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In April of this year I did a very special (and very short) trip, right after the CHI conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Several colleagues were at that conference too and so the idea was born to go scuba diving for a weekend in the Turks and Caicos islands "as we are in the neighborhood already anyway". Here, "in the neighborhood" means "about 500 miles away" rather than "3000 miles away". Indeed from Ft. Lauderdale, or rather, Miami it is just a short plane ride to the Turks and Caicos islands. Of course you wouldn't want to fly 3000 miles just for a short weekend trip.
The islands are a bit south of the Bahamas and they are part of the British West Indies. They somehow are still British (not sure if they are still counted as a colony or as a territory or such) but they use US money and when calling the TCI from the US you dial a number that looks just like a US phone number - it's not even necessary to dial a country code first. Very odd, just like Canada.
The main island for tourism in the TCI is Providenciales, and that's where the plane from Miami brought us. However we took a much smaller plane for a second ride and went on to Grand Turk, which is -- politically -- the main island, even though there are much fewer people there (and much fewer tourists). Grand Turk is surrounded by a very healthy and beautiful coral reef and therefore it's a wonderful place for scuba diving.
I got my scuba certificate ages ago (like in "20 years ago"), but haven't done any scuba diving since then. A refresher course was definitely necessary. I did that just before the CHI trip and I felt quite at home with the diving equipment on Grand Turk. On the last 2 dives I even took a rented underwater camera with me and a few of the photos turned out OK.
Below is a selection of my photos from this trip. Enjoy.
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Afterthoughts...
On the plane home I wrote a few notes about my trip that I sent to several friends. On second thought I think these notes should be on this page too. So here they are:
The island is called "Grand Turk" and it's in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which is part of the "British West Indies". It's location is south of the Dominican Republic, which is south of the Bahamas. But it's not too far from the US really -- just a short plane ride from Miami, which is close to where my conference was.
But in any other respect the island I traveled to is really very remote. Although it's the main island of the country, politically, it is quite undeveloped. There are actually only about 75 hotel rooms on the entire island and it is connected with the more touristy Providenciales using very small planes. On the way there we used one of the "big" planes -- a 20 seat propeller machine with two rows of window seats. The plane was full, which is quite unusual at this time as tourism is very low. Today we traveled back using a 2 engine Cessna that just held the pilot and 7 people (and unfortunately not all of our luggage). This caused a lot of issues on the next stop and it looked very much like I'd be marooned on a tropical island for another day -- which is of course not exactly the worst case scenario I can think of in this situation. And the whole issue arose mostly because I extended my vacation by one day to start with.
Anyway. It was a very memorable experience to be on Grand Turk. The coral reef there is spectacular and still very healthy. And they keep the tourists away - on Providenciales, which also has relatively little tourism. There is really not much to do on Grand Turk other than scuba diving (which happens actually not ON the island, if you think of it) or visiting the "TCI National Museum" or walk along the various "Columbus Landfall sites". I saw at least 3 such signs by the way. There is this persistent rumor that Columbus actually landed on the TCI before sailing on and discovering America but there are also many people who say that's pure BS.
In any case this remoteness might provide a little chance that the island might stay remote and protected. Indeed there are just three hotels and about 3-4 bars/restaurants in the main city of cockburn (typical caribbean name, I guess). And so little business that they take turns providing evening entertainment. So if you want a quiet evening you go to one of the other 2 or 3. If you want entertainment, you go to the one that is 'hot' that night. Which just means that you'll see the same people every evening. One of the locals told us that they actually have the condition of "island fever" which pretty much means the opposite of what you would expect: it means that about once a month you just have to get yourself to Providenciales, at least, to see other people. And about once every half year you have to go to a place like Miami (closest real city - connection wise) or another city, otherwise people stop being functional when they do get back into real civilization. Quite amazing.
I do like quiet vacations - especially on tropical islands. But I have to admit that a longer vacation on Grand Turk might indeed be pushing it. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely loved it. But, while I perfectly can imagine living on Hawaii for a year or two, I probably would have a hard time spending more than a month on Grand Turk :) And that's perfect. It might do it's part to ensure that this beautiful coral reef (possibly the healthiest we have left on this planet) might indeed be preserved for a while longer...
