Bohio Dive Resort on Grand Turk
I recently got back from a stay at the Bohio Dive Resort on Grand Turk. I put together a nine day stay for a group of nine good friends, some of us divers, and some snorkelers. We have traveled extensively together for several years, primarily around the Caribbean.
Flying out of Boston, we arrived at the Bohio on February 9th, and left on February 17th. Our flight to Grand Turk was via Sky King out of Providenciales. Sky King runs Beechcraft 1900C's which seat about 20 passengers. You should be aware of the fact that Sky King allows only 44 pounds of luggage per passenger, and will charge extra for any overage. My wife and I had 120 pounds of luggage and were charged $65 extra. Others in our group, with similar weights, were charged anywhere from $18 to $81 extra. The tariff seemed totally arbitrary. On the return trip, I was charged nothing, while another couple paid another $50.
The Bohio Dive Resort is a small, laid back, beach front hotel. There are two, two story buildings with 8 rooms each. There is the main building, which houses the reception desk, bar, and dining areas. There is also a small dive shop for rental gear, and a very small storage shed for dive gear. The beach area is very nice with a beautiful view of the western horizon. You are treated to a stunning sunset every evening.
The rooms are plain, with white stucco walls, tile floors, and wooden slat ceilings. All rooms have air conditioners and ceiling fans. Our room had a very comfortable king size bed, others had doubles. The rooms have two night tables with lamps, a dresser with drawers, a table with two chairs, and an area to hang clothes. The bathrooms are simple with only a shower, and no bathtubs. Shampoo is not provided. Our room was kept spotless every day. Every room has a small fridge, but no safe box. Kelly told us she would store any valuables in the hotel safe at no charge. There was absolutely no problem with theft during our stay. At one point we left cash out for the cleaning staff. When we got back to our room, the room had been cleaned, but the money still sat there untouched.
The beach area and hotel grounds were always clean and free of trash. When we were there, a plethora of brand new beach chairs dotted the beach. There was never a shortage of comfortable loungers. Hobie Cats and kayaks are available for a fee. On some days, a few cruise ship passengers did come in and use the beach area...which is public. This never presented a problem. On most days, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves.
One complaint which is common, and quite valid, concerns the speed of service in the dining room. Actually, "speed" might not be the right term to use here. It may take between 5 to 15 minutes to place your order, and another 20 to 45 minutes to be served. With our group of nine, the food frequently was served cold or barely warm. I mentioned this to Kelly and she quickly addressed this issue, insuring that our food came out hot. Whatever complaints we might have had about the slow service, none of us could fault the quality of the food. The food was universally excellent, with delicious spices and good portions. The Mushroom Chicken was a favorite of everyone's. The staff was very friendly to us and, although typically slow, were just wonderful people.
One night, we ate out at a place called White Sands. It's a condo with a popular restaurant. They advertised a Valentine's Day special and, apparently, got much more of a turnout than they had planned for. We managed to get served within an hour, but many tables waited 2-3 hours for food. It was a total disaster and the talk of the town the next day. After that, we pretty much stayed at the Bohio for our meals.
One morning, while having breakfast, we were treated to a group of Humpbacks swimming past the hotel beach. There were three or four of them and they put on quite a show for us, blowing and diving. They were only a hundred yards or so off shore, so it was really a treat.
Your reaction to the Bohio will depend on your expectations and maintenance and/or service issues that you may or may not encounter during your stay. Grand Turk is isolated and depends on boats to bring in supplies, so supply shortages are not uncommon throughout the island. Staffing issues also seem to be a common problem among the various small hotels and restaurants that operate on the island. Having said that, I did have a very enjoyable stay, both on the island, and with Kelly and her crew at the Bohio.
The town itself is a mix of some lovely and historic buildings, some very modern construction, and some pretty raunchy looking shacks. Most streets are paved, and driving is on the left side of the road. The cruise ship center is about a year old and is worth seeing. The center is only open when a ship is in, otherwise you'll find everything shut tight. There is some shopping, a pool area, a Margaritaville, and a long beach area with rows of blue beach chairs. Except for the shops, facilities are reserved for cruise ship passengers.
