Snorkeling in Princess Alexandra National Park, Turks and Caicos

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The Turks and Caicos are a series of cays - large and small - in the Caribbean, northeast of Cuba. Major airlines fly into Providentiales (Provo) daily. The beaches are spectacular and snorkeling sites are easily located and not crowded. Dive Provo, the local dive shop, has sites around the islands where good equipment can easily be rented for $15.00 per day

There are two well-known sites off Grace Bay in Provo - the biggest cay - Coral Gardens and Smith's Reef. In both locations long, wonderful, white sandy beaches can be found. Snorkeling sites host underwater grasslands that attract turtles as well as varied coral beds - some very close to the surface - with a wide variety of different coral types.

At Coral Gardens and Smith's Reef some of the local businesses have sponsored an underwater signage program which provides a description of the corals. Many small fish of various shapes and bright colours can be seen, some well camouflaged. Larger, thin, blue fish with gold borders moving in schools of 15-25 were unafraid and wiling to venture very close to us, looking for food maybe. We saw several small grass-feeding turtles - larger ones, reported to be frequently sighted in the area, alluded us.

We had to be very careful in many areas not to damage the coral with our flippers because in places it is very close to the surface. One of the highlights was seeing 3 Manta Rays moving away from us in a row one behind the other. Thinking that where there are rays there may be sharks, we moved away carefully.