ConchyJoe

[ConchyJoe]

It is Thursday and the Honeymoon is over!

As much as we loved diving with the unbelievably friendly Club Med folks, I wanted to get back to French Cay, which is a spot I dove as a kid.

We had stopped by Caicos Adventures on Wednesday to see what dive plans they had. They assured us we would dive French Cay so we signed up!

Fifi and Puuci

Fifi comes buy and picks you up in a bus, and takes you right to the dive boat. Talk about service! Caicos adventures pampers you all the way.
They change out your tanks after the first dive, serve great sandwiches for lunch, and are very friendly.

Our dive group

We had folks from Texas, Memphis, and other places. There were never more than 12 people on the boat. This made for a more relaxed athmosphere,
and we got to know everyone.

The Boat

Caicos Adventures is a 43 ft custom catamaran. It was clean, comfortable, and very well laid out. Fifi is very proud of this boat, and I can see why.

The view

Providenciales is your typical island. Miles and miles of sandy banks, and then a drop off into 3000 feet of water.

Map of Providenciales

Everything between West Caicos, French Cay, and South Caicos is Caicos Bank.

Back to our regularly scheduled diving

I finally started getting the hang of the camera, and started getting the right color balance. I did realize that the flash was much weaker
than I imagined. This is a Royal Gramma, or Fairy Basslet

Purple sponge

I seem to always take pictures of fish swimming away, so I focused on non-moving objects.

Hello Mr Turtle!

This little guy had everyone laughing their masks off. He came swimming along the wall, and I started taking pictures until he decided he
wanted to take a bite out of my camera!

Friendly little guy


He finally started swimming by after attempting to munch on my camera.

More Royal Grammas


They were everywhere

What? What? What just swam by?

Yep that would be correct, a Caribbean Reef Shark. And all I got was a shot of his tail disappearing into the distance. Dangit! Laurie
said it swam about 5 feet from her. I am giving her the camera next time.

French Cay is just full of reef life.


Feather dusters were everywhere

Finally a decent picture!

When I was a kid, and a nationally award winning photographer like Al Giddings and Ron Church, we would order film from Seattle Film Works.
The main reason is they would stuff the canisters with 60-70 exposures of 35mm movie film. This would give us more shots in one dive.
Digital is great because I can shoot 400 pictures in one dive if I want.

You saw a what?

One of my favorite post dive activities is floating in the water and talking about the things everyone saw. This is Ramona and Michael.
They are our dive buddies from Memphis. She was astonished at the difference between French Cay and Northwest Point.

A few more pictures . . . .


Four Eyed Butterfly

Long Nosed Butterfly

Shy Hamlet

Blue headed Wrasse

Queen Angel

Gray Angel

I could go on forever.

There were also

Barracuda

Nurse Sharks

Spiney Lobster

More turtles

Grouper everywhere

Michael and Ramona

We met Michael and Ramona on the Club Med Dive boat, and ended up taking them with us on the Caicos Adventures dive boat. They are from Memphis,
and love to dive. They ended up going with us two days on Fifi's boat. As it turned out, they were on the same flight as we were coming and going.

The trip back . . .


Everyone would either hang out on the foredeck, or head to the flybrige and hang with Fifi and Pucci.

And I say goodbye to French Cay . . . .

French Cay is uninhabitted, and full of cactus. We would dive the wall, and then spend the night in the lee of the island. There was
always fresh grouper or snapper, lobster, and marinated conch salad for dinner. As well as a few Heineken's or St. Pauli Girls.

A big shout out to our Dive guide Asa

Asa is a funny, friendly, local that was our dive guide. We had a blast with him, as well as Liz.

Our last Grace Bay Sunset


What a beautiful place.
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ConchyJoe Administrator

[PrivateerTradin]

AWE-SOME!
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Privateer Tradin!
T-Shirts with the cruiser in mind.

[Floatagrapher]

Yup, a big 1@#!$#$%#%% the hell. I am so envious. What great underwater shots!
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I'll be hav'n sweet bliss...4 pints of grog on me table and a saucy wench atop me knee, spoon'n me grub.