Providentiales, Turks and Caicos 2013
Introduction
I ended my self-imposed, nine-year hiatus from scuba-diving this year with a visit to the site of my first dedicated dive trip twenty years ago, Providentiales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I stopped diving after my 2004 Bermuda trip because I had gotten bored. I had pursued the sport with a passion bordering on an uncontrolled fever for twelve years and had gotten burnt out: everything was looking the same under water, the best islands for diving were difficult to get to and uninteresting above water, the bugs were getting worse every year, and I was always concerned about staying healthy right before and during each trip because a mere head cold, clogging the sinuses, making it difficult or impossible to clear one's ears, will keep a diver out of the water.
As the years clicked by I tried to reignite my interest in scuba-diving, seeing every feature film that had an underwater theme, going to the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Minnesota Zoo whenever they showed a documentary about the sea on their giant screens, and talking with divers at work about their aquatic experiences, but nothing generated anything in me but ennui. That's it, I'm through, I convinced myself. I've got Asia—who could ask for anything more?
But then something happened, two things, actually. After waiting forever for a legitimate video release of Sea Hunt, the 1958–1961 television show I enjoyed as a child in reruns, starring Lloyd Bridges as a freelance scuba-diving contractor, I bought season one when the series was released on standard DVDs earlier this year and worked my way through those first thirty-eight episodes. (Yes, back in the early days of TV, nearly forty episodes constituted a season. Compare that with network television today or to the premium cable channels, which typically have twelve episodes.) Anyway, after squirming through the first six episodes, painful to watch, I started enjoying the rest of the season, despite its low production values. The show aimed big on a small budget—a good chunk of each episode was filmed underwater, which fifty-five years after the fact remains impressive. With each passing episode I had more and more fun watching the adventures of Bridges's character, Mike Nelson, despite the far-fetched plots. Happily, in real-life scuba-divers don't get into fights underwater and cut each other's air hoses, but such activity does make for an entertaining twenty-six minutes. It was fun, too, to see Lloyd's son, future Oscar-winner, Jeff, then eight years old, in two episodes; Leonard Nimoy in two; and Larry Hagman in three. Sea Hunt was ahead of its time with its abundance of Hispanic characters, usually portrayed by Hispanic actors, in about a third of the season. Other than I Love Lucy, with Ricky Ricardo, the title character's husband, I can't think of another show from that era in which that was true. In addition to these virtues, though, two other things about the show appealed to me: Lloyd Bridges's enthusiasm for diving, which was obvious in the short post-script he did before the closing credits rolled, and the main character, Nelson. However hokey this sounds—laugh if you wish—but Mike Nelson is a truly good man: honest, hard-working, knowledgeable, courteous, serious, respectful of others. Are there still people like that in the world? Am I that way? Everywhere I look people are jaded, cynical, smart-alecks, men especially. Not only is Lloyd Bridges the perfect ambassador for scuba-diving, but Mike Nelson is a role-model for any boy or man. It was such a breath of fresh air watching his character, one who didn't try to be hip, who spoke properly, who cared about his appearance, and who always tried to do the right thing.
The second thing that happened to change my heart about diving again was a fluke. During one of the few warm weekends the Twin Cities enjoyed this spring, when I was riding my motorcycle and not knowing where to go after half an hour, I decided to head east about ten miles to the dive shop at which I did most of my training and bought most of my equipment. I hadn't been to FantaSea Scuba since I picked up my regulator there after its last servicing, in 2005. One of my teachers owned the store now, in whole or in part, I can't remember which, and he was there when I walked in. He remembered me right away, but it took a couple minutes of hearing his voice before I remembered him, his hair having greyed, his weight having increased. We visited for a while, as he showed me around the store, explaining what was new in diving. The smell of the diving equipment—smell is our strongest sense memory—brought back diving memories, all good ones. I thought to myself and then said to Gary, my instructor, that I'd consider suiting up and getting back in the water if my dive computer still worked and if I didn't have to buy any new equipment. Well, I sped home, replaced the battery in my air-integrated, Suunto Eon computer, and lo and behold, at nineteen years old, it appeared to function normally. Over the next two weeks Gary tuned-up my regulator, also 1994-vintage, and let me dive in a community-center pool while his staff was teaching a confined-water class to future Open Water divers. Everything, including me, worked in the shallow, chlorinated depths, so, with my enthusiasm building, I decided to dive again.
And that brought me, on two-and-a-half weeks' notice, to Turks and Caicos.
