Treasure Islands – Turks & Caicos with Aggressor Adventures

Turks & Caicos were once the haunt of some of the most fearsome pirates of the 1700s – today the archipelago hosts cruises in more sedate style

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Words and pictures by Jenny Stock

‘Shark-infested water!’ hollers Captain Jason Flowers, his head popping up momentarily from the surface. I grab my camera and giant stride off the boat into the black ocean below. I don’t want to miss a second of this rare opportunity while diving with the Turks & Caicos Aggressor II in the Caribbean.

For the first time ever, I’m night diving with my wide-angle lens. The prospect of up to a score of sharks below the boat has lit a fire in my belly. As soon as I put my face in the water I see a 2.4 m (8 ft) Caribbean reef shark pass close to my feet.

Heart pounding I dump all the air out of my BCD and descend into the darkness like a rock. I’m impatient to join their world.

Settling down next to a cluster of bright yellow tube sponges I adjust my lighting. The problem with sensational dives is that the awe of the moment can distract me from my photographic task. Within seconds a nurse shark passes right in front of me without a modicum of concern over my presence. I fire some shots and smile to myself. The evening’s show has begun.

We’re moored in French Cay, a low-lying wildlife sanctuary that protects nesting habitat of brown noddies and sooty terns. At 547 km (340 miles) in length, the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) has the third largest barrier reef in the world after Australia and Belize. It’s home to more than 60 species of coral, the source of the spectacular white sand beaches that support the luxury tourism economy of the archipelago.

In the 1700s, these same shores were anything but peaceful, more of a playground for pirates and buccaneers. Turks and Caicos roughly translates to ‘Pirate Island’, thought to be derived from the slang word, ‘turk’ meaning ‘pirate’, and the Indigenous Taino people’s name for ‘island chain’ – caya hico.

François l’Olonnais, reportedly the cruellest buccaneer of all time, originally an indentured servant from France, became one of the Caribbean’s most vicious privateers. After surviving a Spanish massacre by hiding under corpses, he swore revenge, famously declaring he would never spare a Spaniard’s life. Such was the viciousness of his subsequent attacks, he became known as the ‘Flail of the Spanish’.

The island of French Cay, location of our sharky dive site, allegedly provided him with a lookout base from which he could plunder passing Spanish ships. And thus the cay became ‘French’ in homage.

For me, these tales of high drama at sea become even more vivid on day three at the dive site Spanish Anchor. After descending through a gully to 24 m (80 feet) deep, I locate the remains of a large iron anchor, wedged into the reef wall.

This is the only remnant of a centuries-old Spanish galleon, perhaps cut free in haste while the crew were under threat from l’Olonnais himself. As I take in the beauty of this relic, the legends are no longer abstract. This object was once seen, touched and used by sailors in the 1700s.

Now encrusted with bright orange coral, purple sponges and green watercress algae, it was long since claimed by the sea. The anchor’s ocean camouflage means it could be overlooked, so anyone hoping to find this treasure themselves would do well to follow a knowledgeable guide.

The little lives at this location are stunning too. Vivid purple and yellow fairy basslet fish zip around under the overhangs along with arrow blennies, with their unique curved tails and pointed snouts. Studying anemone at this site I also find many sexy shrimp (Thor amboinensis) and one sun anemone shrimp (Periclimenes rathbunae).

As seen on TV

We’re told the bizarre story of our third dive site, The Dome, while suiting up on deck. The ‘Thunder Dome’ was a large cage structure built from steel in the 1990s for the French game show Le Trésor de Pago Pago.

Similar in style to challenge shows like The Amazing Race and Fort Boyard, Pago Pago featured a series of physical challenges for contestants. In one challenge, contestants were escorted 10m deep, while buddy breathing, into the ‘Thunder Dome’.

Here they were locked in without air, tasked with grabbing free-floating ‘pearls’ projected into the water via a fake tube sponge. The pearls would later be exchanged for money.

While inside this watery prison, contestants could swap some of their pearls for air from sexy ‘Mermaids’ (muscle-toned scuba divers in costumes) who offered their alternate regs out between the bars of the cage for contestants to grab.

This entire scenario gives me the heebie-jeebies. The show’s producers had clearly ignored obvious dangers and several contestants subsequently suffered lung over-expansion and air embolism injuries, caused by taking breaths at depth and ascending without exhaling.

Unsurprisingly Pago Pago was swiftly cancelled. The dome itself was abandoned, then partially broken up into large segments and scattered by Hurricane Frances in 2004.

As we swim over the remaining jutting pieces of curved metal I start to investigate. It’s really cool, covered in tubular sponges of orange, yellow and brown, with rope sponge (Aplysina cauliformis) reaching out its purple branches.

The industrial structure makes for a striking graphic background for photos and the innards offer a hideout for the schooling grunts and yellow snappers that congregate under one large section.

It’s not the only man-made feature of interest. Supported by Aggressor, local NGO the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund (TCRF) has installed a coral nursery of interconnecting ladders and ropes to propagate critically endangered staghorn and elkhorn corals.

