Turks and Caicos Islands SCUBA Diving
Where When How Turks & Caicos Islands November / December 2011
INTO THE DEEP
A History of Diving“I am not at home, nor near any city or people; I am far out in the Pacific on a desert island, sitting on the bottom of the ocean; I am deep down under the water in a place where no human being has ever been before; it is one of the greatest moments in my whole life; thousands of people would pay large sums, would forego much for five minutes of this!” William Beebe. The Arcturus Adventure.
Before Providenciales was a haven for celebrities, and before the Turks and Caicos Islands became a playground for visitors from every point on the compass, a certain kind of tourist already placed this tiny chain of islands at the top of their list of dream destinations. In fact, a veritable counter–culture was quietly arriving on our shores long before there were world–class restaurants, award–winning spas and nightly entertainment. At that time, there was one thing these islands and their surrounding waters were famous for, and that thing was Diving!
Coral Head and Diver photo provided by Provo Turtle Divers
They came for our powdery white sand, the near shore reef, and that incredible wall where our unique turquoise suddenly gives way to bright navy; it’s at that point the sea dramatically drops from a timid 40 feet in depth, to an abysmal 7000 feet. Our wall is one of the main reasons the Turks and Caicos have long been popular with the ultimate adventure tourist, the SCUBA diver.
Just 575 miles southeast of Miami, the Turks and Caicos Islands boast more than 1000 square miles of living coral reef and a diverse marine environment that includes the amazing shallows of the Caicos Bank, extensive mangroves, shallow reefs and the wall. This combination provides some of the most diverse diving for a single destination in the entire world, and places us near the top, if not at the top, of the most popular dive destinations in the Caribbean. Limited annual rainfall and consistent currents give us our remarkable visibility and provide nutrient filled water that helps to attract large pelagics so sought after by divers. Our destination is also proud of our dive shops, who display an ongoing commitment to the environment that ensures the continued health of our reef and wall.
Whaleshark Sighting photo by Flamingo Divers
History of SCUBA
Although it sounds almost unbelievable, SCUBA Diving has been a wildly popular sport for many decades now; the history of recreational diving itself is a rich and storied one, and goes back much farther than the 80s in the Turks and Caicos Islands! Man’s love affair with the depths, after all, is probably as old as time itself!
Aristotle wrote about the use of the Diving Bells as early as the 4th Century BC! Imagine it, centuries before people would consider defying gravity to explore the skies, we were already fascinated with the underwater world. According to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, the ocean supports nearly 50 per cent of the life of all species on earth, and one in every six jobs in the United States is marine–related. The ocean is a key to transportation, recreation, and its resources provide 5 per cent of the total protein in the human diet. It is widely suspected that the resources in the world’s oceans hold the cure to many of the diseases that plague humankind. Yet, only five per cent of our underwater world has been explored. Five per cent! It’s that tantalising 95 per cent unknown that we human beings can’t resist; the reason books like Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and movies such as Walt Disney’s film The Little Mermaid, based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen, capture even the imaginations of adults. We simply can’t shake the feeling, or the hope perhaps, there might be entire societies dwelling under the surface of the sea. We’re enthralled with the idea of sea creatures in depths we have yet to discover; we romanticise the disappearance of ships and aircraft over the open–water with superstitious notions such as The Bermuda Triangle or theories of monsters like The Kraken. The water, it seems, is an obsession shared by all of humanity. It’s almost as though, for as long as we have been breathing creatures on dry land, we’ve been trying desperately to find a way to return to the water that gave us life.
As early as 3000 B.C. we have records of divers using freediving techniques (also called breath–hold diving) to harvest oysters, though it’s probably safe to assume humans were mining the sea for dinner long before recorded history. In the Iliad, Homer describes military divers who participated in the Trojan War. In approximately 1500, Leonardo da Vinci, a man always ahead of his time, designed SCUBA equipment but didn’t build it, fearing humanity’s nature might lead us to use his beautiful invention for the forces of evil.