But then something happened, two things, actually. After waiting forever for a legitimate video release of Sea Hunt, the 1958–1961 television show I enjoyed as a child in reruns, starring Lloyd Bridges as a freelance scuba-diving contractor, I bought season one when the series was released on standard DVDs earlier this year and worked my way through those first thirty-eight episodes. (Yes, back in the early days of TV, nearly forty episodes constituted a season. Compare that with network television today or to the premium cable channels, which typically have twelve episodes.) Anyway, after squirming through the first six episodes, painful to watch, I started enjoying the rest of the season, despite its low production values. The show aimed big on a small budget—a good chunk of each episode was filmed underwater, which fifty-five years after the fact remains impressive. With each passing episode I had more and more fun watching the adventures of Bridges's character, Mike Nelson, despite the far-fetched plots. Happily, in real-life scuba-divers don't get into fights underwater and cut each other's air hoses, but such activity does make for an entertaining twenty-six minutes. It was fun, too, to see Lloyd's son, future Oscar-winner, Jeff, then eight years old, in two episodes; Leonard Nimoy in two; and Larry Hagman in three. Sea Hunt was ahead of its time with its abundance of Hispanic characters, usually portrayed by Hispanic actors, in about a third of the season. Other than I Love Lucy, with Ricky Ricardo, the title character's husband, I can't think of another show from that era in which that was true. In addition to these virtues, though, two other things about the show appealed to me: Lloyd Bridges's enthusiasm for diving, which was obvious in the short post-script he did before the closing credits rolled, and the main character, Nelson. However hokey this sounds—laugh if you wish—but Mike Nelson is a truly good man: honest, hard-working, knowledgeable, courteous, serious, respectful of others. Are there still people like that in the world? Am I that way? Everywhere I look people are jaded, cynical, smart-alecks, men especially. Not only is Lloyd Bridges the perfect ambassador for scuba-diving, but Mike Nelson is a role-model for any boy or man. It was such a breath of fresh air watching his character, one who didn't try to be hip, who spoke properly, who cared about his appearance, and who always tried to do the right thing.
The second thing that happened to change my heart about diving again was a fluke. During one of the few warm weekends the Twin Cities enjoyed this spring, when I was riding my motorcycle and not knowing where to go after half an hour, I decided to head east about ten miles to the dive shop at which I did most of my training and bought most of my equipment. I hadn't been to FantaSea Scuba since I picked up my regulator there after its last servicing, in 2005. One of my teachers owned the store now, in whole or in part, I can't remember which, and he was there when I walked in. He remembered me right away, but it took a couple minutes of hearing his voice before I remembered him, his hair having greyed, his weight having increased. We visited for a while, as he showed me around the store, explaining what was new in diving. The smell of the diving equipment—smell is our strongest sense memory—brought back diving memories, all good ones. I thought to myself and then said to Gary, my instructor, that I'd consider suiting up and getting back in the water if my dive computer still worked and if I didn't have to buy any new equipment. Well, I sped home, replaced the battery in my air-integrated, Suunto Eon computer, and lo and behold, at nineteen years old, it appeared to function normally. Over the next two weeks Gary tuned-up my regulator, also 1994-vintage, and let me dive in a community-center pool while his staff was teaching a confined-water class to future Open Water divers. Everything, including me, worked in the shallow, chlorinated depths, so, with my enthusiasm building, I decided to dive again.
And that brought me, on two-and-a-half weeks' notice, to Turks and Caicos.
On Land
The resort I stayed at in 1993, Ramada Inn Turquoise Reef, has long since changed hands, twice, I believe, and is now the expensive-looking Seven Stars Resort. Because of a change in my income level last year, I searched for accommodations less spendy for this trip and chose Ports of Call Resort, which is on the same property as Dive Provo, the shop I dived with during my first visit and wanted to do so again. The location of Ports of Call is good—by coincidence right across the street from Seven Stars—with several shops and restaurants a very short walk away. Plus, a new IGA grocery store was no more than twenty yards from the Ports of Call driveway. The well-stocked IGA is as upscale as any grocery store I've been in anywhere and was a great place to stock up on fruit, juice, and the like. Ports of Call was fine, nothing special but updated recently, with a nice pool that I frolicked in every day after diving. Its free breakfast bar, modest by any standard, was sufficient.
After thirty years of vacationing, on terra firma and under water, I'm still amazed that my best holiday memories are of the people I met along the way, even though I am a contented introvert. The tradition continued on Providentiales this year. On this Saturday–to–Saturday trip, 8–15 June, I enjoyed the company of:
After thirty years of vacationing, on terra firma and under water, I'm still amazed that my best holiday memories are of the people I met along the way, even though I am a contented introvert. The tradition continued on Providentiales this year. On this Saturday–to–Saturday trip, 8–15 June, I enjoyed the company of:
- Sarah and Andy, she from Australia and he from Austria, both skydivers as well as scuba-divers. Sarah, like all Australians I've met, was unbelievably friendly and personable.
