Reviews

I scheduled my first trip to the Turks & Caicos (Provo) March because I wanted to dive there. I researched dive shops on Provo and found AquaTCI, a small husband and wife operation running out of the South Marina. They looked like just the type of dive operation I like, small groups, fast boat, and "valet" service handling my equipment. I contacted AquaTCI through their website and quickly heard back from Stephanie Wallwork, one of the owners, almost immediately. We emailed back and forth and I ended up scheduling 5 days of two tank diving. Stephanie was very responsive and a pleasure to work with over email (some dive operators are not nearly as responsive to email questions).

I dove with AquaTCI from March 1 through March 5, 2015. As I have been a fast breather, Stephanie had offered larger tanks for me (I hate being the first one in the group to run low on air). I took them up on that and was glad I did as most of the dives were in the 50 to 55 plus minutes duration. One of many things I appreciated about AquaTCI is that they allow their dive groups to dive their tanks/computers and not require everyone to go up when the first person ran low on air. I think I am doing much better on air after this trip, as I was usually in the middle of the order of coming back up.

Normally Stephanie and Bill take turns leading the dives and Bill drives the boat. The first two days though for me, Stephanie was sick so they arranged for Matt (a manager at Coral Gardens who is also a dive master and instructor). Matt had 20 years of diving experience on Provo so he was very familiar with the reefs and many creatures that were available to see on these dives. The last three days of diving Stephanie was recovered and she led the first dives of the day and Bill the second. Both are very enthusiastic about the diving and knowledgeable about the reefs. I saw reef sharks on several of the dives, turtles on most of the dives, and close passes by eagle rays on a couple of the dives. There were tons of large groupers, huge lobsters, stingrays, and lots of other fish. We dove at West Caicos two days and Northwest Point three days while I was there. I dove ten times and only one of the sites was a repeat for me (which I didn't mind because there were sharks there). I really enjoyed diving the "Thunderdome" which is the abandoned site of a failed French TV reality show - it was pretty surreal and filled with fish.

As I mentioned I handed my equipment off to them and they handled it up until the last dive for me. They rinse everything off and setup my gear for me each day. Also one day they let my wife ride along on the boat because there was room. My wife doesn't dive but likes being out on the water and she even spied a turtle on the surface while we were underwater. The boat rides were long 40 to 50 minutes (I knew that was true before coming to Provo), but AquaTCI's boat is very fast and we were usually one of the first to the dive sites each morning, and we often passed other boats on the way home. I should also mention the surface intervals included lots of snacks and Stephanie's home made banana bread each day. Our dive groups were small usually 6 to 8 plus the DM, and one day I think there were only 4 of us.

That's about all I have to say. When I go back to Provo (and I plan to in a year or two), I will definitely dive with AquaTCI and Stephanie and Bill again. I don't think I could ask for more in a dive operator.