsters. Many of the dishes feature conch, which tastes alot like a rubberband. The owners of the inn were very accommodating and helpful. I would recommend this inn if your looking for a back in time stay at a cozy little inn.

The food on the island range from o.k. to outstanding. We ate a few times at the Salt Raker Inn and we especially enjoyed their bbq nights. Don't expect quick and efficient service though. Most of the places on the island had very slow service, so most meals were a two hour feast. But who cares, there isn't a rush to go anywhere so we just sat back and enjoyed. Music was provided by our divemaster, Mitch Rollings, and his band mate who played a bucket. For cheap food we went to the Poop Deck and the Reagle Beagle. Both these places were small and cheap with excellent food. To save more money, we also went to the local grocery store located a few blocks from the inn. The selection varies, with the most food available after the ship comes in on Wednesday.

So what about the diving? While we were there the diving ranged from average to great. We dove with Blue Water Divers. Mitch Rollings was the owner and we usually dove with him or his co-worker, Carl, who was a native of the Turks. Mitch was helpful and entertaining with his stories of the diving and life in the Turks. He is originally from Ames, Iowa and went to the Turks in search of a music career at a young age (I didn't know the Turks were a hotbed of music either!). He has been on over 5000 dives in the Turks, so he knows his stuff and where the good sites are. He was a little inattentive in regards to some of our equipment. A couple of dives were aborted early when some divers were given empty tanks or their air valves weren't turned on all the way. Though this should have been easily avoided by checking our equipment, this was a first trip for some, so I forgave everyone! The coral coverage on the walls was impressive and the fish life varied from site to site. Most dives were started at 25-30 ft of water on a nice patch reef/sand flat. We usually started and ended at these sites, so we spent alot of time exploring them. There were alot of neat things to see on these sand flats. We spotted numerous jawfish, sand tilefish, flounders, southern stingrays, sand crabs and even an octopus skittering about. The garden eel fields were incredible too. One thing that impressed me with the fish life, was that on every dive, I saw a fish I had never seen diving before. I also spotted fish that are considered rare to see, such as cave basslets, peppermint basslets and swissguard basslets. Most of the fish life were of the small variety. A few sites had large nassau grouper, a few schools of jacks and one dive had an impressive school of over 50 large barracuda. Some of the better dive sites we visited were, black forest, sand channel river (very good), McDonalds, the anchor, and the aquarium. The aquarium had by far the most fish life with schools of creole wrasses, jacks, many nassau grouper and queen triggers.

One highly recommended thing to do is take a day trip to Gibbs Cay or Salt Cay. We went to Gibbs Cay and had an awesome time. Halfway to Gibbs Cay we stopped in 25 ft of water and went freediving for queen conch. We caught about 10 conch and then preceded on to the island. When we got there we could see large silhouettes of stingrays prowling the shoreline. When we pulled up to the beach and jumped in we had about 10 large southern rays swimming through our legs. Carl taught us how to crack the conch and then we began feeding the stingrays and trunkfish that showed up. After this I went snorkeling on the grass flat and spotted baracuda and a huge spotted eagle ray (a highlight of the trip). We then walked around the island and caught hermit crabs and lizards. It was a beautiful day and a great island. It was only the 7 of us on the entire island, so it seemed very isolated.

Overall grand Turk was good destination to go. It was very easy diving for the novices I took, but also was exciting for someone who has seen alot. One misnomer that I see advertised about Grand Turk is that they offer unlimited shore diving. It's an awful long surface swim out to the wall. This isn't Bonaire where you can give a few fin kicks and be on the reef. The wall is quite a ways out there. During certain times of the year larger pelagics (mantas) are seen of the wall. While we were there, humpback whales where passing through and one group saw a whale while diving! If you want laid back diving and island life Grand Turk is for you, if you like topside excitement and bar life, try Cozumel.