- Paul and Lauren, LDS husband and wife from Salt Lake City, Utah. Paul is a cinematographer. I liked discussing movies with Paul, as he was knew the subject well and was familiar with many of my favorites.
- Moe, Marilyn, and Nicole, three women from Buffalo, New York. Moe has been to several world-class dive destinations, and it was fun talking to her about her experiences.
- Jimmy and Katy, a young couple from Poland but living in London.
- Cheryl and Brian, from North Carolina. Cheryl was on a short holiday from her contractor-assignment for the U.S. Treasury, which had her stationed in Haiti. She's there as part of a team trying to improve the Haitian economy. It was a pleasant surprise when she told me, yes, she had read The Big Truck That Went By, a book I read earlier this year about the world's good intentions to help Haiti after the 2010 earthquake but how most of those efforts have failed.
- Mike, from Tucson, Arizona. Mike was on Provo with his wife, diving every other day while his wife enjoyed her time on the beach.
- Neal, from New Jersey, a classic Easterner who was funny.
- A young plastic surgeon from Chicago, who was interning at the University of Chicago hospital. I urged him to help babies born with facial deformities rather than women who wanted to go from a 32A to a 33C.
- The Dive Provo staff, especially Nevis, a cutie in face, figure, and personality who I assume is from France; Torsin, a German; and Danny, who is from a country with British roots, but I'm not sure which one.
Ports of Call Resort
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Ports of Call Resort
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Ports of Call Resort, Deluxe Junior Suite, Room 266
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Ports of Call Resort Pool
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Sarah and Andy Relaxing at the Pool
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Dive Provo
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3-D Mural across from Dive Provo
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Seven Stars Resort
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- Providentiales, as we all have over the past twenty years, has changed a lot—literally scores of new hotels and businesses on the island.
- The temperature was a humid ninety degrees everyday and mostly sunny, with an occasional Caribbean shower lasting a few minutes the first couple of days. I loved the heat.
- Though I got bit a couple of times by mosquitoes or No-See-Ums, it was, indeed, only a couple of times, so, happily, the insects were not a factor on this trip.
Providentiales
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Providentiales
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Providentiales
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Near the Resort
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Providentiales
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Providentiales
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On four of the diving days, the Dive Provo boat left out of the Turtle Cove Marina; on the two days we dived off of West Caicos, Provo's other boat departed from the Caicos Marina. To get to the marinas Dive Provo provided us with bus rides from the shop. Though not my preferred way to travel on a dive vacation, nor anyone else's, I'm sure, the short, ten-to-fifteen-minute jaunts were not an inconvenience.
Boarding the bus to go diving
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Provo Conquest at Turtle Cove Marina
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Caicos Marina
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Provo Crusader at Caicos Marina
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At Sea
Divers get into the water and to a dive site by boat or from the shore, both having advantages and disadvantages. Shore diving is good because you’re on your own time, waiting for no one, and no crowds. You want to get going at eight in the morning? Then that’s the time you leave. One of my favorite dives anywhere is La Machaca, a shore dive right in front of Captain Don’s Habitat in Bonaire. You jump off the dock and you’re in the midst of a spectacular reef. But shore diving isn’t so good because it’s not always available, as is typical in the Caribbean; because it’s difficult to walk into the water in full dive regalia; and because it’s usually a bit of a swim once you’re in the water to get to the site. Boat diving is great because the boat moors right on top of the dive site—the boat stops and there you are; its biggest disadvantage is that you have to ride in a boat. Short boat rides of, say, fifteen minutes or less are no problem and are sometimes fun, giving you a chance to meet your fellow dive travelers. Among the reasons I love Saba, Bonaire, and Grand Turk is that the rides are brief, five minutes in some cases. Long boat rides are tiresome, especially the ride back to the marina. And the nature of Caribbean weather, which is calm early in the morning but windier in the afternoon, the ride “home” after the last dive can be a roller coaster. This varies, of course, day-to-day, season-to-season and happened only once this trip.
