Wayne's Blog

FINALLY.......THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN SCUBA DIVING.....

In June of this year Ocean Vibes acquired Reef Peepers Glass Bottom boat tours. We continue to offer the signature Ocean Vibes service, whilst continuing the Reef Peepers glass bottom boat legacy. With this new acquisition we are now able to offer other exciting activities apart from the breathtaking wall diving that we are known for. We have changed up the tours to make them a half hour longer and more exciting.

Seasoned native Captain Kevin Parker is now at the helm of the Reef Peeper. He is a veteran in the watersports industry on Provo. He is very excited about his new gig and loves entertaining guests. Ira is still whipping up his famous rum punch on board and teaching our guests the latest Caribbean music dance steps.

We now offer sight seeing tours around the Caicos Islands, daily half-day snorkel trips with morning stops at Iguana Island, a hop on the barrier reef for snorkeling, a glass bottom boat ride, a trip to the grass flats for some conch diving and then off to a cool beach to chill, swim, beach comb or whatever you choose. Captain Kevin and first mate Ira will break out the conch and make you a fresh native conch salad. They will tell you tales about eating the worm. Rum punch flows along with groovy, tropical island tunes and chips and salsa.

Sunset cruises and full-day beach barbecues are some of the new adventures offered through Reef Peepers. Like all other Ocean Vibes activities the Reef Pepers glass bottom boat adventures can be booked directly online at www.oceanvibes.com by clicking on snorkeling or going directly to www.reefpeepers.com. Private multi-activity charters are available with scuba diving, snorkeling, sightseeing and beach barbecues.

See! There is more to life than Scuba diving and we want to show you how much fun we can really be. Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends, Valued Customers and Associates, from the Ocean Vibes family.

Friday, November 28, 2008

STORMY SEPTEMBER -- ONE WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER
PART 1

As most might have heard, the month of September which is usually our slowest time of year, was this year, very busy for all of the local dive operators and boat owners, busy meaning securing boats, repairing roofs etc but very little scuba diving or snorkeling.

The first storm named Hannah, was supposed to be "Just a tropical storm," and pass North of Turks & Caicos and giving us some rain and gusty winds. Well, that storm surprised us all and ended up passing directly over us, bringing tons of rain and wind, then coming back and sitting just West and South of us for a total of four days. We were saturated to the gills, water sitting everywhere, damage to roofs and property but fortunately no lost of life.

No dive boats were lost or damaged in the storm but one local marina utilizing the EZ dock floating dock system was completely destroyed taking a number of privately owned boats with it. Some of the bigger boats washed up on the Leeward beach sustaining minor damage, some got stuck under the Nikki Beach Floating dock and some like one of the Sail Provo Catamarans, just sailed away without a captain. Club Med's dive crew chose to park their boat inside the Leeward channel, which in years past was cosidered a safe harbour during storms, it didnt work out as they planned and their boat also ended washed up on the Leeward beach. They were able to get it off the beach with no major damage.

Well, to ruin the happily ever after portion of the tale a new storm kicked up less than one week later. We were preparing for a category four or five hurricane named Ike. Fortunately for us, we had just got done with the preperation exercise for Hannah and took no chances with this angry monster. Hatches were battened, boats hauled to safety, insurance polices checked, food, water and other supplies stocked and we all locked ourselves into our homes and waited patiently for big bad Ike.

Ike roared ashore in Grand Turk around 10 pm seriously and made its presence known by first knocking out all communications, secondly other utilities, then started its onslaught on the already battered residents of the seven and a half square mile island. For hours,the angry winds snarled, ripped off roof tops and littered the skies as they took flight, and eventually crash through the roof of another unsuspecting home owner.

Roofless island residents took shelter in doorjams and under tables, some braced their bodies against interior doors trying to keep the angry beast from desacrating their homes, some screamed and cried out to their gods and protectors as a barrage of corrugated metal, wood, shingles and other roof building materials hovered overhead producing sounds only heard in man-made haunted houses and halloween movies. Electric lines moaned and wailed as they flew around like lassos whipping and slashing everything in its path before they were torn down with their supporting power poles, transformers and other supporting structures.

Trucks and buses were overturned. Homes that didn't lose their roof tops saw water pouring in, under, over and around windows, doors and any other crevices it could find. The wild animals on the East shore brayed, yelped and searched for shelter from the force of the wind and the ocean spray that pounded their abode. This storm went down in History as one of the most catastrophic storms in the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Part 2 coming soon: Tuesday, November 25, 2008

NEW AT REEF PEEPERS: Sunday, June 14, 2009

As the Summer Heat rises and the tradewinds slow down,our busy season draws to a close and hurricane season is upon us again.
Santo, one of our longest serving employees, has traded in his position of first mate, co-ordinator and back up Captain on the Parasail boat for new stripes as the new Captain of our Reef Peepers, Glass Bottom boat. Santo assumed this new role in mid April and the guest comments have just been positively overwhelming. For the first time in the history of this boat tour we have guests doing a repeat of the same trip in a week, we have had people doing the exact same tour three times during their vacation, they try other tours after their first one with us and just keep coming back for more (<:
Congratulations to Santo in this new role and we wish him all the best as he keeps our guests coming back over and over again.

Wednesday January 13, 2010

Earthquake In Haiti

Tears flood my eyes as I watch with great sadness, women holding on to their injured children and screaming for help as they search frantically for their other unaccounted for kids or loved ones. Visions of what was once someone's sanctuary now lies a distorted heap of twisted rebar, concrete and wood. Yesterday Afternoon about 40 minutes before sunset, Haiti's Capital Port-au-prince was rattled by a 7.2 Magnitude Earthquake.
Immediately after the first Quake a Tsunami warning was issued for the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands, fortunately the warning was discontinued a few hours later, scientist on the weather channel, stated that it is their belief that a Tsunami wasn't triggered because the epicentre was on land. Haiti is approximately 140 miles from Providenciales and luckily there was no Tsunami but the people already affected in Haiti endured as many as 30 aftershocks, one almost every 20 minutes, for 3-5 seconds at a time. For the Plate tectonics savvy folks, Haiti sits on the edge of a Caribbean plate and the fault line basically runs through Port-au-prince. There are three plates that run through the Caribbean, fortunatelu TCI does not sit on one directly. The dive conditions are fine and visibility is still great here.
Turks & caicos is a small group of islands and Haitians have been a part of our community for many years. Each of us know someone who is directly affected by this unfortunate event.
My heart goes out to our closest neighbours to the South in this very difficult time of theirs, please lets all remember them in our prayers as they search for their loved ones.


Ocean Vibes Scuba & Watersports, PO Box 584, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, BWI

Local Tel: (649) 331-1104 or (649) 231-6636

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