After an exhausting 2 days and 17 hours, where we encountered waves and winds more painful than forecast, we set anchor off of Grand Turk. But not before zigzagging down the shelf off shore for 2+ hours waiting on the sun to rise. We’d drive in to about 10 meters and then drift out over the shelf to a few hundred meters…repeat. Sailing at 2 kts faster than planned gets you there a wee bit early and its never fun going into unknown waters in the dark. Turns out we probably would have been just fine, but better safe than sorry! We dropped our anchor off of the TCI capital, Cockburn Town, closed up the boat, raised our Q flag and promptly napped for half the day. We were exhausted!
Turks & Caicos, a small British overseas territory’s official motto is “Beautiful by Nature” was launched in 2022 and for good reason, as there is no shortage of turquoise waters, white sandy beaches and endless skies. It encompasses more than 40 islands and cays and world class beaches are the norm. Of these only eight are inhabited and they are separated into two island groups; to the east of the Turks Island Passage are the Turks Islands of Grand Turk and Salt Cay and the west are the Caicos Islands South Caicos, Middle Caicos, North Caicos, Providenciales, Pine Cay and Parrot Cay. With only a 7 day cruising permit, we only visited Grand Turk and Providenciales.
Gran Turk Island
Gran Turk, sometimes referred to as “Grand Cay” even though it is just 7 miles long, is the capital and 2nd most populated island in the chain. It is mostly known for it’s historical significance as the potential first landfall of Christoper Columbus and as a former pirate haunt. The island was first colonized by the Bermudians in the 1600s to build up a thriving salt industry. The remnants of the salt ponds are still very prominent in the landscape today. The islands over the centuries went through a lot of changeover of Spanish, French until finally evolving into the British Overseas Territory burgeoning tourism business in the 1950s it is known for today. Despite Providenciales being the much larger and more settled island, Gran Turk operates as the capital of the islands.
The name Gran Turk comes from a species of cactus on the island, the Turk’s Cap Cactus, which has a unique cap that appears almost like it was burnt off. It even made a prominent position on their flag! An earlier version of the the flag actually had igloos on it for about 100 years when a mapmaker confused salt mounds with the ice structures. Oops.
Fun Fact: Grand Turk was the first land reached by astronaut John Glenn after the Mercury space mission in 1962.
Checking In
The first thing you notice sailing in is that island has a very remote feeling to it. This is not the boom boom party town or resort filled shorelines that Provo or the Virgin Islands are known to have. You sail into crystal clear blue waters lined with golden beaches. Seriously, this might just be the clearest water we have ever seen up to this point!
We anchored initially in the southern anchorage to get ourselves an easy walk to customs and immigration offices. Easier said than done. We ended up beaching our dinghy and walking around aimlessly trying to figure out how to get around the fenced off commercial shipping pier to the small building that housed C&I. We ended up having to walk around the the fences to the main road and walk a bit to get there. It was about a 30 min one way trek.
Once we arrived…They happened to be closed that afternoon. Doh. A nice gentlemen that worked at the fuel dock called someone in. 30 min later we were being processed by immigration and waiting for the customs official to show up. He took his time, but eventually cleared us in for 7 days and $50 and add another $20 each in overtime fees for the two gentlemen having to drive in…for which we got no receipt. Hmmm. Enjoy those beers boys! Yep, 7 days is all they will give you…no lingering in TCIs!
That afternoon we took advantage of the calm clear waters. We scraped down the hull and changed our our OceanVolt sail drive zincs all while trying not to be distracted by the fun fish cruising by to watch the show. We also cleaned up the shattered glass from the shower, but I have a feeling we will be finding glass shards for the next year! We sadly will not be able to fix the glass until we are back stateside in a month or so (would turn out to be almost a year) until we can commission a new set up and shower on our side of the hull again. Bonus of having a catamaran…there is a whole bathroom with shower on the other side! Missed that story check it out here.
Other Notes
Airport: JAGS McCartney International Airport.
Cash Money: USD
Official Language: English
Going Ashore
Once we were checked in, we actually moved up north to the Highlands Cut anchorage to more easily get ashore. The coastal views catch your attention right away, but the two main streets of Cockburn Town, Duke and Front Streets, have a very Bermudian-style vibe though it is obvious in the wreckage of many buildings that they are still recovering from the 2017 hurricane. The donkeys that wonder these streets are a well photographed attraction of their own. Once used for the salt operations, the now just roam freely around the island and ‘mostly’ mind their own business.
While there is definitely a lot of beautiful beaches, a lighthouse, and a few other sites to see, we didn’t have wheels so we just wandered up and down the main strip of Cockburn Town. Our primary goal was to find a sim card from the Digicel store for connectivity…a long walk yielded a small store that was closed for the day. Sensing a theme here! Next stop then was a place to grab a bite that had wifi so we could check in and let friends and family know we had made it to our destination.
We landed at the Sandbar Restaurant, Apparently “THE” beach bar on Gran Turk. Not much to it, but the island was still working it’s way back from the 2017 hurricane that leveled much of the island. It was really our only choice at the time. The restaurant had a small dining area outside (with creepy kids shoes on the bottom of the chairs). Overall, the beers and food were okay, staff fairly friendly and, they did have wifi so we got done what we needed to do admin wise. It did come with a pretty view of the water though.
