Departure on Sunday, August 13th, return Sunday, August 20th.

Dive package of $787 ± $46 includes seven nights double occupancy room, six days, two-tank dives with Dive Provo. $100 deposit, balance due 6/28 to Dive Provo, Attn Betty, 5601 Powerline Rd. Ste. 205, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33309-2831; 800/234-7768; diveprovo@diveres.com. $787 per diver, $358 per non-diver, $463 single supplement. Final price may vary depending on the number in our group. MP: seven included with hotel. Comfort Suites Resort, Grace Bay Rd., Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands, British West Indies; 649/946-8888; comfortsuitestci.com. SR/DR/TR/QR $126.23. Checks payable to "Dive Provo" for reservation number DP 15020. S RP 6/28 cutoff DT H/AS $28 CC (V MC AMEX). Visit scuba.us.mensa.org or contact Brian Bloch, 245 W. Tujunga Ave. #209, Burbank, CA 91502; 818/840-8450; TurksandCaicos@scubasig.us.mensa.org.

DON'T FORGET YOUR PASSPORT AND YOUR C-CARD!!

Currency is the US Dollar supplemented by the quarter and the crown (it's a British Colony)

Official language is English (it's a British Colony)

120V electric is standard

$15.00 departure tax

There is a Hyperbaric chamber on Provo

Internet connections are available

Your home country driver's licence is valid in T & C. They drive on the left (it's a British Colony)

American flies from Miami 3 times daily: MIA-PLS AA 673 1110 AM AA 1745 200 PM AA 625 615 PM PLS-MIA AA 464 810 AM AA 746 150 PM AA 1866 440 PM

Delta flies from Atlanta. In August, they will have one flight each day except Tuesday & Wednesday. US Airways flies from Philadelphia on Saturdays and from Charlotte NC daily.

For more information contact Brian Bloch

From the November 2005 issue of Scuba Diving:

Turks & Caicos’ largest and most populous island, Providenciales, is commonly called Provo. Fourteen miles long, Provo is a comma-shaped wedge of white sand, low hills, flat scrub, coves, and sounds, lakes and ponds.

Perfect for divers who like to play both above and under water, the island offers a wide array of resorts, restaurants and activities. You can play golf, view rock carvings or visit a conch farm. Not to be missed is Boogaloo’s, a waterfront shack where you can have freshly made conch cooked to order - from a zesty conch salad made with tomato, onion and lime to deep-fried fritters and foil-wrapped grilled conch marinated in coconut milk and garlic.

Many of the water sports are concentrated along Grace Bay’s scenic beach on Provo’s north shore. Para-sailers in colorful parachutes float in a blue sky. Kayakers paddle past sunbathers and swimmers. A handful of dive boats dot the turquoise water.

Featuring a shallow reeftop and steep mini-walls, the 14-mile barrier reef bordering Grace Bay is one of three main areas on the island where diving takes place; Northwest Point, a national marine park off the west coast, and uninhabited out islands like West Caicos are the others. At least once a week, most of the island’s dive operators make the hour-long trip to West Caicos, 10 miles southwest of Provo. Here, divers find a dizzyingly steep drop-off - just 100 yards off the island’s west shore, the wall plummets straight down for 6,000 feet.

Choice sites include Elephant Ear Canyon, which is packed with healthy tube sponges and black coral (and is still a spectacular dive even though the giant elephant ear sponge for which it’s named is long gone). Easier to get to than West Caicos, Provo’s renowned Northwest Point is dived more frequently, and is a must-do for all divers visiting the island. There are more than a dozen sites clustered along a three-mile-long drop-off, and though, sadly, there is no way I’m able to dive all of them, I make sure that I get in a two-tank dive.

Departing from Turtle Cove Marina aboard the Provo Challenger, we settle down for the 45-minute boat ride to the point. Divemaster David Jolin tells us that our first dive will be at a site called Shark Hotel. "It’s called Shark Hotel, so of course you won’t see any sharks," Jolin jokes during his briefing. He’s right; back onboard, Jolin tells us that he wants to check out a nearby site, Amphitheater. Our luck changes: Dropping down on the wall to about 80 feet, we spot a five-foot-long silvery-gray reef shark that cruises toward us, coming surprisingly close. We get a good look at its gill slits and pointed snout before it disappears into the indigo depths. Back on the reeftop, a pageant of fish - parrotfish, clown wrasse, angelfish - zips about. In the shallows, we I find the smallest gems of the reef, lots of flamingo tongues with their creamy white, spotted mantles and an arrow crab that glitters solid gold in the ambient light.

The next day, we head to Grace Bay, where low-key diving is found at numerous sites, including Graceland, Pinnacles and Aquarium. At the end of our second dive, at a site named Cathedral, I lazily inspect scattered coral heads on the sandy bottom under the boat. And then we have one of those quiet moments that divers treasure. A small hawksbill turtle paddles within only a couple of feet of us, headed for the surface. We watch it glide up to the surface, take a gulp of salt air, pausing for maybe 30 seconds. A few moments later, it’s headed back to the reef, out of view.