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Scuba Diving With Club Med In Turks And Caicos
By Clint Leung, Thu Dec 8th
One vacation option for divers is with the Club Medresorts that offer intensive dive programs. These particularClub Med locations have full service centersstaffed by PADI and NAUI certified instructors as well as fullequipment rentals. Club Med has locations with dive intensiveprograms in the Caribbean and the South Pacific. One such resortis the Club Med Turkoise in the Turks and Caicos islands locatedsoutheast of the Bahamas. While these islands are not thelushest in the Caribbean, they do have excellent coral reefsystems making it a top destination in the region. For those scuba divers who do not want to be bothered withtransit between hotels, restaurants and dive boats, Club Medsare a wonderful option since everything is on site. Like otherhigh end all-inclusive resorts, Club Meds have excellent dining,decent rooms plus great facilities for water and land sports. Abonus feature of Club Meds is the inclusion of instruction formany activities such as sailing and water skiing as well as thenightly entertainment on stage. As for the programs which are offered at additionalcost, they usually offer standard five day packages whichinclude a two tank trip every morning plus a weekly night dive.There are optional single tank dives in the afternoon as well.In my estimation, the Club Med Turkoise location I went to had50% divers and 50% non-divers. It was kind of funny to see thatthe guests who go to bed the earliest in the evenings and showup in the dining room first thing in the mornings are the scubadivers. Many divers I met were repeat guests. This proves thatthe Club Med is able to attract a loyal following among somescuba divers. The resort is ideal for couples where one spouseis a diver and the other is not. There are plenty of otheractivities on site for the non-diving spouse to do while theother is out diving. Later in the afternoon, couples or friendscould get back together to do other activities or simply relax.I went to this Club Med as a single traveler and had no problemsfitting in. The dining room staff usually asks guests whetherthey would like to sit with a singles table or one with couples.The advantage of this Club Med setup is that it is very easy tomeet other guests on a social level. I ended up socializing anddiving with people from Europe as well as North America.
The Club Med dive boats are huge. These
boats have rows alongeach side and another row in the center. They are 'cattle' boatsfor sure as there can be as much as 40 divers for each trip.However, they are nice 'cattle' boats with two ladders in theback platform and a large upper deck for the boat ride. A verynice feature of these boats is that there are two safety stopbars below the boat at the 15 feet mark. These bars areexcellent for beginner scuba divers who still have problemsremaining at a level 15 feet for their safety stops. All theyhave to do is hold on to the safety stop bar and wait for the 3minutes. On each bar, there is also a regulator for those whoare low on air. Scuba divers can dive in either guided groupsled by a divemaster or in their own buddy groups. Either way,there is an adequate briefing before each dive. The guidedgroups are particularly good for divers who do not want to worryabout navigation. The diving at Turks and Caicos is wonderful with steep wallsduring the first part of each dive. The return portion of eachdive will generally be over a reef system with lots of small tomedium size marine life. One resident barracuda nicknamedCharlie is often seen and likes to hang out between the safetystop bars checking out the divers. In general, the diving issimilar to that in the Bahamas but you won't find crowds of diveboats out in the water here since Turks and Caicos are not assaturated with dive operators and tourists yet. For an extracharge, it is possible for the resort to arrange a 3 tank daytrip with an outside scuba operator to dive some sites furtherout that have larger marine life. Some divers took this optionand returned with very positive reviews of multiple sharksightings. If scuba divers are interested in going to a Club Med, it isimportant to verify which locations currently offer theintensive dive programs. Different Club Meds also have differentatmospheres. Some are livelier with a party scene and some arequieter. Consulting a travel agent familiar with Club Meds willbe useful. Club Med does have a good program withvery professional staff and is an option worth checking out ifone doesn't mind being on dive trips with relatively largenumbers of divers. About the author:Clint Leung is a NAUI certified Master and Rescue Scuba Diver.He is also owner of Free Spirit Activewear(http://www.FreeSpiritActivewear.com) , an onlineretailer/designer specializing in premium quality scuba divingactivewear. Free Spirit Activewear has numerous informationresource articles on as well as free eCards.
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