Turks and Caicos Adventures

Doesn’t this view of “Grace” spot lit by a glorious sunset look idyllic, spiritual even? Well the reality is…
the sunset is disguising the fact that our hull was at least half a foot higher above the waterline than it should have been. Yup folks, we had run aground, our very first time of the entire trip!

We had known it would be shallow but we were assured by the dock master at Southside Marina on Grand Caicos island that we could get into the harbor if we perfectly followed an extremely narrow channel (maybe the width of our boat at best) by keeping the red navigation markers on our starboard perfectly aligned and then hugging the green marker.  Okay no sweat, been there done that,  except... The channel was nowhere to be found!  Meanwhile the tide was dropping precipitously and within thirty minutes  we were surrounded by depths of five and a half feet and less. It was about 4 pm, we threw out the anchor and waited for high tide which was to peak around midnight. While waiting Jeff and I took the dinghy and our handheld depth sounder and scouted out the “channel”. It was dicey at best… we were happy when we saw depths of six feet, which is about the depth of our draft. At midnight, the peak of high tide, we literally plowed into the harbor. I think we dredged the channel for them!

In conclusion, while this was a new experience for all of us that fortunately turned out well; I would not recommend attempting to get into this Marina with a draft of over 5’5” and that’s pushing it.

Well every cloud has its silver lining… Grand Caicos is a well-known scuba diving destination. And lo and behold, a local dive boat based its operations ten slips down from us. NICE!  Jeff and I already had all our Scuba equipment onboard. Peter brought a mask and snorkel, and Jeff had an extra pair of fins.  Voila! We were all set.

Peter was able to take these underwater shots using his "GoPro" camera.

Jeff looking  up at the toothy barricuda 

Our underwater photographer, Peter. The Barracuda seemed to like hangin' out right under the Dive boat.

Me

We explored a shipwreck that occurred approximately 40 years ago

Jeff and I are looking down at three "Black tip" sharks circling below us... a rare sighting as they usually swim solo. Notice how small we look in relation to the coral walls.

Another evening, while I was busy catching up on financial stuff, Jeff and Peter went into town and enjoyed a “Lime” that takes place every Friday evening. That this happens weekly is amazing as it’s a big “to do” in my book. Besides the loads of fantastic fish, lobster and chicken grilled to perfection by many local vendors, the locals dress up in vibrant uniform and parade around the town to much fanfare among tourists and locals alike. The main source of instrumentation is a cacaphony of constant loud whistle blowing and percussion rhythms. It looks like quite the extravaganza. 

A wondrous journey to all,

Pam