A Day in the Life of Kids Sea Camp

This is exactly what happened on the Kids Sea Camp week aboard the Turks and Caicos Explorer II with Explorer Ventures. There were 20 people staying on the boat, which navigated the beautiful reef sites surrounding Turks and Caicos Islands. Let me walk you through a general day aboard the vessel.

 

I’m an early bird, up at 6 am every day, the nice thing is there was always someone else awake, whether staff or not (and very importantly to some, the coffee was ready at this time of the morning). 

 

By 7:30 the boat was buzzing- smiling faces all around. Surrounding the breakfast table are 10 kids and 10 adults, the perfect breakdown and ratio. Breakfast was always a great start to the day, something different each day; my favorite was the incredible breakfast sandwich, which I’ve been thinking about every morning since!

 

We hopped in for dive 1 at 8:30. Sharks and rays every single dive, stunning wall sites, heaps of fish, and loads of macro life. We even got lucky seeing two massive eagle rays on our very first day at French Caye in Turks. Following the dive, we had morning snacks and chill time. Often you would find the kids on the top deck, playing cards or chatting. Meanwhile, the adults were getting their tan out on the sun loungers, which covered deck 2.

 

Dive 2 was pre-lunch, and dive 3 and 4 after lunch. No fear of getting burned out of diving though because there is plenty else to do if you happen to stay out of the water for a dive. Lots of swims over to nearby islands, jumping off the boat, playing board games, or even watching movies. While we moved between dive sites, we even got a couple of dolphin sightings!

 

There was a night dive each night, optional of course. The first-night dive was incredible, sharks all around using our lights as a method of hunting; nurse sharks closest to the bottom, then Caribbean reef sharks over top. Over the span of the week aboard, the kids found out how active the bioluminescence was in Turks, and spent the majority of the night dives messing about with these (highly recommend doing this by the way).

 

All in all, the trip was amazing. The staff was super cool, the food was incredible and the boat was stunning. We had tutu Tuesday where everyone wore a tutu diving, because what else would you do on a Tuesday? And pirate Thursday, which resulted in lots of photos and fun underwater. By day 2 all of the kids were practically best friends and, with the lack of wifi, everyone had time to write a poem for the end of the week! Just because we were on a boat doesn’t mean Kids Sea Camp karaoke was any less, singing and dancing went on as per usual.