About our Company in Turks and Caicos

Dive Provo is a nine-time recipient of a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence and a member of the TripAdvisor Certificate Hall of Fame. The professional Dive Provo staff is dedicated to providing guests with convenient and trouble-free diving. They do their utmost to make sure your only “job” is to have a good time.

No lugging heavy gear! The staff will set up your gear for your dive and break it down and rinse it at the end of the day. Just pack your bag, leave it on the dive boats, and it will be ready for your next dive. We also have a full inventory of rental gear for those traveling light.

Meet Our Turks and Caicos Dive Shop Staff

At Dive Provo, we know it is not just outstanding diving that makes a great vacation. It is also the attitude and friendliness of the dive staff. Dive Provo customer surveys continually rank our staff as “Number One” in why they would return. Dive staff moves around the resorts from one end of the world to the other, so you may well meet people you made friends with on your last vacation somewhere else. By and large, Dive Provo’s staff are in their 30s (or older in some cases), and they all have a great variety of life experiences to share with you. Nearly everyone has been with Dive Provo for at least a year.

Jon Ward and Ben Jardine own and operate Dive Provo.

Ben will likely be one of the smiling faces you see in the shop. He grew up in Provo and lived in Bonaire from 2013 to 2020, working in hotels. He moved back to Provo in 2020 to join the family business. He spends his days teaching on a boat, answering the phone in the shop, or making reservations. In his free time, he likes going to the beach and working in his garden.

Jon keeps busy concentrating on all things mechanical, keeping the boats and compressors running in tip-top shape. Jon has been with Dive Provo for over 10 years. Once a passionate free diver and cave diver, his life changed after meeting Nives, who exchanged a research laboratory for the underwater world, joined the Dive Provo team, and married Jon. Nives manages all of the critical, behind-the-scenes administration.

Ben and Jon are also supported by TJ, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the dive boats and coordinates staff duties. TJ is a dive instructor and boat captain with many years of diving experience under his belt. His infectious laugh guarantees a fun day aboard the dive boat.

Jason was born in Grand Turk but spent many years in Florida. Jason tried scuba diving to get over his fear of the water. He instantly fell in love with it and continued training to become an instructor. He is a fantastic captain who knows our local waters. Jason spends his free time going to the gym, watching sports, and playing with his son.

RJ started his diving with the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund. He completed his Rescue Diver course and then Dive Master with Dive Provo. RJ is now an Open Water Scuba Instructor and has joined the team full-time. His wealth of local knowledge and passion for the ocean makes him a great part of our team. If you hear the loudest laugh on the dock, guarantee you’ll see RJ’s smiling face!

Mariann is from Montreal, Canada. Mariann came to Dive Provo on vacation and fell in love with the island so she quit her job as a flight attendant and spent some time off travelling Canada and then did her instructor development course. You;ll find Mariann teaching courses, guiding dives and even working in the shop!

Reagan is from Mississippi! She moved to Provo after becoming a dive instructor in South Africa! You’ll find Reagan helping in the shop or on the boat teaching courses! In her free time, she enjoys snorkeling, going out to eat and hanging out with her boyfriend Vasili.

Vasili is from South Africa! He moved to Provo with Reagan to become a dive instructor. You can find Vasilios on the boat or helping Jon do maintenance. In his free time, he enjoys borrowing Ben’s inflatable and exploring the islands and cays.

Micah grew up here on the island. He spent many years working on snorkeling boats. He became Open Water and fell in love with it! He slowly became a DiveMaster and kept asking Ben for a job. Ben told him we only hire Instructors, so when PADI came to the island to conduct an IDC Micah was the first to sign up! The day he became an instructor he called us and we offered him a job. Micah spends his time off hanging out with friends and watching soccer.

Maria Jose (MJ) is originally from Spain. She has worked in a variety of places in the Caribbean as an instructor/boat captain. In her spare time, she likes to hang out with friends and ride her bike.

Justin is from South Africa. He became an instructor in 2024 and quickly realized it was his passion. He decided to make it a career and found his way to Dive Provo! In his free time, Justin enjoys fishing or doing anything that requires being outdoors. You can catch him on the boat, either leading guided dives or teaching courses!

