Turks & Caicos – February 1 to February 8

I didn’t know where Grand Turk was. Who would? It lies just south of the Bahamas in the Caribbean sea. If you want to go somewhere off the grid and relax on soft white sand, this is the place for you. If you are looking for night life and end up here, you have likely selected incorrectly.

Grand Turk is mainly known as the site that Columbus may have first landed as he searched for the “new world” and as the place Colonel John Glenn splashed down in 1962 after being the first man to orbit the earth in a space craft.  It is amazing that someone would agree to hurtle through space and land in the ocean in this tiny sheet metal capsule.

Damage from last year’s hurricanes is still pretty evident, but the island is resilient. The natural beauty, however, trumps all. Dawna, the owner of our AirBnB met us at the airport with her golf cart and two of her dogs, Ducky and Indie. She was a bit shocked that we had so much luggage, but we managed to all pile in (with the dogs) for the short ride in a golf cart to her place.
After a 10 minute drive – on the wrong/left side of the road, cuz its the British West Indies –  we arrived at Dawna’s place which is beautiful. It’s very modern, has a great kitchen, nice living room and an air-conditioned bedroom with a comfortable king size bed. There is a fully screened in porch which allows us to keep the ocean-facing doors wide open. Past the screened porch, there is another deck with lounge chairs. Beyond that deck there is a pristine white sand beach. The water is a iridescent light blue and is super clear for about 200 yards out. At that point it turns dark blue. The light blue is a shelf and the dark blue is an underwater wall which drops off about 7,000 feet creating the third largest coral reef in the world.

The deck is west facing and each night the sunsets have been incredible!

 

The diving here is pretty spectacular. Dawna hooked us up with Blue Water Divers. Henry, Kristen, Lani, Josh and Kendry took us on four awesome dives over two days. We saw big manta rays, sea turtles, huge crabs, and tons of fish. The whales migrate near here and they told us to listen for the whale sounds while underwater. I didn’t hear them but Shawn did. Super cool!

Our dive masters – who were in their late 20’s and 30’s and from Australia, England and Canada – invited us to their “deck” (seen below) for beers at sunset. The “deck” was right on the beach and had a awesome view of the sunset. Was really fun hanging out with them.

We also met some other “travel friends” while diving and the group of us met at a place called the Bohio Resort to watch the Super Bowl. That was pretty fun too.

There are lots of dogs here called “pot cakes”. They are super friendly. The story is that they used to eat the food that was stuck to the bottom of the cooking pots after the families had eaten. Also, we’re told that only the most friendly would survive, so the one’s that are left are pretty lovable.

Our Brompton bikes have been a huge hit here. We’ve ridden them every day. The island is only 7 miles long so we bike everywhere. Everyone wants to know, “Where you get your fine bike, where can I get one and it’s expensive man….?”. They think we are sorcerers when we fold them up. So far they’ve been incredibly fun and worth the carry.

The few restaurants here are not particularly great. Our best meals, by far, have been cooked at the AirBnB. Shawn went to the place where the fisherman bring in their catch at the end of the day – which is about 200 yards up the road – and bought a big fish for $25. There was a very loud and animated 20 minute “discussion” amongst the fishermen when she asked for it to be filleted. But they finally did it and we made great fish tacos.

Our week in Grand Turk went by really fast.  Dawna was a great host.  She made sure our place was clean, hooked us up with great diving, took us to the super market (which was still having trouble from the hurricanes keeping fully stocked), made us great homemade spaghetti sauce and cheesecake, and just in general made us feel super welcome!  We’d recommend this place to anyone visiting Grand Turk.

Next stop for us was Providenciales.  Provo is where the action is in Turks & Caicos.  We stayed one night at the Villas Del Mar in Grace Bay – which is absolutely gorgeous.  Beautiful white sand, Carribean blue ocean and fabulous resorts.  Our one day here was great – except for when Shawn beat me at Scrabble 262 to 261.

Now we are off to San Juan via Santa Domingo, and Tortola to catch Sea Dream I for a cruise through the Caribbean!