We did ten dives with the Bohio dive shop. They use a 24' Carolina skiff, which can accommodate about 8 divers comfortably. Most times there were only 4 of us on the boat, plus the two DM's. The Divemasters, Craig and Karin, did a fine job of getting us to a good variety of sites. Typical time to most sites was less than 10 minutes. Walls were impressive, and reefs generally healthy except for some bleaching in areas. We did hear Humpback Whales singing on several dives, which was a real treat.
The group did a trip to Gibbs Cay. This is a fun outing and you will have some very large rays brush up against your legs looking for handouts. We covered ten different dive sites during our stay. Aquarium, Alien Nation, MacDonalds, Finnbars Reef, Anchor, Black Forest, Amphitheater, Chief Minister, Coral Garden, and Library. Since the wall is only a couple of hundred yards away, most of these sites were literally just minutes from the beach. Because of this, all surface intervals were done on shore back at the Bohio.
Equipment is stored in a very small dive shack on the beach. It has two rows of hangars for BCs and wetsuits, but not much else. Fins and masks were just laid on a shelf at the back of the shack. There is a dive shop, but it seems to be used only to rent out gear mostly snorkel gear, although there is a decent selection of scuba gear for rent.
The routine on the boat was simple. Tanks were all on the boat, but we brought our own gear aboard every morning. During the surface interval, we just left everything on the boat. Our group of four divers did our own gear setup and safety checks, and Craig and Karin left us pretty much on our own. We did see a couple of new divers during the week, and the DMs did help them with their gear. A large cooler filled with fresh water was on the boat, and served as our camera rinse tank. Craig made sure it was filled with fresh water every day. Two of us dove Nitrox. The tanks were at the dive shop every morning, with an analyzer and log book. Fills were generally right on, 32% with 3100-3200 PSI.
A 24 Carolina skiff is not a roomy boat. Even with just the four divers and two DMs, it felt cramped. One day, two other divers joined us and it really was cramped. In the end though, it turned out to be an adequate dive boat and got us to where we wanted to be very quickly. The boat was equipped with a radio and oxygen. Craig always gave a thorough briefing of the dive site and helped us get into our BCs before entry. Entry was always a back roll off the side of the boat. Getting back on the boat was via a small ladder, hung off the back. Most dives started with a short swim to and down a wall. The walls here are impressive and teeming with life. I wouldnt say it compares with Bloody Bay Wall off Little Cayman, but it is very good wall diving.
The typical dive profile would take us down to 70 to 90 with a swim along the wall face until someone hit 1500 PSI. We would then turn around, swim back, and come up near the boat on a shallow reef, where we would stay until we felt like surfacing. Blowing off air in the shallows often turned out to be the most interesting part of some dives, given the amount of flora and fauna we would always see. My shortest dive was 45 minutes, but most went for a full hour. Water temperature was a consistent 78 F. I saw 77 once, and 79 once. Visibility ranged from about 60 to as high as over 100, depending on currents and wind.
At Alien Nation I heard my first Humpback whales. It was really quite eerie and exciting, once I realized what I was listening to. Their songs were surprisingly loud and varied from high pitched whistles to low grunting sounds. On at least four different dives, the whale songs were heard.
I wont go through each site, since most were very similar, so Ill just make some general comments. We saw turtles at many sites, and they let us get fairly close to them. I also saw lots of trumpetfish, large grey angels, trunkfish, and fairy basslets. Chief Minister was notable for several large fields of garden eels. Coral Garden is famous for its resident grouper, Alexander. Alexander will swim right up to you and wait to be petted. He has absolutely no fear of divers, and seems to seek out their company. Parrotfish were seen at most sites, but nowhere near the numbers seen in places like Bonaire. Barracuda were scarce, but the few we saw were huge. The reefs were generally in good shape. There was good color, but not as vibrant as what Ive seen in Cozumel. Some bleaching was evident in places, but it did not seem widespread yet.
The Bohio advertises shore diving. We didnt try it, nor did we ever see anyone shore dive. The area off the beach is very shallow, with depths ranging from 3 to 8 feet. Its mostly patch reef and, while suitable for snorkeling, doesnt seem to offer much for divers. Youd really have to swim out well over 100 yards to the wall to hit any good diving. There is a decent small, shallow reef about 50 yards offshore, and the snorkelers did have some fun out there. Closer to shore, the shallows host many juveniles.
