Snorkeling on the Reefs off Turks and Caicos

Gord and I and our longtime friends, Alex and Dennis, set out one sunny February 2008 morning in our rented white Charade (see pic) from our home base in a friends condo in the newly opened Regent Grand on Grace Bay in Providentiales (Provo for short). Our goal was to find two well known local reefs to snorkel. With some help along the way we found the coral beds at Coral Gardens and Smith's Reef. Eager to test the waters and see the famous coral beds - many currently under protection we found long, wonderful, white sandy beaches and coral gardens - many very close to the surface - interspersed with underwater grasslands and a wide variety of different corals - It was beautiful! We were accompanied by lots of colourful fish, many unafraid and traveling beside us for long periods, looking for food maybe. We saw many small grass-feeding turtles - unfortunately no big ones which are reputed to feed off the grasses in the area. We realized quickly that we had to be very careful in many areas not to damage the coral with our flippers since in places it is very close to the surface. One of the highlights was seeing 3 Manta Rays swimming peacefully together in a line one behind the other. Thinking that where there are rays there are sharks, we moved away carefully!