Turks and Caicos 21:44.3N 72:17.3W
Lotus
Sat 10 Apr 2010 12:47
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We had about a 100 or so mile passage to the Turks
and Caicos and made good progress with a stiff south-easterly wind, arriving mid
morning to a deserted island with white sand and clear, turquoise waters.
We've read that the Turks and Caicos Bank is the third
most spectacular sight on the planet viewed from Outer Space, beaten
only by the Sahara Desert and the Great Wall of China. The islands are on
the periphery of a shallow bank some 60miles across which rises from the deep
ocean floor some 3000m below. Our second night in T & C was spent in
South Caicos, the cut which leads from the open ocean onto the bank here shows a
truly spectacular underwater profile rising from 3000m to 4m in less than 1/2 a
mile.
  For this reason T&C has some really world
class wall diving which we were lucky enough to experience. We teamed
up with a French man and his Yorkshire wife, together with their two children
and sailed the 60miles across the bank to West Caicos, at no point were we in
water deeper than 6 m, the transit line we followed was recommended for boats
with a max of 7ft draft, which would give us less than 6inches clearance, if
things got a bit shallow we could at least lift our centre board and
rudder. Simon and family didn't have this option in their boated so posted
their two children into the cross trees to spot shallows and coral heads.
They made it all the way across but hit the bottom coming into anchor at
Sapodilla bay, luckily no damage was done.
 The islands in the T&C are generally flat with
fairly barren looking scrub land covering the interior but with beautiful, palm
tree lined, white sand beaches. There are a few bars and restaurants
set up for rich American tourists and relatively little else to see or
do, except the diving.
 We spent a couple of days anchored in an unfinished
marina project on West Caicos which gave us easy access to the dive sites in the
tender. The sea was a little rough but we took it in turns to dive, Simon
and his 10year old son, providing surface cover for us whilst we went
down. The dives were absolutely fantastic with huge numbers of fish,
spotted rays, barracuda and the ever present possibility of meeting a shark or
two (the T&C are renowned for their numbers of sharks). Simon took his
10year old son down to 39m, on a second dive of the day, perhaps not the most
cautious of dive plans for somebody so young, but he came up excited having seen
3 sharks in close proximity.
The next day we bade farewell as they were on their
way to Cuba and we began our passage to the
Bahamas.
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