Day 4 (November 10, 2014): Wind-Down

Departure day is never overly enjoyable. You always try to squeeze out one last hurrah before checking out of the hotel, but the journey home and the return to reality are always in the back of your mind. Nevertheless, we did have a great morning. Up at 6:30AM and walking the beach before 7AM. With hardly anyone around, it put a very different spin on the beach environment. 

We made it back to JoJo's Cafe in the hotel exactly for the 7:30AM opening time, and once again enjoyed an excellent breakfast with friendly service. 

We were sitting on the beach just after 8AM, ready for more snorkeling. I finally got my underwater iPhone apparatus to work and caught some pics of a few fish. 

By 10:45AM we were back in our room getting cleaned up, having soaked up our last few rays and having received our last dose of wrinkled skin from sitting in the warm ocean water too long. 

We checked out by 11:30AM, did a little shopping, and found a small grill that serves conch fritters -- a must-try in T&C --

and Jamaican beef patties.  

Then it was off to return our Avis car and check in for the flight home. As an aside, we were struck with how many Canadian banks dominate the country: CIBC, RBC and Scotiabank have a strong presence. 

Providenciales' airport has to be one of the worst anywhere. Five international flights were leaving from an area the size of a shoebox, with only enough chairs to accommodate half the passengers. 

Out Westjet flight (from which I am writing this blog) was 15 minutes late leaving, but we will make that up enroute to Toronto, and our Halifax connection should be fine. 

All in all, a wonderful four-day vacation.  T&C has the warmest, cleanest, nicest sand and water of any Caribbean location we have visited   It is still fairly underdeveloped, so you always feel you have space and tranquility. The government has limited the size of hotel construction and has forbidden all international hotel and food chains from setting up shop. So there is a feel to the place that one rarely experiences in our global tourist scene these days. 

And the hotel, Windsong Resort, was an excellent choice -- clean, comfortable and with a coral reef directly in front. Overall, a vacation spot that we highly recommend. 

Day 3 (November 9, 2014): It's All About Balance

We woke up this morning with one goal:  to have a more relaxing, long-drawn-out breakfast.  And that is exactly what we did.  Eggs, bacon, cereal, bagels, fruit, juice, and coffee.

On our way to breakfast, we noticed this heron-like bird sitting on the pool's edge on one leg!  Oh to have such balance -- it would have come in handy later on in the day (will explain...)

Before getting installed on the beach, we decided to drive to the extreme northwestern point of the island to see the lighthouse there.  It was an eight mile drive from Providenciales, and Lonely Planet warned that the dirt road 'has been known to swallow cars whole.'  Not something you want to hear when driving a tiny Suzuki like our rental!  Sometimes I have more sense of adventure than brains, so we set out anyway.  But when the road became too rough, we decided instead to take a small sandy road to Northwest Point Marine National Park.  Well, that road was hardly wide enough for our tiny car, and since there was no way to turn around part way, we were soon committed to finding where it led.  

After several kilometers of scrub brush, we hit the ocean.  Nothing extra special other than more of the turquoise water and white sand that permeates everywhere here.

We did see some neat shells and this cool piece of coral dritwood.  

And somehow, we made it out of there and back to the hotel without getting a flat tire!

Back at the beach, it was another perfect day in the high 80s.

Snorkel, veg.  Snorkel some more, veg some more.  You know the beach drill.  The snorkeling was amazing today:  I saw a moray eel and we both saw the biggest lobster we've ever laid eyes on!  I took my iPhone underwater for the first time - not with good results, though!

One highlight was that we both tried paddle boarding.  That's where the balance I referred to earlier comes into play. NOT easy to maintain your balance on those things!  Pam did much better than I did.

Just before sunset, we walked east along the beach for half an hour. Here's a shameless selfie to capture the walk! LOL

We came across a couple of neat sand sculptures - the high tide has probably claimed them by now, sadly. (For the second picture, I was tempted to entitle it, "Pam after a day in the sun!")

Our last dinner in T&C was Italian.  A nice evening!  One more morning to spend in this tropical paradise, then homeward bound at 3PM.

Day 2 (November 8, 2014): Conch for one, conch for all!

We got up at 8AM today, so that we could get an early start and visit one of the few attractions on the island -- the Provo Conch Farm -- in time for their 9:30AM turtle feeding.  We hurried through an excellent breakfast next to the hotel pool, jumped into our Suzuki (which is so basic the windows don't even roll down!), and zipped to the eastern tip of the island to the Conch Farm, arriving at 9:30AM.  Argh -- seems they don't have turtles anymore!  Oh well.  They do have lizards, though!

We enjoyed a very informative tour, all the same.  Growing conches is quite a science, but at least aquaculture keeps Turks & Caicos in constant supply of conch, which is an endangered species in the wild. 

These two conches are 14 years old and are called Jerry and Sally.  They kindly came out of their shells for us.  Notice the difference between the male and female.

By 10:30AM we were back at the hotel and on the beach.  A perfect, sunny day in the high 80s.  We were in and out of the water all day, and the snorkelling on the small reef in front of the hotel was excellent, offering a huge variety of fish.

The hotel offers up some water sports equipment, including a glass bottom kayak, which we took out for a whirl.

Similar to back home, the sun sets here at 5:15PM, now that Daylight Savings Time has ended. We did a long beach walk on Grace Bay Beach to watch the sun set.  The sky was amazing.

The day was rounded off with dinner at an Italian restaurant, where Pam had conch chowder, as I had last night.  After this morning's conch farm tour, though, and having met Jerry and Sally, she felt a little guilty about it!  

This was a 10/10 day on the relaxation scale.  We loved every minute of it.  Good night from Turks!

Day 1 (November 7, 2014): "Uh, Turks and What? Where?!"

"The Turks and where?"  That's the reaction many people have when you mention these tropical islands.  Turks and Caicos just seems to be hidden under the radar more than most Carribean islands.  So why come here?  Well, for starters, for the powdery white sand beaches and turquoise blue waters, the likes of which you rarely see anywhere else.

A number of islands make up the small country of T&C:  West Caicos, Providenciales, North Caicos, Middle Caicos, East Caicos, and South Caicos.  The largest settlement of close to 10,000 people is Providenciales, where the International Airport is located.

Our journey here was pretty tame, as vacation travels go:  a 3AM rise, at the airport by 4AM, a 5:30AMdeparture.  Then Halifax > Toronto > Providenciales, with an arrival just after noon.  We actually had to be de-iced in Toronto - a far cry from the 30C temp that whopped us as we deplaned here today!

Flying into Providenciales, you cannot help but be amazed by the turquoise blues and white sand. Simply stunning!

By 2PM, we were checked into the Windsong Resort on Grace Bay and were at the beach shortly after.

There is a protected coral reef right in front of the hotel, so we snorkelled there this afternoon.  The water was so warm and easy to slip into, and an abundance of tropical fish make the reef their home.
We stayed at the beach til 5:15pm, watching the sun go down.

Then it was off to a neat restaurant at the Turtle Cove Marina for a supper that included conch chowder and lobster-and-macaroni-and-cheese.

Here's a quirky thing about T&C:  they drive on the left hand side, but cars are configured as in North America, with the driver's seat on the left.  So as we get used to our rental car, it's really something tricky to get used to!

Tomorrow we'll visit a conch farm and explore more of this tiny but stunning country.  G'night from T&C!