TCRF is also hard at work treating stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), which was discovered in Turks and Caicos in 2019. This novel pathogen, only detected for the first time globally in 2014, affects reef-building corals. It can kill within days but scientists have developed an antibiotic paste that’s proved effective in trials at treating tissue loss.

After a little while at The Dome, the majority of the dive group leave. I slip inside the structure again for a last peak. I get a shock when I nearly swim into a sleeping nurse shark. I can’t resist inching closer to get a photo. Startled and disgruntled, the shark takes off in a huff. Sorry fella, but thanks for the photo.

The Dome is fun during the day but at night things get racy as even more vibrant marine life emerges. Any macro lover will be drawn to the many colourful Christmas tree worms that hastily retreat at the slightest diver movement.

The sleeping parrot fish make for fantastic photographic opportunities and I follow a couple of free swimming spotted moray eels around the base of the structure. Then Captain Flowers ups the ante by pulling out his fluro torch, illuminating parts of the structure with disco colours. I’m dazzled by an Austraeolis catina nudibranch that glows in fluorescent greens, purples and reds.

Wonderwalls

Between dive trips, back at home in the UK, I regularly find myself daydreaming about the ‘drop off’. So what a treat that this Aggressor itinerary has this underwater cliff face experience on almost every dive.

I treasure the thrill of it every time but Elephant Ear Canyon stands out: the ocean floor suddenly plunges down a wall into the deepest of depths. I can’t see the bottom, just dark blue water. Who knows what might rise from the deep?

Adrenaline pumps through me as I spot large gorgonians, giant barrel sponges, sea plumes, jutting elk horn coral and wire coral – and looking closer still, the wire coral shrimp that reside upon them. The crew also tell me to keep an eye on the blue, as, on occasion, hammerheads have been seen passing by – they sadly don’t make an appearance on this trip though.

Another wonderful benefit of wall diving is effortless navigation. After swimming to the drop off, you descend the wall and choose to swim either left or right. You follow the wall, use one third of your tank, turn around, shallow up and make your way back to the boat. As this navigation is so easy, Aggressor gives you the option of breaking off with your buddy to swim your own adventure.

The more challenging aspect is the deeper diving. It is tempting to descend ever further down the wall – so make sure you
don’t overstretch your limits. There’s no decompression diving on the Aggressor and the recommended limit is 33.5 m.

To aid divers with their safety stops, the boat hangs a wide pole off the back of the boat at 5 m. Here divers can hold on and maintain a stable depth, or fix a visual reference point at the end of the dive to off-gas. I love this experience on the Turks & Caicos Aggressor II.

It’s a fabulous place to ‘hang out’, especially if the boat is energetically swinging on its mooring. As you drift you can observe your fellow divers below as they potter about their business.

There’s usually a huge congregation of fish chilling out with you, enjoying the shade and protection of the vessel. The school of jacks at the Garden Eel site is particularly spectacular.

Between dives, when looking out to sea, the deep cobalt blue of the water is almost incomprehensible, so stunning that my brain questions if my eyes have a filter applied.

Back in the water at Double D, three animal encounters stack up to make a hugely memorable event. Guide Ramón Orona points me in the direction of two massive lobsters. I take a photo and give him the ‘cool’ sign. He keeps pointing. Confused, I take another shot to appease him. He just laughs, it’s clear I’m missing something.

I scan the reef and realise there’s an octopus cheekily poking its head out of a crevice. I laugh and Ramón grins. I follow the octopus for a short time before I notice a barracuda has also spotted my new friend. Pointed like an aimed arrow, this silvery fish looks ready to attack. I back off, not wanting to help or hinder in the ‘circle of life’ down here. The octopus slips into a hole and I reflect on a magical 15 minutes.

The big stuff is awesome, but easy to find. More rewarding are the small, hidden animals that I discover by myself. I bubble with delight at the macro heaven site, Magic Mushroom, when I glimpse one of the tiniest, most expressive faces in the ocean glaring back at me: that of a roughhead blenny.

My next two dives become a game of hide-and-seek, my efforts rewarded when a golden variant reveals itself at the mouth of its bijou burrow.

As a British Overseas Territory, in 2020 Turks and Caicos joined the UK government’s flagship marine conservation programme, Blue Belt, with the aim of protecting 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030. I hope this figure rises, there’s so much fabulous life underwater that deserves our attention.

In the shallower parts of Stairway, unfazed barracuda allow you to approach within inches; the Shark Hotel and Garden Eel sites both deliver turtles; the sandy bottom at Gullies is home to honeycomb cowfish and many yellowhead jawfish (you might even find one with eggs); we spot a stunning eagle ray as it soars majestically past our group on the wall at Double D.

Turks and Caicos may no longer be the haunt of pirates, but if it’s treasure you’re after, the wildlife that calls this archipelago home is worth its weight in gold. n

Jenny Stock travelled as the guest of Aggressor Adventures and the Royal West Indies Resort.

More great reads from our magazine

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• ‘Taking Stock’ – expert tips on becoming a stock photographer
• ‘Voyage of Discovery’ – finding new dive sites in Raja Ampat
• ‘Machine learning’ – an interview with Blue Machine author Helen Czerski
• ‘Pierless’ – the myriad photographic opportunities of Barbados’ Cement Pier

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