Mauro is from Italy. He has been a scuba instructor since he was 18. Mauro has been in the Turks and Caicos since 2014, working in the dive industry. In his spare time, he spends time with his wife, dog, and cat. From his mechanical expertise about boats to his vast knowledge regarding diving, he makes a great addition to the Dive Provo team.

US-Based Support Team

Our reservations & marketing staff have supported us for more than 20 years; Cheryl, Carol, Crystal, and our long-standing reservations representative Betty are ready to answer our 800 number.

Why Dive Provo

All our staff is fully qualified scuba instructors with years of experience who can evaluate diver skill and comfort levels quickly.

We believe that divers enjoy the experience more if they feel they control the activity. Divers see more if they are free to dive at their own pace, to a depth they are comfortable with, and as close or far from the boat as they feel safe doing.

We do not dive as groups; with everyone following a leader. Instead of worrying about chasing the group’s fins or seeing what other people see, by diving as a buddy team you can choose your depth and swim as slowly or quickly as you want. You can stop to study a particular fish or coral head without worrying about keeping up.

A thorough safety and site briefing is given at the beginning of each dive. You will find navigation easy with all wall diving, clear water, little in the way of currents, and an underwater marker signaling back to the boat. The topside instructor will watch for divers surfacing away from the boat and lend assistance as necessary.
The in-water guide is just that for buddy teams. He/she will dive with anyone who does not have a buddy and will plan the dive based on the needs of those divers. Normally they will dive to between 80 and 90 ft on the first dive and 60 and 80 ft on the second. Usually, it is not the same guide for both dives. The boat crew usually only does 1 dive each, so you need to watch your computers, especially on the second dive, because you will already have a time penalty from the first dive that the dive guide does not need to worry about.

All divers with buddies are encouraged to dive as a buddy team. All Turks and Caicos scuba diving here is wall diving, so navigation is simple along the edge of the wall. You swim to the edge, check the current (usually negligible), and turn left or right until ½ your tank or bottom time. You turn around and come back shallower. We help you find the boat by placing a big blow-up sausage at the edge of the wall where the turn-off back to the boat is. Most moorings are fairly close to the edge of the wall, so you will likely be able to look up and see the boat from here. If not, just swim in from the marker over the plateau, and you will soon see the boat.

If you have a buddy, we encourage you to dive as a buddy team. During your training, you were taught how to descend, orientate yourself and watch your depth and air consumption and ascend at a safe rate, and complete a 3-minute safety stop. We expect you to be able to do this.

Most divers are worried about getting lost underwater. Navigation when Turks and Caicos scuba diving is easy along the edge of the wall, but if you wish to follow the guide in your buddy team, feel free to do so. You can follow at a short distance and still monitor your gauges. We find many divers will follow the guide for the first dive and then go it alone afterward. Just let the guide know what you plan to do.
We do not ask strangers to buddy up, and we do not do solo diving. You will buddy up with the instructor in the water.

The crew quickly learns who needs additional help and who they can just keep a relaxed eye on.
If you cannot remember or are not confident enough to monitor your gauges, you will need to either take a private instructor with you on the dive or complete a quick refresher course before diving.

Diving is not like riding a bike, and if you are not completely comfortable, you will find you are unable to descend or will rush through a tank of air in only a few minutes or worse still, panic and miss the fun. So, if you have not dived in a while and your skills are a little rusty, you should do a Refresher Course before diving. It is a good idea to do one with your local dive shop before the trip if you can. If you can’t, consider taking one of our Refresher courses. Course options range from listening to a brief lecture going over basic Do’s and Don’ts followed by a short pool session practicing the most critical skills such as mask clearing and regulator retrieval through to PADI Reactivation, where your skills review will be followed the next day by a supervised 2 tank dive or 2 tank dive with a dedicated instructor. Available most days. Please contact us for details.

A better alternative is to consider the Advanced Course. To become Advanced Certified you will complete 5 dives over 2 days under the direct supervision of an instructor. You will do Peak Performance Buoyancy, Navigation, a short Deep Dive, and 2 other interesting subject areas such as Fish ID, Naturalist, or Boat diving. There are knowledge reviews but no final exam and this is an excellent course for improving diving skills and instilling confidence.

About Us

Meet Our Turks and Caicos Dive Shop Staff

US-Based Support Team

Why Dive Provo