Provo diving has long and short rides, but weighted more to lengthier ones. Diving in Grace Bay means fifteen-minute rides—easy. Diving off Northwest Point or West Caicos, well, then it’s fifty minutes to an hour. And while West Caicos is a virtual guarantee for great diving; Northwest Point is mixed. I wouldn’t mind the long rides if the boats were sailboats, silent, rather than motorboats, which are noisy. On this trip, when I knew on a given day we were taking the longer ride to Northwest Point, I brought along a book and tried to read it on the ride out, but I simply couldn’t concentrate because of the roar of the engine. In the overall scheme of the diving experience, however, this is not a significant issue either way, but I do have a preference.
Provo diving has long and short rides, but weighted more to lengthier ones. Diving in Grace Bay means fifteen-minute rides—easy. Diving off Northwest Point or West Caicos, well, then it’s fifty minutes to an hour. And while West Caicos is a virtual guarantee for great diving; Northwest Point is mixed. I wouldn’t mind the long rides if the boats were sailboats, silent, rather than motorboats, which are noisy. On this trip, when I knew on a given day we were taking the longer ride to Northwest Point, I brought along a book and tried to read it on the ride out, but I simply couldn’t concentrate because of the roar of the engine. In the overall scheme of the diving experience, however, this is not a significant issue either way, but I do have a preference.
Turquoise Waters around Turks and Caicos
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Turquoise Waters around Turks and Caicos
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Paul and Lauren
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Katy and Jimmy, lower right
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Providentiales from the Sea
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Providentiales from the Sea
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West Caicos
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Turquoise Waters around Turks and Caicos
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(Brian), Marilyn, Nicole, and Moe
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Trying to keep my balance next to dive guide Nevis
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Under the Sea
I rate the diving off of Providentiales as good. I dived twelve times during my six diving days, numbers 235 to 246 of my career. While three of the dives were mediocre, nine of the them were good or even excellent. I saw a lot of sharks, nineteen as I recorded them in my logbook, including two hammerheads, side by side, and a swimming nurse shark. The waters also entertained us with several turtles, a couple of moray eels, scores of barracuda, a few Southern Stingrays, half a dozen lobsters, and at the end of the first day a pod of dolphin escorting our boat part of the way back to land. One thing that has changed in these waters since I was here last is the abundance of lionfish, which are native to the Pacific. It was fun to see them when I dived in Fiji in 1995, but according to the locals they have proliferated around Provo to such an extent that they've become an invasive species. Some dive shops sponsor lionfish hunts to get rid of these creatures that are harming the ecosystem.
The water temperature at depth according to my computer was a comfortable eighty degrees, with visibility, by Turks and Caicos standards, below average, sixty-to-eighty feet—none of the classic two hundred-foot clarity that isn't unusual here. Torsin, the German dive guide, told me there is no trend for when the waters are sparkling clear: it can and does happen in any season. Though some of the sponges weren't as colorful as I've seen elsewhere—Danny, the British dive guide, attributes it to all the construction run-off from the island over the past several years—and there wasn't as much fish life as, say, in Bonaire or Little Cayman, most of the walls we dived were stunning, almost overwhelming. And I am partial to walls and to other structures, like Saba's pinnacles.
As for me, well, I got comfortable faster than I expected. I must confess, there are few more incredible feelings than breathing underwater as you float free of gravity while admiring animal and plant life almost none of the world's population will ever see in its natural environment. Maybe someday someone will write a book called Zen and the Art of Scuba-diving.
More bullet points.
The water temperature at depth according to my computer was a comfortable eighty degrees, with visibility, by Turks and Caicos standards, below average, sixty-to-eighty feet—none of the classic two hundred-foot clarity that isn't unusual here. Torsin, the German dive guide, told me there is no trend for when the waters are sparkling clear: it can and does happen in any season. Though some of the sponges weren't as colorful as I've seen elsewhere—Danny, the British dive guide, attributes it to all the construction run-off from the island over the past several years—and there wasn't as much fish life as, say, in Bonaire or Little Cayman, most of the walls we dived were stunning, almost overwhelming. And I am partial to walls and to other structures, like Saba's pinnacles.
As for me, well, I got comfortable faster than I expected. I must confess, there are few more incredible feelings than breathing underwater as you float free of gravity while admiring animal and plant life almost none of the world's population will ever see in its natural environment. Maybe someday someone will write a book called Zen and the Art of Scuba-diving.
More bullet points.
- I was somewhat efficient with how I consumed air but still need to improve.
- The depth profiles the crew asked us to follow were more conservative than in '93. They requested no more than one hundred feet on the day's first dive; my deepest was eighty-nine feet.
