Turks and Caicos Islands

The Turks & Caicos and Bahamas were first peopled by the Arawak Indians, known as the Lucayans. After Ponce de Leon’s visit in 1512, the islands remained uninhabited until 1678, when the Bermudians began to develop the salt industry. Today, the islands are a British dependency.

Two groups form the archipelago: the Turks Islands (six uninhabited cays and 2 inhabited ones of Grand Turk and Salt Cay; the Caicos Islands (six inhabited islands and a number of uninhabited islets). They are separated by a 22-mile passage.

The British Archipelago makes for a great stopover for cruising yachts bound for the Caribbean. Easy Clearing In procedures are had in Sapodilla Bay on Providenciales. Simply drop your hook in soft sand and hike the short foot trail past Five Cays to Long Bay Point at the industrail shipyard to find Customs & Immigration. Be sure to drop by the bakery inside the pink motel on your way back for fresh French bread!

The Turks Islands consist of Grand Turk, Salt Cay and Sand Cay, with a long of uninhabited little cays in between. Sleepy days drifted by, as we waited for winds to die down for a comfortable passage across the Mouchoir Passage and Silver Banks to the Dominican Republic.

By the time you reach Sapodilla Bay, you would have a fleet of new cruising buddies in your wake. At sundown, pack your favorite side dish, grab a cold one, and head to the sugar-white beach to build your own private mini-bonfire. Surely you remembered to put out your fishing line en route across Caicos Banks! Spanish mackerel, mahi-maki and wahoo are standard catches on passage from Mayaguana to the Turks & Caicos.

Follow the sandy road to the main highway and stick out your thumb! It's fun and very safe to hitchhike across town in the myriad of pick-up trucks headed with their owners to work. After your tasty lunch of island faire, shop at one of the two large supermarkets, which seem shocking to wander through after a stint in the Bahamas! Be sure to plan your return hitchhike trip back to Sapodilla Bay before sundown. The roads are void of street lights and figures are difficult to spot alongside the narrow road.

If you get caught long than expected, Morris Minivan Service on VHF ch 69 is happy to drive you back to your boat for a very reasonable faire. He's accustomed to visiting cruisers. If you can't raise him, regular taxis are available, slightly more expensive. For entertaining guests onboard at night, head across town to Hotel Row, where tourists gather into late in the evenings.

Check out the Haitian traditional fishing smacks used for cargo transport at the Customs dock in Long Bay in Provo. When passaging to the Dominican Republic, bear in mind these boats only use a fire flame or the rare flashlight to navigate at night, so you may not see them if the moon is waning or late in rising. Many times, we've had to alter course after seeing bizarre flames right off our bows, realizing after panicked scrutiny that the Haitian captain is giving us a warning. More than once, only a shout has alerted us in a particularly black night. Due to extreme poverty, even dry matches and batteries are hard to come by for a Haitian.

Afterwards, we relished our walks in the rustic village of Cockburn Town. Though recently devastated by hurricane Ike in September 2008 (four months ago), we found the people to be very friendly and eager to share their horrifying experiences of surviving the storm. More than 80% of the homes were destroyed and hundreds lost their roofs, so a lot of construction and repairs were going on, for the island endured a near-direct hit with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph (category 4).

While queuing at the local small grocery in town, Sylvia and I chatted up the friendly woman behind us. We were shocked at her account of surviving hurricane Ike.

“When the winds started to blow down trees around us, w crouched beneath the bathroom sink, then inside the tub,” said a gregarious woman. Rains fell in Biblical proportions. It sounded like a freight train bearing down right on us. Finally, as the walls began to pulse and the windows blew out, my sister and I made a run to the car and tried to drive to Mum’s, but couldn’t get down the road from the blackness all around. In the daytime! It took two hours to go one mile! When a solid barrier of fallen trees and debris blocked us in the road, we were forced to remain inside the car, hunkered down for the rest of the night, trembling, and thinking we were going to die. In the morning, nothing was left of our house. Mum’s house was OK!

Can you believe it! Nobody died on the entire island!”

Barely 3 miles across, we roamed rustic Balfour village in Salt Cay with Ben and Sylvia, while Adam and Sky made their way into the pool halls in search of cold beer. We found them later, deep in intellectual discussion on a concrete wall with a gaggle of locals, grinning from ear to ear. As much of the Cay was still devastated from Ike, there was a lot of sitting around, waiting for the town to be rebuilt.

Salt Cay was once named for its place in history as one of the greatest salt producers of all time. Once Bermudian salt traders settled, the salt industry began. Ponds, canal, gates and windmills were constructed to control sea water flow on Big Sand Cay. Soon, 100 salt vessels departed each year from Salt Cay for the US, loaded with the sought after ‘white gold’.

It was the humpback whales that captivated us most! The passage between Great Sand and Salt Cay is reknown for humpback breeding grounds. En route to Cockburn Town at Grand Turk, adult females cruised by our twin hulls with young calves alongside them in the shallows, nursing them to greater weight gain for the arduous passage south. What a way to spend a morning!

So, we filled our days snorkeling the reef off our stern, which lay a mere 400 yrs offshore. It’s a virtual underwater snorkeling trail, dropping off deep into stunning walls that burst with colorful sea life. Though the chasm plunges 8000 feet into oblivion, the upper twenty feet were fascinating enough for us on our daily finning excursions!