Welcome to the 2012 edition of the Blue Water Divers Newsletter. Hard to believe we are at the end of another year already! Despite some challenges, it has been a good year for us. The dive business is never easy, especially on a small island like Grand Turk, but I’m proud to have a great team and am optimistic that 2013 will be even better!
Have Fun Do Good
We like to have fun. We like to “Do Good.” We absolutely love to have fun AND do good! We want all of our guests to have a safe, enjoyable, and fun experience while enjoying the unique vortex that is grand Turk (both above and below the surface.)
Our day to day business (7 days a week 365 days a year) is diving and snorkeling: providing full service diving and snorkeling trips, as well as teaching dive courses- from an introduction to diving, all the way through to the professional level. However, doing all that doesn’t mean we can’t make a difference to the environment and our community while we are at it! In fact, it’s something we thoroughly enjoy!
We try to increase the environmental awareness through our daily actions by educating all of our guests about the beautiful, yet extremely delicate, aquatic ecosystem that we dive in every day. We also offer a chance for our guests to develop their knowledge and understanding of the underwater world by providing environmental specialty courses. We also actively support organizations and activities that are focused on doing good things for the environment and/or our community such as: TC Reef Fund, Project AWARE, The Turks and Caicos National Museum, and many others.
For more ideas on what you can do to help make a difference check out our “Have Fun, Do Good” page at: http://www.grandturkscuba.com/HFDG.htm.
Beach and Underwater Cleanups
Throughout 2012, Blue Water Divers coordinated and participated in both beach and underwater cleanups to benefit Grand Turk. Our friends and customers, other local businesses and charitable organizations all jumped in to help. The underwater cleanups were held in recognition of World Ocean Day in June as well as part of the TCI Shines Island Wide Cleanup in December. Beach cleanups were conducted as part of these two events, and additional beach cleanups were held for Project AWARE Debris Month of Action in Sept. and the Junior Park Warden program in July. For all of these events, locals and visitors alike came together to offer their help and support ensuring the island maintains its natural beauty. Not only do these cleanups help us keep our beaches in the pristine condition we all know and love, we have a blast doing them! We are looking forward to more cleanups in 2013.
The new 2013 TC Reef Fund BC tags will soon be here!
As some of you may know, the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund (TC Reef Fund) is a non-profit which was formed in 2011 to benefit the marine environment in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI). The TC Reef Fund was established to help preserve and protect the marine environment of the “Beautiful by Nature” Turks and Caicos Islands – an environment that draws so many visitors to these islands and is critical to the survival of the islands themselves. Their goal is to dedicate 85+% of all funds raised through this organization to marine conservation projects in the TCI each year. You can read more about this NGO on their website at: http://tcreef.org/.
One fundraising mechanism implemented by the TC Reef Fund is to issue VOLUNTARY BC tags ($10) and wrist bands ($5) for the Marine Park. These are available to divers, snorkelers, fishermen, boaters, beachcombers and anyone else wishing to help in preserving our beautiful marine ecosystem. Dive operators working with the TC Reef Fund welcome the generosity of visiting park users and supporters to combine with their own marine conservation efforts. We have these tags and wrist bands in stock at Blue Water Divers.
I am very excited about this opportunity for our visitors. I have been asked many times over the years about why we don’t offer a similar program as to what they have in Bonaire. At last we will have an equivalent organization in the TCI, and since it is an independent NGO, we can be comfortable about spending and accountability. It is also strictly optional. There will be no built in fee, or added tax, but you can now purchase a badge (very similar to the type offered in Bonaire) or wristband which can easily be attached to a BCD (or an arm). Come visit us, pick up a dive tag and/or wrist band, and lend your support to this important cause!
More moorings!
We’d like to thank the TC Reef Fund for their recent shipment to Grand Turk of much needed mooring materials (including rope, mooring buoys and anti-chafing line) to maintain the moorings in the Columbus National Marine Park. Monies for the TC Reef Fund non-profit organization are contributed by divers, who have the opportunity to purchase a wrist band or BCD tag for $5.00 or $10.00, respectively. We have these tags and wrist bands in stock at Blue Water Divers. In addition to that, a generous donation earmarked for moorings was made to the TC Reef Fund by an individual in 2012.
