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Providenciales - Turks and Caicos Islands

Sandy and I have wanted to visit the Turks and Caicos Islands for a long time. When we first learned to scuba dive back in the nineties (prehistoric times before the internet), we read about the islands in dive magazines. They were always on our list but somehow we never made it there. We always ended up going somewhere else. But last winter Sandy found a good deal on a trip to Providenciales so we finally booked something. On our way there we were even able to include a weekend in Miami to visit my son Tim, which was a bonus.

The flight from Miami was about an hour - not bad at all. Getting through immigration and customs was slow, but it always is on small islands. The airports aren't very big and a large airliner always temporarily overloads the facilities. Unfortunately in this case it extended to the ground transportation. We were expecting a shuttle to be waiting when we came but of the terminal but it turned out there were a lot more people than vehicles.

It could have been a real mess but at least it was well organized. There was a guy with a clipboard who was in charge of everything. You gave him your name and where you were going. Then each time a taxi or van pulled up he would assign passengers to it. He would choose people bound for the same hotel or ones that were close together. Still, we had to wait about forty five minutes for our ride. It was discouraging since we had reserved and prepaid for our ground transportation. We were anxious to get to the hotel and get changed into our beach clothes.

We were staying at The Sands at Grace Bay and when we finally got there it turned out to be very nice. It was right on the beach in the middle of Grace Bay. The grounds were beautiful. There were several pools surrounded by palm trees and fragrant flowers. Everything was clean and well maintained. There were a lot of places to sit for times that we didn't want to go out to the beach.

Our one bedroom condo was very nice. It had a screened in porch that looked out over the pool area. We are spoiled about bugs because at home we have a screened in porch so we are used to not worrying about flies or mosquitoes. There was even a washer and dryer in our unit. We like to pack as light as possible so we try to bring the minimum amount of clothes. Since I was able to do laundry every day we didn't have to worry about running out of things to wear.

There was also a nice restaurant on the grounds. We went there several times during the week to eat or just to have a drink and look out over the ocean. But there were lots of other options too. A short distance from our resort there was a large group of shops. It was only a ten minute walk along the main road, which was easy because there was a nice sidewalk all the way. There were restaurants, coffee shops, tshirt shops, excursion outfits, even a grocery store. We walked down to the "shopping district" once or twice every day to buy snacks, souvenirs, tshirts, groceries, or to have lunch or dinner. It was very convenient.

Our week in Turks and Caicos was pretty relaxed. We didn't do anything special. We would usually take a walk on the beach in the morning before it got too hot. During the day we might take a dip in the ocean or hang out by the pool. In the heat of the day, the sun reflecting off the white sand made it tough to be out on the beach for a really long time if you weren't in the water. Sometimes we took a walk on the beach again in the evening. Although there were always people there, the beach was so big and so long that there was lots of room for everyone to spread out and it didn't feel crowded at all.

We took advantage of all the food places within walking distance. Some mornings we got a pastry at the bakery (it was very good) or one of the coffee shops nearby. We ate dinner a time or two at the resort but most nights we would try different places. There was quite a selection close by. During the week we tried Pizza Pizza, Castaways Conch Bar and Skull Rock Cantina. The food on the island was pretty good.

We also tried the local beer from Turks Head Brewery. I did have trouble ordering it at first. I didn't know what it was called. I would just ask for local beer. When they asked me what kind, I would say lager. The name threw me at first. The label said

I-AIN

GA-LIE

I guess I must be getting slow in my old age because it took me at least three days before I figured out the name.

I-AIN GA-LIE

I ain ga lie.

I ain't gonna lie.

Ok, I really should have figured it out a lot sooner. After all, I grew up on the South Side of Milwaukee. People there use "ain't a lot. Except that over time it's morphed into "ainna" (pronounced AY-NA). That's close enough to the name of the beer that it should have registered right away. I think it was the hyphens and splitting the name over two lines of text on the label of the bottle that confused me. I was glad when I finally figured it out so that I could order a beer when we went out without embarrassing myself! Otherwise I would have had to stick to drinking wine, which was a lot more expensive on the island.