Before this trip, I had an odd feeling that something would go wrong with my gear. It was weird, since Ive never felt like this before. Because of this, I decided to double check everything before leaving. I even pulled the O-ring out of the battery cover door of my Ikelite DS-50 strobe to make sure it was clean and lubed. When I couldnt get it to fit back in the groove in the door, I read the manual. DO NOT REMOVE THE O-RING FROM THE BATTERY COMPARTMENT COVER. Oops. A quick call to Ikelite, and a $40 Next Day Airmail fee, and I had a new cover. Whew!
On my third dive, I noticed the light on my strobe was blinking, rather than just staying lit. Back in my room, I opened up the battery cover only to have a small amount of salt water drain out. The water had reacted with the batteries, covering everything with a brown ooze. I rinsed it out in fresh water, dried it, and tried it with new batteries. It didnt work. I also noticed some discoloration on the front lens, so I think my strobe is gone. Its at Ikelite now, but I dont expect it to be repairable. Because of this, most of my pictures were taken without external lighting, so Im learning to like the color blue.
After the forth dive, the power inflator on my TUSA BC decided to stop working. This was inconvenient, but not disastrous since I was able to use the oral inflator for the rest of my dives. While looking online for a phone number for TUSA, so I could order a new inflator, I noticed that they have a recall out for my BC, a Platina Evolution BCJ-3800. So, now thats on its way back to the factory too. I'm happy to say that my Mares regulator worked fine, and my mask didn't leak.
Grand Turk is not really a tourist destination, except for the recent influx of cruise ship passengers. You go there to dive, and find a comfortable place to stay and eat. The Bohio is a plain and simple place to stay while visiting Grand Turk. You are on an isolated island with few amenities, and the resort reflects that fact. We found all the locals we encountered to be friendly and gracious. The co-owners of the Bohio, Kelly and Nick, will bend over backwards to keep you happy ... all you have to do is ask. Kelly's friend Gerhard is now there helping out, and they just brought in a new manager, Mike.
So, yes, we all had a great time at the Bohio...not so much because there's anything exceptional about the resort itself, but because of the absolute dedication of Kelly and Nick to keeping their guests happy. That, plus a fine beach, warm weather, and some great food, make the Bohio a good choice for anyone planning on visiting the little island of Grand Turk.
I recently got back from a stay at the Bohio Dive Resort on Grand Turk. I put together a nine day stay for a group of nine good friends, some of us divers, and some snorkelers. We have traveled extensively together for several years, primarily around the Caribbean.
Flying out of Boston, we arrived at the Bohio on February 9th, and left on February 17th. Our flight to Grand Turk was via Sky King out of Providenciales. Sky King runs Beechcraft 1900C's which seat about 20 passengers. You should be aware of the fact that Sky King allows only 44 pounds of luggage per passenger, and will charge extra for any overage. My wife and I had 120 pounds of luggage and were charged $65 extra. Others in our group, with similar weights, were charged anywhere from $18 to $81 extra. The tariff seemed totally arbitrary. On the return trip, I was charged nothing, while another couple paid another $50.
The Bohio Dive Resort is a small, laid back, beach front hotel. There are two, two story buildings with 8 rooms each. There is the main building, which houses the reception desk, bar, and dining areas. There is also a small dive shop for rental gear, and a very small storage shed for dive gear. The beach area is very nice with a beautiful view of the western horizon. You are treated to a stunning sunset every evening.
The rooms are plain, with white stucco walls, tile floors, and wooden slat ceilings. All rooms have air conditioners and ceiling fans. Our room had a very comfortable king size bed, others had doubles. The rooms have two night tables with lamps, a dresser with drawers, a table with two chairs, and an area to hang clothes. The bathrooms are simple with only a shower, and no bathtubs. Shampoo is not provided. Our room was kept spotless every day. Every room has a small fridge, but no safe box. Kelly told us she would store any valuables in the hotel safe at no charge. There was absolutely no problem with theft during our stay. At one point we left cash out for the cleaning staff. When we got back to our room, the room had been cleaned, but the money still sat there untouched.
The beach area and hotel grounds were always clean and free of trash. When we were there, a plethora of brand new beach chairs dotted the beach. There was never a shortage of comfortable loungers. Hobie Cats and kayaks are available for a fee. On some days, a few cruise ship passengers did come in and use the beach area...which is public. This never presented a problem. On most days, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves.