Staff members from Grand Turk Diving and Blue Water Divers have been replacing dive site moorings that have been missing due to lack of materials. In addition to that, the live aboard dive boat TC Explorer was also recently in Grand Turk. They came equipped with a drill capable of drilling new sites for mooring pins to be installed. Great effort was made by Smitty and Mackey from Grand Turk Diving and Oasis Divers, to help the TC Explorer crew, and in addition to securing double pin sites for the larger liveaboard vessels from Provo, several new sites were put in with single pins for the local dive operators on Grand Turk. In the last couple of years, boat and dive traffic in the park has increased significantly and these permanent installations have made a big difference in helping minimize the impact from the growth of water sports activities in the park.
It was a great combination of resources for a common goal, and what was accomplished in only a few days will provide benefits to the Columbus National Park and all who dive and operate in it…. for years to come! The park is in great shape and together we can work to keep it that way, but we need your help to continue. You can make a difference!
PADI Training and Environmental Speciality Courses!
As many of you know, all of our divemasters are also PADI instructors. With our warm climate, gorgeous water and fantastic wall diving, Grand Turk is a wonderful place to receive PADI training. Plus, when you take a PADI course with us, you most often have the added advantage of private or semi-private instruction instead of being part of a large training class!
For those who are not yet certified to dive, we offer “Discover Scuba Diving” courses for those who want to give diving a try, as well as complete Open Water Certification courses. For those divers who are already certified, we offer a variety of PADI continuing education courses including Advanced Open Water, Emergency First Response, Rescue Diver, Master Scuba Diver and a number of PADI specialities.
And keeping with our “Have Fun Do Good” motto, we offer PADI environmental specialities including Peak Performance Buoyancy, Coral Reef Conservation, Project AWARE Specialist, Underwater Naturalist, and Sea Turtle Awareness.
For many PADI courses, you can even do the bookwork and tests online from home using PADI eLearning, and then complete the in water portion of your dive training with us after you arrive on Grand Turk. This way you can spend more of your holiday vacationing and less studying!
Mitch Rolling started Blue Water Divers in 1983. Therefore, 2013 is the BIG THREE OH for Blue Water Divers! The picture of Mitch as a young boy in Iowa at the left shows how early he started to prepare for a career in diving! We’d like thank each one of you who has supported us throughout the years (should I say decades?? Ouch!)…we wouldn’t have made it running a dive business for thirty years without all of our wonderful customers (especially you “repeat offenders”…you know who you are!)!!
New Merchandise
As many of you may be aware, in 2011 we started using a new logo. In 2012 we came out with a new line of retail items using this new logo. T-shirts, hats, rash guards, and coozies featuring our new logo are now available. Our Have Fun…Do Good motto appears on all rash guards, some t-shirts, some hats and all coozies. Other new t-shirts contain the sayings “Grand Turk: Funky, Friendly, Fabulous” and “Grand Turk: A Special Place for Special People”.
Of course we can’t have new shirts without new hats, and new hats it is! We have the new logo, in a choice of two color patterns, and one has a 3D diver embroidered on it, and the other has our “Have Fun Do Good!” motto. They look great!
We have three color choices for our long sleeved rash guards as well as a cool light blue zip-up hooded rash guard. The rash guards are great to wear under a wetsuit, not only for a bit more warmth, but also makes the wetsuit easier to pull on and off. They are rated with a 50 SPF, so they are also great for snorkeling or just hanging out in the sun.
To complete the new inventory, we have our new logo on key chains which double as bottle openers (yes, the key chains are in the shape of a guitar, but they have been field tested and they do open cold bottles of beer very well!) and this item is very complimentary to our BWD coozies which keep your bottle of cold beer cool while it is consumed!
Let the fun begin!!
Environmentally Friendly 4 Strokes -Here We Come
Blue Water Divers is happy to announce that after over 10 years and 1000s of hours, we are retiring the Yamaha 2 stroke outboard engine on the boat that we lovingly refer to as….. the Legend! It has been replaced with two brand new Yamaha 4 stroke outboards of 115hp each. These 4 stroke engines cost quite a bit more, but I was very happily surprised to see that they REALLY DO get the better fuel ratings than the 2 stroke engines. As gas here is quickly approaching $7.00 per gallon, I am certainly glad that our last 2 stroke engine has been retired!! The other advantage of 4 stroke engines is they have cleaner exhaust in the water, which means less pollution. They are also quieter to run so our captains and guests don’t go deaf!! With the addition of these two new engines, our entire fleet of three dive boats is now 4 stroke equipped!!