Eating, drinking and shopping was fun but the main attraction in Grace Bay is the beach. It's about three miles long, but connects to Leeward Beach in the east and Bight Beach in the west to form what is essentially one continuous beach that is seven and a half miles long. There is only one gap of about a quarter of a mile near Turtle Cove. The beach is wide and covered with beautiful white sand. The water is quite shallow for several hundred yards from shore out to a barrier reef. The white sandy bottom gives the water a range of amazing shades of turquoise. It is often rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world by travel magazines. It isn't overly developed either. Although there are hotels and resorts scattered around the bay, there is only one high rise - the Ritz Carlton. Most of the beach is pretty empty. It reminds me of Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman about thirty years ago. Because the bay is sheltered there is almost no surf, even less than in Bonaire. And because the bay is shallow the ocean water was warm, almost like bath water. It's the mildest ocean conditions of any place that I have ever been.

There was only one day when we decided to vary from our laid back routine. We rented a car so we could drive around and see more of the island than just what was in a few minutes walking distance of the resort. There was a car rental company mixed in with the shops and restaurants nearby and I stopped in one day to fill out the neccessary paperwork. They delivered the car to our hotel the next morning.

We started out by heading for the southwest corner of the island. Although Providenciales is small there is only one main east-west road. Everyone has to use it so the traffic was fairly heavy. That meant commercial traffic too so there were a lot of big trucks mixed in with the cars. Driving on the left side of the road made it even less comfortable. Plus there are no traffic lights on the island, only roundabouts. On the main road people tend to assume there isn't going to be side traffic so they just zoom straight through the roundabouts. All in all, the driving was rther tense and not much fun.

When we got past the airport we turned south to visit Chalk Sound National Park. We read that Chalk Sound is very scenic and since it is extremely sheltered, it's also an excellent spot for swimming. Unfortunately we never made it there. We turned too soon and ended up having to take a rough, rocky, connecting dirt road that I would expect to find in the mountains of Idaho, not in the Caribbean. Since we didn't want to go four wheeling in our rental car, we didn't go far before we gave up and turned around.

When we got back to the main highway we gave up on exploring the west side and instead headed all the way to the east end of the island. Sandy had found an excursion that took clear kayaks through a salt water mangrove swamp. There was supposed to be lots of interesting sea life to see on the tour. Sea turtles were especially common. Transparent kayaks provided an excellent view. We had signed up online the night before and wanted to go early to check out the place and talk to the tour operator. But following the map took us to a dead end in a residential area. Sandy called the company and they confirmed that we were in the right spot. There was no storefront, just a path that provided beach access. We followed the path and found a beach with several stacks of glass kayaks. This was the place we were looking for. But we discovered that the mangrove swamps were actually on a separate island, named Mangrove Cay. Getting to it required crossing a channel that was several hundred yards wide. The water looked pretty rough and there was also boat traffic in the channel. Since neither Sandy nor I are experienced kayakers, it looked like more than we had bargained for. We both agreed that we were going to skip the excursion and called the place and cancelled.

By now it was afternoon and we were overdue for lunch. I had seen someone wearing a cool tshirt from the Shark Bite Bar & Grill. It was in the marina in a place called Turtle Cove. Too far to walk from our hotel, I wanted to go there while we had the car. We had a nice lunch sitting out on a patio in the marina. And I got my tshirt.

After lunch we headed back to our hotel. On the way we stopped to check out Bight Reef, the only snorkel/dive site on the island accessible from shore. It did indeed look like there was a reef very close to shore in shallow water with easy entry.

We were back to the hotel by mid-afternoon. We had thought about keeping the car for an extra day but I'd already had enough of driving on Provodenciales. Next morning first thing I drove it back to the car rental place and dropped it off. We would stick to the beach and places that were within walking distance of our hotel.

The end of our trip came too soon and before we knew it we were packing up to leave. Since our airport pickup didn't come till noon I tried to be really efficient. After we cleaned up and got dressed in the morning, I washed one final load of clothes so that everything in our luggage would be clean. No dirty clothes! Except that I forgot and left them in the washer in the confusion of our final packing. Whoever stayed in our unit after us got a surprise of wet, soggy, but clean clothes in the washer.

When the shuttle finally came it was packed with people and was unpleasantly hot for the ride to the airport. And when we got through passport control, the boarding area was as crowded as any airport I had ever seen. We were extremely lucky to get places to sit down. People were standing everywhere while waiting for their flight. So we did have a couple of minor inconviences as we left. But once we got on the plane everything went smoothly. Because we arrived in Miami too late to continue home, we had arranged to stay at the Miami Airport Hotel. It's old and tired but it was just so convenient. We had dinner at Air Margaritaville right in the airport. The next day we had no problems with our flights and were home that afternoon. After we had been gone for ten days, Abby was really happy to see us.