The main residential streets were lined with cute cottages. Each home or business building seemed to have a story of it’s very own with it’s history noted on a plaque affixed to the wall next to their entry gate.
Under the Boat Wonders
The island is known for it’s excellent scuba diving and snorkeling opportunities. One of them was located just behind us where the depth quite literally goes over a cliff making a pretty amazing wall dive. Sadly we don’t have our boat outfitted for diving quite yet. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, we took the dingy over to the small dive mooring balls and hopped in for a look at the sea life that occupied the edge of the drop off.
It no kidding went from 15 feet off a sheer cliff down hundreds of feet. It was a bit dizzying to swim out over the bottomless abyss. We also spotted a number of reef fish going about their business in the area including Nassau groupers, horse-eyed jacks, barracudas, rays, trumpetfish, puffers, angelfish, triggerfish and more! It was a fun day out in the water.
Once back at the boat we cleaned up, had a quick meal and departed for the big island, an 80 nm overnight journey to Providenciales (aka Provo), the main tourist destination in the TCIs.
Providenciales, aka Provo
After an uneventful 21 hour sail, we anchored in the world-famous Grace Bay. To say this area was busy was an UNDERSTATEMENT. We thought we had anchored off a quieter resort on the eastern side of the bay out of the fray. It turned out we were on the super highway of fast moving center consoles, tour and party boats ferrying their customers to beaches, fishing and dive sites close by. Lots of wakes!! It did quiet down at night, well the wakes did…the music from the resorts just started!
Fun Fact: Provo is the home to the only conch farm in the world.
Other notes
Airport: Providenciales International Airport
Cash Money: USD
Official Language: English!
Full Circle Moment for Erin
In 2011, I, Erin, came to Turks & Caicos with some college friends. It was my first time in the Caribbean. I was still about a decade out of retirement from the Military. We rented a captain and his catamaran to take us around snorkeling and such for a day. I remember telling him I wanted to do what he was doing, living on a boat, traveling, etc…someday maybe after I retired. Not sure he believed me. Not sure I believed me. Seemed such a stretch at the time. A nice dream. It’s so surreal to be back in this same spot doing exactly that. We are anchored just off the resort that I stayed at way back when. The journey to get here was crazy. Ups and Downs, but here we are! Never give up on your dreams. Do something everyday to move yourself to where you want to be!
Grace Bay
Provo is the largest island of TCI in population (30.5K) and it is the third largest in area. The resort area is centered along a 5 mile stretch across Grace Bay. It’s not hard to imagine why, the beaches are almost bleached white in color and the water is the clearest turquoise blue imaginable. There is not much for sightseeing, but there is no shortage of water sports and shopping.
The water sports were immediately evident in our anchorage. Tons of action! Jet skis, Dive boats, party boats galore! Definitely fun people watching and a change to pull out our Boom Boom Boat Bingo Cards. IYKYK ;).
We were able to dinghy up to the beach near the Ritz-Carlton pier. We attempted to tie off to it only to find it getting slammed around the pilings when we came back. Lesson Learned…just beach it. It gave us easy access to the resort area and the supermarket.
We wondered around the downtown resort area popping in out of shops not looking for anything in particular, but just taking in the sites and sounds. It was very busy this time of year. Since it was our last night in town, we stopped in to the Thai Orchid Restaurant. When we strolled by the menu we couldn’t resist, it’s been FOREVER since we have had Thai. The place did NOT disappoint. The place was so adorable, quaint and cozy and the family who owned it very sweet. We sat outside initially but then the mosquitos decided to get violent so we opted to move inside. All the food was amazing, and we ordered a ton of options off the menu. We highly recommend!
The next stop was of course ice cream, which we found at a large outdoor shopping area called House of Unicorn. Turk Berry turned out to be a frozen yogurt shop with a lively atmosphere. The amount of options were a bit overwhelming, but the staff was fun and patient as we decided. Again, delicious and highly recommend.
The last stop of the day was Graceway Gourmet to provision for our next leg as we expect to be in the remote islands of the Bahamas for a few days so need to stock up on fresh foods. It was a nice sized grocery store with everything you could need, but the name does sound very fancy and yes, the prices reflect fancy, it was not for the faint of heart. We picked up only what we needed on on we went!
Checking Out
We dinghied around to the Blue Haven Resort & Marina, where they would call in C&I for us to check out prior to our departure. If you find yourself here, get comfy. From the time we arrived to when they showed up, it was about a 2 hour, wait but once they arrived it was a quick and easy process. They had wifi so we were able to keep ourselves busy planning our departure while we waited. Afterwards, we walked over to the Resort Market Cafe, a deli, coffee bar, convienence store, located on the canal behind the resort. The place definitely caters to the resort crowd, but was very convenient stop to grab a made to order hot sandwich, slow to come out but delicious while we sat outside watching the goings on.
That’s a wrap for the TCIs. On to our last international stop of this journey. The Bahamas! We are excited about this island chain. I mean, there are only 700 island spanning 100,000 square miles! How will we choose where to stop?!