American Travel Journal: Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos

While on a cruise in July, 2012, we visited the island of Grand Turk. Grand Turk is one of the islands in the Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Territory, and has around four thousand inhabitants. The cruise ship docked near the southern end of the island. The ship was scheduled to dock at 7:00 AM and sail at 2:00 PM. We sailed down the coast of the island in a rain storm or as the locals call it "liquid sunshine." By the time we had docked and could go ashore, the rain had stopped.

Sunshine after early morning rains

Rain along the west coast of Grand Turk

The clear water shows how quickly
the beach gives way to deep water

Our ship dominates the area

Of the shore excursions offered by the cruise line, we chose to go kayaking. We met our driver, Earl, in the duty-free shopping area at the cruise port and boarded the back of his truck. There were only seven passengers on this excursion. After driving past the airport and through the territorial capital of Cockburn Town, we continued north almost to the end of the island. As the island is only about seven miles long, the trip only took about thirty minutes.

Typical residence with walled property

Our land transportation

Trail south into North Creek

Red mangroves in the western tidal pool

Mangroves and reflections

Jellyfish in North Creek

Once at the kayak put in point in North Creek, we had time to adjust our personal flotation devices while we waited for one of the earlier excursions to return. North Creek is not a creek, but a mangrove swamp tidal pool. Our guide, Captain Marks, was from Jamaica. He conducted a safety briefing and, since we were all novices, explained how to maneuver a kayak to go where we wanted to go without running into anyone else. The kayaks were designed for two persons, so I had a bit of extra work as the single rider. On the other hand, I did not have to call out a cadence in order to synchronize my rowing with my partner. We rowed over to a stand of mangroves and Captain Marks described the four varieties of mangroves (red, black, white, and buttonwood) that grow on the islands. Rowing north, we went ashore near an unpaved road the leads to the lighthouse on the north end of the island. While we didn't have time to walk that far, we did see a couple of varieties of cactus before returning to the water. Before boarding the kayaks, our guide showed us conch, sea cucumbers, starfish, and sea urchins.

Red Mangroves

On the water

Captain Marks describing the flora

The northern lighthouse

Prickly pear

"The Aquarium"

Jellyfish

Sea urchin

Sea cucumber

Kayaks on the beach

We then paddled back to the dock where Captain Marks showed us the local jellyfish. By this time, Earl had returned from taking the earlier guests back to the ship. We quickly loaded up and returned to the cruise port.