Dive Review of Oasis Divers/Osprey in
Turks and Caicos/Grand Turk

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Oasis Divers/Osprey: "Grand Turk Trip Report Feb 2019", Feb, 2019, by Susan Mindock, CA, US ( 1 report with 3 Helpful votes). Report 10851 has 3 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Long-time divers (36 years in my case) know that it's not uncommon to re-visit places you initially loved and to be heartbroken to find the coral bleached, the fish life decimated, and the island ambiance degraded. We'd fallen in love with the diving in Grand Turk back in 2003, but we hadn't been back since 2007 and we were worried that the cruise ship activity might have taken a toll on the wall. To our amazement and joy, the underwater state of health seemed to be unaffected, along with the topside charm. So after all these years, Grand Turk remains one of my top 3 Caribbean dive favorites! We dove with Oasis and the first thing I need to state is that Mackie is a National Treasure for the TCI. It's been 16 years since we first dove with him, and we were thrilled to see he's still at it. Mackie has a genuine love for diving that has never diminished over the 30+ years he's been doing it. He's an inspiration to watch underwater, almost seeming more comfortable at depth than on land. On the surface, his charisma and easy-going attitude are contagious for sure. He also seems like a great mentor to the DMs he's paired with. In our party were 2 newly-certified divers, and they were assigned to Nick, the 2nd DM. One of them gets morbidly seasick but was determined to go out anyway, since it's such a short distance to the wall. Nick had his hands full but was a model of patience and good humour as our poor companion fed the fish and finally crawled back onto the boat. On the next day, the weather was better and our seasick-prone diver resolved to try again, with Nick's encouragement. This time, everything went perfectly and our friend was able to finally relax and enjoy the dive. Nick and Mackie were big factors in encouraging our friend to not give up, and we all appreciated that. in the front office, Rebecca worked some magic for us when I was making reservations. She and Rita are great sources of island information and are really fun to talk to. The dives: Ampitheatre, Annex, Black Forest, and Coral Gardens. The visibility was 100+ feet on the wall, maybe 50-80 ft on the shallow dives, driven by weather. We saw sharks, turtles, big puffers, grouper, big parrots, and all the Caribbean standards. One thing we did NOT see was lionfish! When we were there in 2007, Mitch at Blue Water had captured the first lionfish in the area, and we were surprised that they hadn't taken over. What we heard from Oasis was that early efforts were made to get rid of them before there was a population explosion. One other character missing was Alexander the big grouper that used to follow everyone around. He did appear to have a smaller trainee in place though. Last time we were there, the crazy dolphins performed underwater for us on our 2nd dive. We didn't see them this time, but we heard they're still around. And no whales, but we didn't go looking for them either. My favorite dive was Black Forest; the health of that black coral just blew us away! So long story long, Grand Turk is still a fantastic dive destination and for us it has the best of all worlds - close dive sites, huge dramatic walls, healthy topography, and enough fish to entertain you! Now if only we could live there..
Websites	Oasis Divers Osprey
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Fiji, Cozumel, Cayman, Trinidad, Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, Puerto Rico, BVI, USVI, Florida, California, Sea of Cortez, Massachusetts, Saba, Turks&Caicos, Bahamas, Jamaica
Closest Airport	GDT	Getting There	Inter-Caribbean PLS-GDT
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy	Seas	calm, choppy, surge
Water Temp	78-79°F / 26-26°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-120 Ft/ 15-37 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	safety stop
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	no
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

Report currently has 3 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Oasis Divers/Osprey in Turks and Caicos/Grand Turk

Oasis Divers/Osprey: "Grand Turk Trip Report Feb 2019", Feb, 2019,

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 Oasis Divers/Osprey in
Turks and Caicos/Grand Turk