Turk's Aggressor

Southeastern Divers, Inc.

908-A Bob Wallace Ave. Huntsville Alabama 35801 - Phone: 256-536-8404

"Training the best divers in North Alabama since 1980."

Maria Collins - PADI IDC Staff Instructor

Turks and Caicos Aggressor Trip Report – December 6th – 13th

(Click the photos to see a larger image. Check out the gallery at the bottom of the page!)

It was a cool morning in Atlanta December 6^th as Wes and I boarded the hotel bus to the airport. During the ride over, I thought about the island and how nice it’s going to be with steady temperatures in the 80’s. This was to be our first diving trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands. We were especially excited to be doing this trip as a live aboard on the Aggressor II. Although we had heard so many good reports about the diving in the Turks and I was equally excited to see this beautifully refurbished vessel and all the amenities awaiting us.

We carried all dive gear in two carry on bags. Camera gear, regulators, BC’s fins, suits etc., which all went through the X ray scans with not even a comment from TSA security. Our connection was on time and there were no problems. After an uneventful 3 hour plane trip to the Islands we landed at Providenciales around 1:00pm and met the Aggressor representative at the baggage claim area. We boarded the van and within a few minutes arrive at the Turtle Cove marina. There before our eyes the biggest vessel in the harbor awaits us.

As we unloaded our baggage from the van we were quickly greeted by several of the crew members to assist and brief us prior to boarding the boat. Much to our surprise, we were told that we only had six divers on this trip. With a boat that has abundant space for eighteen, it felt like a private charter for our group of six divers. We couldn’t help but notice that inside and out the boat was very organized and spotless. We have found this to be a normal state of operation for the entire Aggressor Fleet.

The boat has Flat panel DVD players in each room along with a cedar closet and a spacious shower/head. The A/C worked well, however, after several dives our lower core temperature resulted in us increasing the temperature setting within the cabin and closing the vent in our room to restore comfort.

The boat has a huge sundeck, complete with hot tub and comfortable chaise lounges. There is also shaded seating, an ice machine, and soda/beer cooler farther forward. The dive deck is laid out nicely, with plenty of space to hang suits and a large seating bench/storage locker beneath the AL 80 cylinder assigned to each diver and whips for air or Nitrox fills (EAN32).

Once everyone was aboard we then had our briefing by the captain and were introduced to all the crew. Scott was the photographer whiz and helped everyone download their digital images and presented each passenger with a CD of his photos from the week. Bob is the onboard divemaster/videographer who had an incredible sense of humor. Melissa was one of the instructors and was on most of our dives. Richard our cook was fantastic and quickly became everybody’s best friend the entire trip! Amanda was our fun loving captain that was prone to acting out what we would potentially see on the next dive. Overall the crew was fantastic and catered to our ever need.

As we left Turtle Cove around 6am Sunday morning and quickly headed south to West Caicos and then to French Cay while making several dives along the way. The diving was excellent and offered up everything we had expected from the Turks and Caicos Islands. The water temp was fairly consistence at 78 to 80 degrees and a full 3mm wetsuit was comfortable for most of the trip.

The standard dive involved a giant stride off the stern, dropping to 50-60' to sand/coral heads and then a short swim to the edge of a sheer wall. Once over the edge, another drop to a shelf at 140-180', past that, drops were to abyssal depths. The visibility was around 80ft with very little to no current making dives easy and relaxing.

Typically, there were five dives per day including a night dive each day. Diving was buffet style, you could enjoy as much time as your air would allow, follow a leader, or chart your own course. A typical profile was starting the day with a deep dive of 85 ft or above for 50 min and working you way to a respectable 40 ft night dive. There were 4 DPV’s on board for us to use anytime. They were a blast and allowed us to cover some length of the walls. We were even able to soar with a school of eagle rays!

Marine life was a collection of standard reef fishes, a few larger groupers, reef sharks, nurse sharks, stingrays, eagle rays, Lobsters, octopuses, and a few turtles. Walls were densely covered with plate corals, tube sponges, barrel sponges, soft corals, sea fans, stag horn coral, etc. I was somewhat disappointed at the amount of bleached coral in the sandy tops. This could have been due to the hurricanes that recently hit the islands and the ever growing concerns of coral health throughout the Caribbean.

I was amazed and excited to enter the water on our first dive and see reef sharks waiting on us at the bottom. Many of the large groupers loved the camera and didn’t mine us being there. The sharks were curious and often came close on a lot of the dives. It was exciting as sharks were present on ALL but two of the dives that week. Our favorite sightings were the eagle rays gliding just over the walls and the huge channel-crab congregations. A concern was that there were large amounts of lion fish.

The night dives were teeming with marine life and adrenaline as sharks were not seen sometimes until they were within arms length. It was exciting to watch the nurse sharks hunting and eating. There were lots of large Nassau grouper and jewfish. Night dives were the bomb!

After we completed each dive we were welcomed back to our floating home with warm showers on the dive platform only to wrap up in the carefully placed warm towels while enjoying hot snacks, or even hot chocolate after the night dive.

After 27 dives we started our journey back to Turtle Cove marina where we topped off the trip with a Friday evening cocktail party followed by a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant. That evening I spent most of the time uploading over 300+ images I had taken along with video I later produced into a DVD for each of the divers.

Saturday morning felt like we were saying goodbye to family members after sharing a wonderful vacation packed with memories that will last a life time. Memories of enjoying an excellent variety of foods with newly found diving friends laughing and sharing dive stories. Sure hope that the souvenir T-shirts and DVDs will be enough to hold them over until the next Aggressor dive adventure……no way.

Please join us in May as we spend a week aboard the Cayman Aggressor IV!

Click HERE for trip details!

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