With da Vinci’s reticence, the next big leap in equipment design didn’t happen until 1829 when two Brits, John and Charles Dean, made a diving helmet by devising a way to pump air into a modified firefighting helmet. Shortly after this advancement, a German inventor called Augustus Siebe developed a waterproof canvas suit attached to a diving helmet with an exhaust valve that would allow air to be pumped into the suit from the surface. This suit would be used for more than 100 years. In 1839, two Canadian inventors make the first mobile compressed oxygen reservoir that could be carried on a diver’s back.
In what is a remarkable history, diving evolved from breath–hold, to hollow–reed breathing tubes; from diving bells, to modern day SCUBA equipment; and finally to rebreathers and submersible diving vehicles! One company in Israel is currently busy at work on the next frontier of diving, Like–A–Fish Technologies are working on an artificial gill system which can already be used for up to half an hour. As advances continue in our understanding of the human body, the depths we can reach continue to increase; and our imaginations continue to be delighted and rewarded with new discoveries.
Diver at Spanish Anchor photo provided by Provo Turtle Divers
The Early Days of Diving in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Although we can be reasonably certain that neither da Vinci nor Aristotle ever strolled our beach or plumbed our depths – and no one has reported seeing The Man From Atlantis frolicking with JoJo in Grace Bay – we do have a rich diving history here in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Clare and Alan Jardine of Dive Provo have been offering great dive excursions on Providenciales for more than 20 years now. Like so many of our visitors, Clare and Alan were drawn to these islands for simple reasons, “We were attracted to the island’s laid back lifestyle, wonderful weather, beautiful beaches, excellent diving and close proximity to the United States.” Clare and Alan tell us, “It seemed the perfect recipe for success. Excellent visibility, little in the way of currents and dramatic walls offer the diver an exciting adventure without too much effort.” Philippe (FiFi) Kunz, owner of Caicos Adventures arrived on Providenciales when we were still an uncharted paradise. “Definitely, my favourite memories are of the time I spent exploring new reefs, walls and destinations.” FiFi says, “It was the most exiting time, swimming for miles along walls and reefs, and discovering special formations and sections of the walls that would become some of the most exciting places to dive now.” In those early days FiFi happened across a fascinating phenomenon, “We were exploring a new section of Sandbore Channel, swimming along the wall and suddenly right in front of me I see a school of 100 to 200 Nassau Groupers! I really didn’t know what to think of it, these guys normally cruise solo or in a pair! It was a bizarre scene, but so spectacular.” The grouper disappeared after a few days, but in honour of this sighting, FiFi named that section Grouper Reef. “When the same thing happened at around the same full moon for a few years, I realized this was a Breeding Station. It was amazing! In reality there was a period of three to five years where we were exploring so much that the level of excitement was there pretty much everyday.” Although the islands have a thin population density which has helped to keep damage to our reefs at a minimum, FiFi says it’s our responsibility to protect the underwater environment, “As the destination keeps growing we have to put stronger measures to be sure we are protecting the natural resources, for the future.” This sentiment is echoed by all the dive professionals here.
“While diving does seem to have an obvious impact to the reef, it is the indirect actions worldwide that are most damaging to the reef. Every little bit we do to help will make a difference.” Says Philip Shearer of Big Blue when talking about our responsibility to the ocean, “I would say there are two ways of looking at this: firstly, how we behave as divers underwater; good neutral buoyancy to ensure absolute minimal impact to the reef, the corals and the animals that live there. Secondly, perhaps not so obvious, is being conscious of the impact we have indirectly, so to speak, in our daily lives; what we pour down the sink, what we use in the garden, what we eat off the menu, and what we buy in the shops.”