One complaint which is common, and quite valid, concerns the speed of service in the dining room. Actually, "speed" might not be the right term to use here. It may take between 5 to 15 minutes to place your order, and another 20 to 45 minutes to be served. With our group of nine, the food frequently was served cold or barely warm. I mentioned this to Kelly and she quickly addressed this issue, insuring that our food came out hot. Whatever complaints we might have had about the slow service, none of us could fault the quality of the food. The food was universally excellent, with delicious spices and good portions. The Mushroom Chicken was a favorite of everyone's. The staff was very friendly to us and, although typically slow, were just wonderful people.
One night, we ate out at a place called White Sands. It's a condo with a popular restaurant. They advertised a Valentine's Day special and, apparently, got much more of a turnout than they had planned for. We managed to get served within an hour, but many tables waited 2-3 hours for food. It was a total disaster and the talk of the town the next day. After that, we pretty much stayed at the Bohio for our meals.
One morning, while having breakfast, we were treated to a group of Humpbacks swimming past the hotel beach. There were three or four of them and they put on quite a show for us, blowing and diving. They were only a hundred yards or so off shore, so it was really a treat.
Your reaction to the Bohio will depend on your expectations and maintenance and/or service issues that you may or may not encounter during your stay. Grand Turk is isolated and depends on boats to bring in supplies, so supply shortages are not uncommon throughout the island. Staffing issues also seem to be a common problem among the various small hotels and restaurants that operate on the island. Having said that, I did have a very enjoyable stay, both on the island, and with Kelly and her crew at the Bohio.
The town itself is a mix of some lovely and historic buildings, some very modern construction, and some pretty raunchy looking shacks. Most streets are paved, and driving is on the left side of the road. The cruise ship center is about a year old and is worth seeing. The center is only open when a ship is in, otherwise you'll find everything shut tight. There is some shopping, a pool area, a Margaritaville, and a long beach area with rows of blue beach chairs. Except for the shops, facilities are reserved for cruise ship passengers.
We did ten dives with the Bohio dive shop. They use a 24' Carolina skiff, which can accommodate about 8 divers comfortably. Most times there were only 4 of us on the boat, plus the two DM's. The Divemasters, Craig and Karin, did a fine job of getting us to a good variety of sites. Typical time to most sites was less than 10 minutes. Walls were impressive, and reefs generally healthy except for some bleaching in areas. We did hear Humpback Whales singing on several dives, which was a real treat.
The group did a trip to Gibbs Cay. This is a fun outing and you will have some very large rays brush up against your legs looking for handouts. We covered ten different dive sites during our stay. Aquarium, Alien Nation, MacDonalds, Finnbars Reef, Anchor, Black Forest, Amphitheater, Chief Minister, Coral Garden, and Library. Since the wall is only a couple of hundred yards away, most of these sites were literally just minutes from the beach. Because of this, all surface intervals were done on shore back at the Bohio.
Equipment is stored in a very small dive shack on the beach. It has two rows of hangars for BCs and wetsuits, but not much else. Fins and masks were just laid on a shelf at the back of the shack. There is a dive shop, but it seems to be used only to rent out gear mostly snorkel gear, although there is a decent selection of scuba gear for rent.
The routine on the boat was simple. Tanks were all on the boat, but we brought our own gear aboard every morning. During the surface interval, we just left everything on the boat. Our group of four divers did our own gear setup and safety checks, and Craig and Karin left us pretty much on our own. We did see a couple of new divers during the week, and the DMs did help them with their gear. A large cooler filled with fresh water was on the boat, and served as our camera rinse tank. Craig made sure it was filled with fresh water every day. Two of us dove Nitrox. The tanks were at the dive shop every morning, with an analyzer and log book. Fills were generally right on, 32% with 3100-3200 PSI.
A 24 Carolina skiff is not a roomy boat. Even with just the four divers and two DMs, it felt cramped. One day, two other divers joined us and it really was cramped. In the end though, it turned out to be an adequate dive boat and got us to where we wanted to be very quickly. The boat was equipped with a radio and oxygen. Craig always gave a thorough briefing of the dive site and helped us get into our BCs before entry. Entry was always a back roll off the side of the boat. Getting back on the boat was via a small ladder, hung off the back. Most dives started with a short swim to and down a wall. The walls here are impressive and teeming with life. I wouldnt say it compares with Bloody Bay Wall off Little Cayman, but it is very good wall diving.
