The Driveway
Dive site at a Turks & Caicos Reef Fund dive mooring. Here's what has been recorded at this site month by month, how the region’s reefs have weathered ocean heat, and how to prepare.
The Driveway: dive site at a Turks & Caicos Reef Fund dive mooring.
Entry
Shore and boat entries vary by site. We list only rules we can cite from official sources; entry points, depths and currents will be added once we can verify them.
- Do not stand on or touch coral, and do not feed, harass or remove marine life. It is illegal to remove corals, sand, shells and wildlife. TCI DECR · Essential Information for Visitors
- Do not anchor on coral reefs or seagrass; use permanent moorings where available. Anchoring within 300 ft of a mooring is not permitted. TCI DECR · Essential Information for Visitors
At this sitegeotagged 710 m from the site coordinates Mustard hill coral (Porites astreoides) · Cos · CC BY-SA 4.0 · iNaturalist
The surface noise falls away.
Reds go first. The world turns blue-green.
Then The Driveway rises to meet you.
What lives here, by month
Pick a month. These are the species most often recorded within about a kilometre in that month, from open survey records.
Most-recorded species, all months
- Boulder star coral (22)
- Great Star Coral (14)
- Massive Starlet Coral (13)
- Boulder star coral (10)
- Mustard Hill Coral (7)
- Bumpy star coral (7)
- Smooth Flower Coral (3)
- Boulder brain coral (3)
- Staghorn coral (3)
- Finger Coral (3)
- Blushing Star Coral (3)
- Maze Coral (2)
- Ten-ray Star Coral (1)
- Rose Coral (1)
- Atlantic goliath grouper (1)
- Symmetrical brain coral (1)
GBIF.org (2026-10-15), occurrence records within ~1 km, licensed CC0 or CC BY 4.0 only. Birds and land animals are excluded. Counts reflect survey effort, not abundance. 649 qualifying records. See them on GBIF. Common names: Wikidata (CC0) / GBIF. Species photos: Wikimedia Commons, credited with each species.
Forty-one summers of heat
Each stripe is one year since 1985, colored by its peak heat stress across NOAA's “Turks and Caicos” region. These are NOAA Coral Reef Watch satellite figures for the whole region, not for this one site.
Heat stress, measured from orbit.
NOAA CRW virtual station “Turks and Caicos”. NOAA's alert thresholds are 4 °C-weeks (Alert Level 1) and 8 °C-weeks (Alert Level 2). Station page · Method. Credit: NOAA Coral Reef Watch.
Conditions
Average sea temperature through the year. Check the live readings before you go.
Average sea surface temperature by month: NOAA CRW “Turks and Caicos” station climatology (monthly means).
Buoy readings are measurements; forecasts are models. Use them for planning only, and assess conditions on site. Depth and visibility data aren't listed until we can cite a source.
Plan & prepare
- Read the official marine forecast the night before.Offshore, wind and sea state decide the day.
- Check the cited local rules above and pay any park fee before you dive.[Placeholder: verified operator list to come]
- Study this month's species above.You'll recognise more when you know the names.
- Hands off, fins up, buoyancy dialled. Log what you see.Your sightings can become tomorrow's open data.
Photographs from The Driveway
Openly licensed photos, each checked for location against its title, description, category or geotag. Labels show how close each one is to the site.
Credits
- Coordinates
- Turks & Caicos Reef Fund dive mooring list (20 Oct 2016), “Driveway”, West Caicos · source · TCRF, public list. Turks & Caicos Reef Fund “Dive Mooring List” (20 October 2016), which gives each mooring’s GPS position and approximate depth. The Reef Fund installs these moorings under a memorandum of understanding with the TCI Department of Environment and Coastal Resources. We found no published Grand Turk list, so Grand Turk is not covered yet.
- Species records
- GBIF.org, CC0 & CC BY 4.0 records. By license: CC_BY_4_0: 647, CC0_1_0: 2
- Dataset
- EOD – eBird Observation Dataset · doi:10.15468/aomfnb (537 records) · GBIF
- Dataset
- Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment - Benthic · doi:10.15468/vmcydh (107 records) · GBIF
- Dataset
- University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Division of Reptiles & Amphibians · doi:10.15468/g3bard (3 records) · GBIF
- Dataset
- Vertebrate Zoology Division - Ichthyology, Yale Peabody Museum · doi:10.15468/mgyhok (2 records) · GBIF
- Query
- https://api.gbif.org/v1/occurrence/search?decimalLatitude=21.648999999999997,21.669&decimalLongitude=-72.48066700000001,-72.460667&license=CC0_1_0&license=CC_BY_4_0&taxonKey=44&taxonKey=206&taxonKey=229&taxonKey=136&taxonKey=225&occurrenceStatus=PRESENT&limit=0
- Heat stress & SST
- NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 5 km Regional Virtual Station “Turks and Caicos”
- Hero photo
- At this sitegeotagged 710 m from the site coordinates Row pore rope sponge (Aplysina cauliformis) · Cos · CC BY-SA 4.0 · iNaturalist
- Arrival photo
- At this sitegeotagged 710 m from the site coordinates Mustard hill coral (Porites astreoides) · Cos · CC BY-SA 4.0 · iNaturalist
- Gallery
- 2 photos, credited under each image
- Species photos
- Wikimedia Commons, credited with each species. Full list: Data & sources