May 13 - 20, 2006

Our first Caribbean NON-ALLINCLUSIVE vacation!!! We rented an efficiency condo @ the Sands Resort in Turks & Caicos, as well as a car from Scooter Bob to drive around and get to the different beaches and snorkeling sites. We had a BLAST!!!! Although the food was somewhat expensive, we knew that going into it (IF you weren't unaware that food was expensive, consider yourself warned), so we weren't THAT shocked by the cost of things. (EVERYTHING has to be imported to the island!)

Things to do....

There is quite a lot to do on the island, tourist-wise. They have the only commercial Conch farm in the world, as well as an island inhabited only by iguanas. (The iguanas used to be on all of the islands, but the feral cats & dogs wiped them out.)

We knocked out the Conch Farm & the Iguana island (Little Water Cay) in one day. For $5.00 @ the Conch Farm, you get a lecture, a guided tour, a physiology lesson on conchs (from local residents Sally & Jerry the "trained" Conch). You can also check out the hatcheries, men working the farm, and the huge pile of conch shells that are laying all over the place. I tried my best to eat & enjoy conch, but I just can't get the hang of it. It's tough & chewy. Kristy's face says it all as she "enjoys" a "Shrimp & Conch pasta" dish @ the Tiki Hut on Turtle Cove. LOL.

Instead of getting someone to "boat" us out to Little Water Cay (Iguana Island), we decided to kayak out. Here's a tip. If the tour operator "suggests" that it's maybe a little too windy for kayaking, listen to him!! Although it was easy going out, (tail wind!), it was HELL coming back. We sucessfully docked on the island in our two person kayak, where I posed in front of the Iguana Etiquette sign. We were met by Rocky on the pathway immediately. Just so you know, a guide is with you constantly, during the 1/8 of a mile walk. So give up any ideas of feeding the iguanas or getting near them. The guide was a real pain in my side.....you couldn't pass him and he spoke in a whisper, so you couldn't hear him either. Granted, I know nothing about "T&C Rock Island iguanas", but they are very similar to my "Arizona". Would I reccomend going to "Little Water Cay" to see iguanas?, no you'd be better off in a Pet Store. After our fierce battle against the wind to return home, we chilled with beer at Gilley's at the marina, gathered our strength, and enjoyed the scenery.

The waters of Turks & Caicos are some of the clearest in the Carribean, so we also knew there was going to be a lot of snorkeling. There are plenty of "walkable" snorkeling sites. The best site is "Smith's Reef", on Turtle Cove. I bought an underwater housing for my digital camera, so I could share all of the underwater pictures via this website. BUT, the housing leaked, thus destroying my digital camera. I did manage to get some pictures before the camera started leaking, at the walkable site of Coral Gardens

Beaches®

We also wanted to spend a day @ the Beaches Resort® (www.beaches.com/main/tc/tc-home.cfm) in Turks & Caicos. In the past, we had considered going to a Beaches® (a Sandals®, but for families: READ...c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n) We chose Wednesday for our Beaches® day!!! Like most Sandals® vactions, we spend the day lounging at one of the three pools (the newest section, French Village was closed for cleaning) When we arrived, we needed a snack, so we headed over to the Cafe de Paris, and dined on the freshest, fruitiest crepe (filled with Blackberries, bananas & strawberries, sorry no close-up pix), my first espresso, a chocolate chip cookie, and a blueberry muffin. This snack, sadly, was the best food of the day. I also had a hamburger, as well as my standard fare of cheesy-nacho-japepeno French fries. and a buffet lunch. Beaches® had the standard luxury items, like a pool table, and pirates play-land for children. The majority of the day, however, was spent reading around the pool, rafting the pool and drinking "Miami Vices" (strawberrry daiquiri & pina colada) & "No Problems" (strawberry daiquiri, pina colada & Blue Coraco). After spending the day @ Beaches®, we realized we made a good choice of NOT, staying at a Beaches® resort. The food was sub-par, and the kids really run the place, BUT the X-Box gameRoom was awesome!!!