The typical dive profile would take us down to 70 to 90 with a swim along the wall face until someone hit 1500 PSI. We would then turn around, swim back, and come up near the boat on a shallow reef, where we would stay until we felt like surfacing. Blowing off air in the shallows often turned out to be the most interesting part of some dives, given the amount of flora and fauna we would always see. My shortest dive was 45 minutes, but most went for a full hour. Water temperature was a consistent 78 F. I saw 77 once, and 79 once. Visibility ranged from about 60 to as high as over 100, depending on currents and wind.
At Alien Nation I heard my first Humpback whales. It was really quite eerie and exciting, once I realized what I was listening to. Their songs were surprisingly loud and varied from high pitched whistles to low grunting sounds. On at least four different dives, the whale songs were heard.
I wont go through each site, since most were very similar, so Ill just make some general comments. We saw turtles at many sites, and they let us get fairly close to them. I also saw lots of trumpetfish, large grey angels, trunkfish, and fairy basslets. Chief Minister was notable for several large fields of garden eels. Coral Garden is famous for its resident grouper, Alexander. Alexander will swim right up to you and wait to be petted. He has absolutely no fear of divers, and seems to seek out their company. Parrotfish were seen at most sites, but nowhere near the numbers seen in places like Bonaire. Barracuda were scarce, but the few we saw were huge. The reefs were generally in good shape. There was good color, but not as vibrant as what Ive seen in Cozumel. Some bleaching was evident in places, but it did not seem widespread yet.
The Bohio advertises shore diving. We didnt try it, nor did we ever see anyone shore dive. The area off the beach is very shallow, with depths ranging from 3 to 8 feet. Its mostly patch reef and, while suitable for snorkeling, doesnt seem to offer much for divers. Youd really have to swim out well over 100 yards to the wall to hit any good diving. There is a decent small, shallow reef about 50 yards offshore, and the snorkelers did have some fun out there. Closer to shore, the shallows host many juveniles.
Before this trip, I had an odd feeling that something would go wrong with my gear. It was weird, since Ive never felt like this before. Because of this, I decided to double check everything before leaving. I even pulled the O-ring out of the battery cover door of my Ikelite DS-50 strobe to make sure it was clean and lubed. When I couldnt get it to fit back in the groove in the door, I read the manual. DO NOT REMOVE THE O-RING FROM THE BATTERY COMPARTMENT COVER. Oops. A quick call to Ikelite, and a $40 Next Day Airmail fee, and I had a new cover. Whew!
On my third dive, I noticed the light on my strobe was blinking, rather than just staying lit. Back in my room, I opened up the battery cover only to have a small amount of salt water drain out. The water had reacted with the batteries, covering everything with a brown ooze. I rinsed it out in fresh water, dried it, and tried it with new batteries. It didnt work. I also noticed some discoloration on the front lens, so I think my strobe is gone. Its at Ikelite now, but I dont expect it to be repairable. Because of this, most of my pictures were taken without external lighting, so Im learning to like the color blue.
After the forth dive, the power inflator on my TUSA BC decided to stop working. This was inconvenient, but not disastrous since I was able to use the oral inflator for the rest of my dives. While looking online for a phone number for TUSA, so I could order a new inflator, I noticed that they have a recall out for my BC, a Platina Evolution BCJ-3800. So, now thats on its way back to the factory too. I'm happy to say that my Mares regulator worked fine, and my mask didn't leak.
Grand Turk is not really a tourist destination, except for the recent influx of cruise ship passengers. You go there to dive, and find a comfortable place to stay and eat. The Bohio is a plain and simple place to stay while visiting Grand Turk. You are on an isolated island with few amenities, and the resort reflects that fact. We found all the locals we encountered to be friendly and gracious. The co-owners of the Bohio, Kelly and Nick, will bend over backwards to keep you happy ... all you have to do is ask. Kelly's friend Gerhard is now there helping out, and they just brought in a new manager, Mike.
So, yes, we all had a great time at the Bohio...not so much because there's anything exceptional about the resort itself, but because of the absolute dedication of Kelly and Nick to keeping their guests happy. That, plus a fine beach, warm weather, and some great food, make the Bohio a good choice for anyone planning on visiting the little island of Grand Turk.