What better way to celebrate a holiday than with a gift of a vacation to a lovely tropical island? (You can give this gift to a loved one or even give this as a gift to yourself!) What better way to ring in a new year than with a resolution to make time in 2013 for a vacation to a lovely tropical island? We can help you make arrangements for any or all of these! Just drop us an e-mail at: info@grandturkscuba.com and let us know how we can assist with your trip planning.
Also Mitch’s Songs from the Beach CD is a wonderful gift to give anytime! Available as a digital download (album or singles) via MP3 at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mitchrolling.
Staff Update
Nathaniel Taylor
We are very pleased to have Nat Taylor back with us for his second year. Nat has earned a solid reputation as a great instructor and has received positive feedback from customers of every type…students, new divers, advanced divers and snorkelers. Nat has also spent the year improving his photography skills and his photos were published on a number of occasions. He recently put together some BWD videos of diving on the east side that look great! We are glad to have Nat with us and look forward to another good year together.
Lamar Griffiths
Lamar joined Blue Water Divers in 2011 and has been very busy this year. In early 2012 he went back to Jamaica (where he is originally from) and did a full PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC). The PADI IDC course is a challenging course, as it should be, and Lamar really showed his hard work and preparation by received the highest score on his final exams!! Lamar then went on the receive his Emergency First Response Instructor rating as well as additional PADI Specialty instructor certifications. We know you will join us in congratulating him on a job very well done!! Or better yet, come on down and learn to dive with Lamar or let him teach you one of our PADI Specialty Courses that we offer!
Calum Penn
We are also very pleased to have Calum Penn, who joined our team from the UK in 2012. Calum has very quickly become an important part of the team. Hard working and conscientious, Calum has already earned many excellent reviews on TripAdvisor. His ability to balance hard work and having fun has put him right in with the rest of us, and it is a real pleasure to have him with us as we move into the next year.
Chris Young
Chris has recently joined us from Oregon, USA. Chris actually knew Nat as they both did their PADI instructor training together in Egypt. Chris already shows he has what it takes to get the job done. He works hard to make sure our visiting divers can relax and enjoy themselves. He has quickly picked up the local diving, and we look forward to having him with us for the new year.
Social Media
We are proud to now have 929 people who “like” Blue Water Divers on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bluewaterdiversgrandturk. We also have 568 members of the Diving Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands interest group on Facebook. Thank you for your support!
We are very proud to now have 119 “five bubble” (i.e. excellent) reviews on Trip Advisor. Thanks to all of you who took the time to write a review! If you would like to post a review of Blue Water Divers, please go to your favorite travel and/or scuba website such as TripAdvisor.
Want to see what we are up to more often than our newsletter is published and stay in touch? Don’t forget to “like us” on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/bluewaterdiversgrandturk. You can also join our Diving Grand Turk Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/109916234346/?ref=ts&fref=ts.
Want to hear specifically about how our dives are going? Now you can! PADI has set up a social network designed for divers called ScubaEarth. You can set up a profile, add dive buddies as friends, show off what gear you have, and log dives for everyone to see. We enjoy sharing our diving adventures with our friends, and we think you will too.
We’d also like to get your feedback on content that you would like to see on these pages, so that we can make it a useful resource for you. Please send us your ideas!
And in conclusion…
I would like to wrap this up by wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season! We hope you had a good year like we did, and look forward to seeing all those of you who will be able to visit next year. In 2013, we look forward to celebrating Blue Water Divers being in business for 30 years! Thanks for helping us to make it all possible, and we look forward to offering you happy bubbles and bottom time in the years to come!
We hope to SEE YOU SOON!
Mitch
Your input always helps me to provide better service – SO KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS COMING! 🙂
Osprey Beach Hotel’s
Courtyard Atrium Building
Duke Street, Grand Turk
Turks and Caicos Islands
Ph/Fax: +1 649-347-1400
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