The Resort:

We stayed at the Sands (http://www.thesandsresort.com/), which WAS on a nice quiet strech of beach.. Soon, the Mandalay Resort & The Villages @ Grace Bay will have this resort boxed in. We rented a one room efficiency ,and that's what we got, no upgrade, although there was some talk about that happening. It was really what we expected, although I was surprised there wasn't a stovetop, just a microwave, toaster, coffee machine & refrigerator. The resort provides two machines for internet access, as well as a wireless network you can hop on if you're so equipted.

The resort had a beautiful beach, and two interesting pools. The beach offers spectacular views of the caribbean sea , which offers LOTS of photo opportunities. The colors were spectacular, and these pictures weren't even enhanced in photoshop. The beach offered covered tiki huts, where as the pool offers lounge chairs and umbrellas. The pool also had a winding river section which was good for working sudoku puzzles. The pool also housed a lot of island iguanas, which were interesting because they curled their tail straight into the air when they ran across the deck. (Maybe to keep them from getting hot??)

How was the food @ the Sands? Well, they had one restaurant, Hemmingways (www.thesandsresort.com/content/dining/default.aspx. We only ate lunch once @ Hemingways, and that was on our arrival day. We split a grouper soft taco and some French fries. Nothing was outstanding about it, so we made a point not to return for lunch or dinner. Though I would return, and we did twice, for breakfast. They had a pancake topped with strawberries & banananas & toasted almonds that was excellent, that, Orange Juice & 40 bucks was enough to get you started in the morning!!!!

Getting around via Scooter Bob

To make the most of our time and money, we rented a car from Scooter Bob (http://www.provo.net/scooter/). We reserved a 4WD Convertible, and what we got was a 2WD Kia Spectra, referred to as "Bite Me". Although "Bite Me" had no rear-end suspension, it was a great car for getting to and from dinner, and checking the sites out; such as The Salt Mill (a shopping center), The Conch Farm, playing chauffeur, driving on the wrong side of the road, and driving the roundabouts infront of the resort. Since "Bite Me"'s performance degraded each day of use, we switched to a different car on Thursday. After switching to "Cuervo", Malcolm Beach was easily accessible, but since we forgot our snorkel gear, we posed for pictures, and walked on the beach seeing what we could find. I found an old sewing machine, which completely blew my mind.

Best Dining on the island???

Although we tried most of the restaurants on the island, I can honestly only recommend three of them, and for very specfic reasons. It was hard finding anything "different", everything was seafood, steaks, and bar food, nothing with a real "twist", except for these guys!!! Hands down the best pizza on the island was @ Baci Restaurant, it was on the water @ Turtle Cove. $50 bucks got us a large pizza w/ eggplant, onions, garlic, artichokes, mushrooms & 1/2 ham & 4 Turks Head (local) beer. We ate here after our day @ Beaches®.

The best stand-alone restuarant (no hotel attached) was Coco Bistro. The ambiance was right, the company was even better. We had a bottle of wine, red pepper/yellow pepper soup with a goat cheese crouton, organic tomato & smoked mozarella tart, Wahoo w/ organic tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and mashed potatoes, and a Grouper w/ red pepper tortillas with a mango chutney. Oh yeah, we also had a great dessert on fried mango & banana w/ vanilla ice cream. All for a grand total of 170.00, including tip, and the 10% government tax. (yeah a bit much, but what can you do???)

Our other fav restaurant was Bay Bistro @ Sibonne Beach Hotel (http://www.sibonne.com/). It was located right next door to The Sands, and it was dinner for our last night on the island. We had a bottle of wine (retail 8.99 in the States, 30.00 in T&C), warm goat cheese salad, blue cheese and pear salad, rack of lamb (hmmmmmmmmm!!!), the "special" Wahoo, and two desserts of flourless torte w/ ice cream (the one I make is better) & warm banana tart with ice cream. Our waitress was Millie, and with her tip, and government tax, the bill total was 180.00.

Although we ate a dinner @ the much touted Palms Resort (http://www.thepalmstc.com/), I wasn't that impressed with the whole dinning experience @ Parallel23 (http://www.thepalmstc.com/content/dining/Parallel23.asp), but the peeky toes crab cakes were AWESOME, and the table layout set my wife off beautifully