I am writing this post as Gratitude cruises EXTREMELY calm seas. There’s the barest of swells and maybe 2 knots of wind, making it possible for me to sit in the forward cockpit with no fear of getting splashed. We are off the northern coast of the Turks and Caicos, about to turn south once we get to the western edge, so that we can sail to French Cay tonight; in the morning we’ll start crossing the Caicos Bank, heading for Big Sand Cay, our last anchorage in the T&C. We hope to leave from there late on Sunday, June 9, for an overnight sail to the Dominican Republic.
But before we leave this beautiful country, we want to share a little taste of our week here.
The Turks and Caicos used to be a part of the Bahamas, and geographically that makes sense. But they’ve been separate countries for over a hundred years now, and the differences show. T&C is a British colony with more development and more infrastructure than most of the places we visited in the Bahamas. The grocery stores are outstanding, there are dozens of good restaurants, and car rental is easy and cheaper than a round-trip taxi ride.
The beaches and the water are gorgeous! Same beautiful range of blues and greens that you see in the Exumas, with many many good reefs just begging to be snorkeled or dived. (Dove? I never know.)
We took some time while in Providenciales (not the capital, but definitely the largest town and the center of tourism here) to go diving again. I really wanted to do some more training, and found a dive shop, Aqua TCI, that could help us. Alas, it would have required some online coursework, and we did not have reliable-enough internet to make that feasible. (Not just internet, it turned out – there were a few power outages during our week here, as well. Provo was a victim of Hurricane Irma, and while it has recovered nicely, there are still some hitches in their systems.)
So we “settled” for pleasure dives, and boy were they pleasurable! The variety of reef life was truly amazing. We did four dives over two separate days, and on both days we saw reef sharks, turtles, eels, lobsters, hogfish, and all the wrasses and angelfish you could hope for. We even spotted a juvenile trunkfish – a tiny little spotted thing! – that is apparently somewhat rare. The corals were bright and healthy – rock corals, brain corals, sponges, fans. Andy got some nice videos of the sharks and I managed to get some still shots of a lot of the fish.
Diving is SO MUCH FUN!
We did a lot of eating out AND grocery shopping, too. Eating out, because the variety of cuisine here was a nice change from what we had grown used to in the Exumas. We had some nice Italian, some paella, and grilled fish with risottos and pastas, beyond the peas-n-rice and mac-n-cheese that was so prevalent earlier in our journey. I was delighted with the creativity and skill of the chefs, even at the casual bars we visited. I didn’t do any cooking while we were docked, but we made two grocery runs to get restocked. I had heard that the grocery stores were good here, and they did not disappoint. For the next few days every meal will be prepared here on board, so I wanted to be sure and get everything we’d need.
What’s our menu for the next few days? Well, I’m planning to cook up a big pot of BBQ beef short ribs with cole slaw for dinner tonight, that will give us plenty of leftovers for quick reheating. I found a rotisserie chicken that I’ll use to make curried chicken salad, and I have a new recipe for a Mediterranean quinoa salad I want to try. Between that and the cheese and crackers, apples and peanut butter, and Rx Bars we have onboard, I’d say we won’t go hungry. In fact, it’s calm enough that I might try doing some food prep today while we’re underway. We haven’t had good enough conditions for me to try it before – I’ll let you know how it goes.