Dive Review of Reef Divers/East Bay Resort] in
Turks and Caicos/South Caicos

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Reef Divers/East Bay Resort]: "Mixed review", Oct, 2021, by GERALD WILISON, MI, US ( Reviewer 5 reports with 5 Helpful votes). Report 11675 has 3 Helpful votes.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Getting to the Turks and Caicos was a bit of a bureaucratic challenge. Must be vaccinated and have negative Covid19 test within 72 hours if flight, plus travel insurance covering quarantine if Covid contracted during trip. All this must be uploaded to the Turks and Caicos portal and be approved before flight departure. This approval may not come until the night (or early morning) before you leave, which can cause some anxiety. The flight from Providenciales airport to South Caicos airport (if you can call it that), was a bit harrowing. The left engine started smoking and had to be shut down. The plane was about half way and turned back to Providenciales, where we eventually got on a another plane. On the last day, another group was still waiting at the air strip - their plane was broken and could not come get them. I hope another plane eventually got them in time for their next flight. Dive resort is very new and nice. Large rooms, each with laundry machines. Rooms also have kitchens - but no place to grocery shop. Buffet meals were decent but nothing to e-mail home about. Nice pool. Decent but cramped bar. Upper floor lounge area not yet set up. Dive center on site still being constructed. Very bare bones at this point. South Caicos is pretty desolate. If you want to do stuff off-resort other than diving, you might want to pick a different destination, unless you like watching donkeys. Pink flamingos were cool. Reef Divers relocated from Little Cayman due to lockdown. Dive staff braved a three day open water voyage taking dive boats to new island. Good story. Still getting set up. Nitrox not yet available, but will be soon. Reef Divers set up all moorings and sites. They had not yet really gotten to know the sites yet, so the tours were no better than diving own profile. DMs tended to swim too fast for our group. We asked them to slow down and they did a bit, but not enough. It was windy all week and dive sites are on the prevailing windward side. A challenge getting back onto the boat for inexperienced divers or divers with compromised knees, hips, backs, etc. Two out of the six days of diving were cancelled due to waves. Dive sites had a lot of surge - again not ideal for new divers and terrible for macro photography. Due to it being a windy place in general, and due to the sites being on the windward side, I wonder if this is a viable place for a dedicated dive resort operation. Might be better for people who don’t want to dive as much or who won’t be traumatized by missing some days of diving due to conditions. They did their best to keep us grumpy divers happy during the days the wind and waves prevented diving. I did not enjoy the shuttle tour of the island. More fun was a trip on a couple small boats up along Long Cay and over to Star Fish Alley. They also added a shallow third dive on the last day to help make up for the 6 missed dives on the days we were blown out. The boats are not on site at the resort. A 5 minute shuttle ride to the dock. All the dive sites we went to for the week we were there were within about ten minutes of the dock. The promotions for the place show more sites further up the coast. I don’t know if they are set up yet, or if the DMs are still orienting, or if the conditions were unfavorable, or if they were just trying to save money on fuel, but we never got to them. We did find one nudibranch, a rare treat in the Caribbean. A red tipped sea goddess. I will attach a photo. Dive staff were friendly and professional, but stressed. Given the waves, getting divers back on the boat was understandably stressful for them, especially the older or less experienced divers. One diver got launched off the ladder and was pitched quite a distance! Also, since Reef Divers practice is to bring your gear to you at the stern, and take it back upon reboarding, and set up new tanks, the DMs are too busy to really relax and get to know the divers, especially if the boat is full as ours was (we had 20 divers in our group on board).
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Cozumel, Cayman, Bahamas, Florida, Roatan, Jersey Shore, Maldives, Bonaire, Indonesia, Great Lakes, etc.
Closest Airport	Providentiales p	Getting There	Fly to Providenciales and then puddle jumper to South Caicos
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy	Seas	choppy, surge
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	50-100 Ft/ 15-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	100 ft, 60 minutes
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	no
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Fresh water rinse hose on boat, but no wash/rinse bucket.

Report currently has 3 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Reef Divers/East Bay Resort] in Turks and Caicos/South Caicos

Reef Divers/East Bay Resort]: "Mixed review", Oct, 2021,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Reef Divers/East Bay Resort] in
Turks and Caicos/South Caicos