- All my equipment, ranging in age from seventeen years to twenty, did work perfectly, including my flashlight and its batteries, except for my AquaShot underwater camera housing. I suppose I was pushing my luck to think that after being able to find a disposable camera to fit into it, nothing would go wrong with the unit after all these years. But unfortunately as soon as I got it in the water the AquaShot leaked. Oh well. The next day I rented a digital camera from Dive Provo and took the following photographs at The Crack and Two Steps, dive sites at Northwest Point.
Dive guide Danny swimming through The Crack
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Dive Guide Danny and Sea Anemone
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Danny holding a shrimp
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Hard and Soft Coral
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Ubiquitous Lionfish
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Ubiquitous Lionfish
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Queen Triggerfish
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Queen Triggerfish
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Spotted Trunkfish
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Blue Chromis Amongst the Hard Coral
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Great Barracuda
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Great Barracuda
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Tube Sponge
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Moe
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Sea Turtle
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Sea Turtle
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Caribbean Reef Shark
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Caribbean Reef Shark
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Me
Vacation Books
To pass the time on the four legs of the round-trip flight, Minneapolis–Providentiales–Minneapolis, as well as the layovers in the Atlanta airport, plus the abundant down-time I had on the island when I wasn't diving, I brought five books and finished four of them during this vacation. For the record:
- Undaunted, by Tania Banks. Ms. Banks is the wife, daughter, and sister of lieutenant colonels; that she would write a book about the U.S. armed forces is only natural. Her subject in Undaunted is women in the military, choosing four case studies to illustrate her theme of the challenges and satisfactions women face who choose to serve in the army or marines.
- Memories of My Melancholy Whores, by the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This short novel is about a ninety-year-old man, who on that landmark birthday wants to have a fling with an inexperienced teen-aged girl. Strange subject, well-told by the Colombian Nobel Prize-winner.
- The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements, by Richard Berlinski. Not a good vacation choice. I was hoping it would be more anecdotal, but the good professor plays it straight in discussing the Greek father of geometry and his theories.
- South of the Border, West of the Sun, by Haruki Murakami. Mr. Murakami is fast joining the ranks of writers like Somerset Maugham, Cormac McCarthy, and the Bronte sisters, who I'm convinced have lived in my head because how I can relate to virtually every sentence they write, even if the stories they tell have nothing to do with my life. In South of the Border...Murakami tells of a seemingly successful middle-aged man whose world is thrown into disarray when a childhood girlfriend re-enters his life.
- Sweetness: the Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton, by Jeff Pearlman. This is the one I haven't finished yet. I'm not a football fan, nor a Walter Payton fan, though I was saddened, like most people, when he died at a much-too-young age of forty-six in 1999. Having lived in Chicago for his entire career with the Bears, I couldn't help but hear of his spectacular exploits on the football field and his good-guy status off of it. Pearlman's book tells a more complete, interesting story of the Hall of Fame halfback, one I'm enjoying.
Odds and Ends
- Cab fare from the airport to the hotel, and then back again at the end of the trip, was $26 each way
- Gas cost about $6.08/gallon on Providentiales
- Providentiales now has a multiplex, playing, the week I was there, After Earth, Fast and Furious 6, and The Hangover Part 3, none of which I had any interest in seeing
- Airlines based in the U.S. that fly in and out of Providentiales: American, Delta, Jet Blue, US Air, and United. I flew Delta.
- Food, ah, yes, the worldwide obsession, except, that is, for me and two or three other people I know. Though I have a degree in food engineering and have worked directly or indirectly in the food industry for my entire professional career, eating is so low on my personal priority list that I need binoculars to see it. But the rest of humanity loves to do it—and it often shows in their physique. Yes, I like a good filet mignon and a great pizza, and I suppose I'll never tire of the taste of hot popcorn, but, seriously, if I could take a pill that would keep me full and satisfy all my nutritional needs, then I'd do it...and be happier for it. There are several reasons why I travel alone, one being I don't have to spend two or three hours every night having dinner. Ugh. When I'm by myself I go to the restaurant of my choice, have a simple, reasonably healthy meal, and am on my way in half an hour. Having said that, on late Thursday afternoon I made the forty-five-second walk from Ports of Call to an eatery called Jimmy's, where I had a breakfast-for-dinner meal of French Toast that was so delicious I was speechless, until I saw the chef walk by and told him his creation was the best meal of its type I've ever had. Embarrassed by the compliment, he laughed and thanked me several times.
Conclusion
My ultimate goal in taking this trip was to find the passion for diving that I'd had for it several years ago. I don't think regaining that same level of interest is possible, but I had a great vacation in Turks and Caicos and thoroughly enjoyed the diving, enough so that I will take another dive trip next year.