We have snorkeled in St.John, Belize, Honduras, Fiji, etc. over the past 15 years and many years ago in the T&C's.
We want to return to the T&C's next year to snorkel at least once a day at different healthy different reef spots during a 6-7 day trip.
Will we be disappointed compared to the other locations we have visited? Are the current conditions in the Abaco Islasnds better than T&C though the water is not as warm? Places like Antigua and Barbados were disappointing for us.
We want easy access to the various snorkel sites by small canopy topped boats within 15-30 minutes of our resort.
We are considering Parrot Cay as one option. We want to avoid Grace Bay area that likely by now has a string of resorts almost one after the other.
Parrot Cay is very expensive so any recommendations of other "understated elegant" resorts at 20% less cost with good fairly priced food would also be welcome.
Thanks.

Coral Gardens is a very nice resort on Grace Bay, but it is on the other side of the island from the main strip of Grace Bay Resorts which allows it to be more quiet. It has many fans on this forum- I haven't stayed there but I explored it while I was staying somewhere else and it looks great. The website I believe is coralgardens.com.

Another option to consider would be Meridian Club in Pine Cay, another island in Turks and Caicos. (meridianclub.com)

The snorkeling was excellent in T&C. While I haven't done as much snorkeling as yourself, I was happy with it.

mah1980; Thanks for the input. We stayed at the Meridian Club on Pine Cay when we visited the T&C in 1994, The snorkeling was very good but only a few spots for GOOD snorkeling. The place is a little too quiet. They only accomodate 26 guests total.
A resort of 35-40 units is something more to our liking. I assume that from the Coral Gardens we can be taken to a variety of 1st rate snorkel spots?

There are 21 units at Coral Gardens, but keep in mind that there is everything from a 3 bdrm. room to a regular hotel room, so there will be more than 26 guests.

Howard on this board goes to Coral Gardens frequently so you might want to search for his trip reports.

We have snorkeled in several different spots (St. John is our only overlap with your list) and what impressed us most about the Provo area was the CORALS - healthy and colorful - rather than the fish life.

The most popular spot for shore snorkeling on Provo is Coral Gardens, a small reef area, close to shore, partially roped off. We preferred Smith's Reef, a couple of miles west. We also snorkeled by boat at the barrier reef, which is about a mile offshore and runs most of the length of Grace Bay.

We wanted to take a snorkeling trip to Middle Caicos or North Caicos, but we were there during a very slow week (halfway between Tgiving and Xmas) and the trips that interested us were cancelled due to lack of passengers. These would have been longer than your 15-30 minute range.

We stayed "in the thick of things" on Provo (Ocean Club West). I did notice a place that might interest you, between Coral Gardens and Smith's Reef, quieter area - I think it's called the Turks & Caicos Club?

CDT; Thanks. I think a 1 bedroom suite at Coral Gardens will ne it unless some fellow travelers have also been to the Abaco Islands at the top (nortern) portion of the Bahamian chain of 700 islands rescently.

snorkeling in T&C is much better than Abacos. Abacos are good saling grounds.

I meant sailing, sorry