Pod of Five Bottlenose Dolphins photo by Katrina Wolf
Present Day Diving in the Turks and Caicos Islands
There really is no better place to learn to SCUBA dive than here in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Our year–round water temperatures range from 74 to 82 degrees and visibility can be as much as 200 feet. Dives of just 40 feet in depth, the maximum for a Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) dive, provide opportunities to explore the reef, coral formations and can reveal schooling fish as well as more exciting turtles, rays, sharks and the occasional whale, if your timing is right. We have many PADI Dive Shops on various islands, where certified diving professionals will safely make any dream of breathing under the sea a reality. You can pursue certification as an Open Water Diver and, in just a couple of days, find yourself at 100 feet below sea level perusing our world–famous wall. If you’re short on time or only interested in a brief sojourn to our undersea paradise, you can do a DSD course and, in one day, be enjoying a closely supervised dive to 40 feet. If you’re an advanced diver looking for a unique experience, I’d suggest participating in a Lionfish cull and earning your certification as an Invasive Lionfish Tracker, a PADI distinctive specialty. (See page 72 of the May / June 2010 Magazine - Lionfish Hunting - in our Online Issues Archive) If SCUBA is not in the cards, but you’re an avid snorkeller and would like to improve on those skills, there are courses in freediving that can be taken.
In the Turks and Caicos Islands we are fortunate to have a variety of underwater destinations, another reason why divers return year after year to enjoy our islands from the surface and below. Shallow dives around the reef and coral heads are satisfying for all levels, however there are plenty of fascinating options for the more seasoned diver. We have artificial reefs sitting in 100 to 160 feet, wrecks that surround most of our islands, and our most awe–inspiring natural wonder – the wall. On any wall dive, my favourite moment is swimming to the edge of the vertical drop and taking one kick out into the blue to hang there for just a moment, knowing that 7000 feet of water (and whatever fantastical creatures live there) are all that remain between myself and the sea floor. It’s a profound, if slightly–scary–in–the–good–way moment, and I’m not alone, Dive Provo’s Clare Jardine echoes my sentiment saying, quite poetically, I think, “Where else can you hang suspended over the edge of the world?” Once you’ve had your fill of the drop–off hang time, you can turn around to explore that massive wall, where in the first 40 or 50 feet of the face, you will discover a myriad of miraculous and mind–blowing creatures, great and small.
“If you’re diving from Grand Turk, you’ll be thrilled with the very short boat ride (about ten minutes) to dive sites, so close that surface intervals between dives are done on shore! The wall is right off the shore.” Says Dale of Oasis Divers on Grand Turk, “It’s all diving in a National Park – so a very protected reef. When divers are booking a dive holiday in TCI, they should keep in mind Grand Turk is a lot different from Provo, it’s more of a quaint island.” Audrey from Blue Water Divers adds, “Grand Turk is only 7 miles long by 1.5 miles wide.” If you’re trying to pack a lot into a couple days on Grand Turk, this means you can easily do either a morning or afternoon dive, still leaving yourself time to explore the island. (Find out more about Grand Turk) Salt Cay also offers divers a unique diving experience (find out more about Salt Cay), and is widely considered the best location from which to view the annual whale migration that takes place each year from January to April. If you’re looking for a real diving holiday, it’s certainly worth it to take a couple of days to visit Grand Turk or Salt Cay to see what all the fuss is about, “Grand Turk is just 75 miles from Providenciales,” Audrey says, “And can be reached by a short 25 minute commuter flight from there.” Salt Cay, too, can be reached by simple commuter flights that depart and arrive daily through Providenciales. You’ll be tempted to return year after year to explore each of the Turks and Caicos’ hundreds of dive sites thoroughly.
Photographing the Sharks photo provided by Matthew Williams
Discover SCUBA Diving (DSD)
PADI Discover SCUBA Diving (DSD or Resort Course).
If you’re curious about SCUBA Diving but aren’t ready to commit to the full Open Water Certification Course, the Discover SCUBA course offered through PADI and available at all the local dive shops is the way to go. Since anyone age 10 and up can take the course, Discovering SCUBA is an activity the entire family can enjoy! In the safety of confined water, you’ll learn about equipment, some of the physiology and physics of diving, and take your very first breaths underwater. From this first under water experience, you move on to open water, exploring some of the amazing marine life in the waters of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
PADI Open Water Diver Course
If you’re ready to take the plunge and want a more in depth course of study than the DSD, you should go ahead and become certified as an Open Water Diver! There are three stages to the PADI Open Water Diver Course, and you must complete each stage and demonstrate knowledge gained, as well as the ability to complete all the physical skills required. You do not need to be an athlete to SCUBA Dive! Honestly, you don’t even need to be a non–smoker or have all your limbs to be a SCUBA Diver, so do not be discouraged if you feel you have physical limitations. Talk to a PADI instructor if you have concerns, but many challenges can be overcome. The first stage involves some book work called Knowledge Development, which you can either complete online, via home study, or in a classroom. Stage two consists of Confined Water Dives to learn about the equipment and the basic skills. Finally, you will demonstrate your learned skills in a series of Open Water Dives! Then you get welcomed into the mysterious world of SCUBA Diving by everyone aboard the dive boat, get your picture taken, and before you know it you’ve got your PADI Certified Open Water Diver card!
Bubblemaker
Don’t leave the little ones out! Kids 8 years of age and over, who have shown an interest in the underwater world, can be introduced to SCUBA via a safe and fun PADI course called The PADI Bubblemaker Experience. The course is done in a pool in less than 6 feet of water. The session takes about an hour and is a great way for kids to learn about SCUBA safely, and for them to get exposure to diving equipment made for children.
Diver and Anemone photo provided by Provo Turtle Divers
Aristotle Quote “... they enable the divers to respire equally well by letting down a cauldron, for this does not fill with water, but retains the air, for it is forced straight down into the water.” Aristotle describes a Diving Bell in the 4th Century B.C.
Historical Timeline – Some of the highlights
1893–The the first underwater camera.
1908–The first dive tables are used to determine decompression stops needed to avoid Decompression Sickness.
1911–A German company devises and markets oxygen rebreathers for military use, they eliminate telltale bubble trails left by divers.
1925–A French naval officer designs and builds a compressed air respirator. This marks the first step in taking diving from purely military applications to a recreational pursuit.
1942–Jacques Cousteau and friends develop a compressed air breathing apparatus with a demand valve. The Aqua–Lung goes on sale in France in 1945, in the U.S. in 1948, and by the 1950’s the Aqua–Lung could be purchased world wide.
1952–Silent World was released by Jacques–Yves Cousteau, Frédéric Dumas, and James Dugan, boosting sales of Aqua–Lungs in the U.S.
1953–The U.S. Navy begins using Neoprene suits.
1961–The first buoyancy compensator available for purchase by the general public.
1966–The Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) is founded.
1979–Sylvia Earl descends to a depth of 1250 ft/381 m and walks un–tethered on the ocean floor.
1980–Divers Alert Network is founded.
1983–The first commercially available dive computer, goes on sale.
Present Day–Recreational Diving continues to develop and we place increased emphasis on training, safety and stewardship of the marine environment
3000 scientists from 80 countries undertook a recent ten–year Census of Marine Life. The study, which concluded in October of 2010 and covered most of the world’s seas and oceans, recorded over 1,200 new species of sea creatures!
For advice about diving in general check out the PADI website at www.PADI.com.
A Good Diver is Always Learning – Diving’s Educational Resource www.DTMag.com.
Care was taken to ensure correctness of information at press time. Information is subject to change without notice. Ad Vantage Ltd. accepts no responsibility for such alterations or for typographical errors or omissions. Entire contents of this page may not be reproduced in any manner without written permission of Ad Vantage Ltd. © November / December 2011 Where When How - Turks & Caicos Islands.
Related Topics
- SCUBA Diving in the Turks and Caicos Islands
- Turks & Caicos SCUBA Diving Operators and Instructors
- Snorkelling and SNUBA in the Turks and Caicos Islands
- Turks and Caicos Weather Forecast and Weather Charts
- The Best Restaurants, Cafés and Bars in the Turks and Caicos Islands
- The Best Hotels, Resorts and Villas on Providenciales (Provo)
- Turks and Caicos Islands Shopping Guide
- Turks & Caicos Islands Maps and Detailed Maps of Provo, North Caicos and Middle Caicos
