The best things come in small packages. - Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Isl.
Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Isl.
The lovely lovely
Island of Grand Turk.
I think we were both
looking forward to visiting the island of Grand Turk because we knew it was one
of the smaller islands on the trip. When
I say small, I mean tiny. From top to
bottom, Grand Turk is only about 6 miles long and one mile wide. (6 miles square for all you math buffs and
teachers). In comparison to the islands
we have visited on the last two days, this place is a teeny weeny gem. It is very dry, similar to Aruba and, on
average has 350 days of sunshine a year.
This right now is their winter season.
The temperature outside today was a very chilly 81 degrees in the
shade. IN THE SHADE!! They have had a record low of 74 degrees
(time to get the woolies out) and a record high of 96. Again, like Aruba, the island is very flat
with beautiful Atlantic Ocean coast lines.
There is some debate as to whether Grand Turk is actually even in the
Caribbean because it is surrounded on all sides by the Atlantic…But this debate
is by-the-by when considering the natural beauty of this island and all the
other Turks and Caicos islands. I think
it would be important now to give a short history of Grand Turk because it
really is quite a special place, especially if you consider its tiny size.
The first documented
discovery of the island was by a Spanish dude in 1512 but…many believe that
Christopher Columbus actually landed there as early as 1492. There is even a monument in his honour so I
think I will lean toward him being the first discoverer proper….anyway….Grand
Turk had one resource which others wanted to get their hands on and make money
from. Not diamonds….nor any other gems
for that matter. What Grand Turk has is
salt. The Bermudians, realising how
precious this commodity was, came to the island in 1678 and began extracting
and selling salt to North America.
History lesson over! Well
nearly….but this part is good too….in 1962 an American Astronaut came down to
earth in his conical shuttle type thing and landed in the water just a few
miles short of Grand Turk. He stayed on
the island for a while and felt that he had arrived in paradise. There are monuments pretty much all over
which honour his landing and it is widely considered that his winding up there
really put the Turks and Caicos islands on the global map for tourism.
On to our day. We had a ticket which allowed us to use the
hop on hop off bus service for tourists.
We had no idea where the stops actually were but we thought it would
allow us to explore the historical parts of the island at our leisure. The idea is that you hop off the bus and
another would be along in 20 minutes or so.
(25-30 minutes if you use the much renowned "island
time"). Our first stop was at
"Her Majesty's prison" and it was a real gem. Grand Turk has a very low level of crime and
really had no need for the prison building.
It is closed as a working jail but you can wander around looking at the
old cells and taking in the atmosphere.
The cells are quite tiny and dark, probably a relief when you consider
the sun here, but the landscape the prison is set in is breath-taking. Imagine being incarcerated in a tiny dark
room when all around you outside is turquoise seas and swaying palm trees. Drug trafficking used to be a big problem on
the island and many of those captured were locked up in the cells of Her
Majesty's prison on Grand Turk. I think,
from memory, that the last prisoner left the island in 1994 so….not all that
long ago really. Little little spent
some time doing hard labour on the island today and we both experienced being
shut in the cells whilst Dave took photographs!
The island is on the
hurricane belt and, in 1866, there was one hurricane which devastated it. The wardens of the prison, realising that the
storm was very bad, released all 10 of the prisoners so that they could be with
their families. Hurricane Ike hit the
island more recently ( I think 2005, but check that!) and also caused a great
deal of infrastructural damage. They
basically had to start again with getting things like electricity up and
running. One thing which clearly does
need looking at on the island is the state of the roads. I was convinced that we were going to bust an
axel or two on the bus we were on. If
you saw the holes we saw, you would never again complain about British
pot-holed roads! Great Britain is the
Mother Country of Grand Turk and they drive on the left! (kind of)
They actually drive on what ever side of the road is the smoothest….we
criss-crossed all over the place just to avoid bumps and crevices.
After the prison, we
were to the lighthouse which was a real surprise stop because we had not
expected the hop on hop off service to take us the entire six mile length of
the island. The Lighthouse was given to
the island by the British more than 150 years ago and was transported there
piece by piece and rebuilt. The reason
it was given was because ships kept crashing into the coral reefs which
surrounded the island. No longer a
working lighthouse, it stands as a pretty memorial to times past. (ships have better mapping systems now I
guess).
Mum you would like
the island because there are wild horses, dogs and donkeys roaming
everywhere. The horses in particular are
descendants from the first Spanish visitors and have been unaffected by any
outside bloodlines for more than 400 years.
The donkeys…..have more rights than the locals! They actually have a list of donkey rights
and our bus driver moaned that these rights outnumbered his own. We saw a lot of these cute little beasts on
our bus trip and also a lot of the stray (but friendly) pot bellied dogs. They get fed by the locals and wander about
quite happily minding their own business.
After the lighthouse
the bus took us to the salt museum and shop.
We were really keen to go here because the salt is something quite
special and we wanted to buy some for home.
They hand rake it on the islands and then flavour it will all kinds of
herbs, spices or even fruit. It was hard
to choose which to get but we were happy with our selection in the end. I was given a bag of pure salt (unflavoured)
free of charge and the crystals themselves are pretty to look at. It also has a very low sodium level and is
better for you than other salts you might by in Tesco…..
We could have spent
more time in Grand Turk than the five hours we were allowed, it really was
pretty with lots of interesting history and charming buildings. The people too, were very friendly and
welcoming. I should point out here that
the population of Grand Turk is just 3700 people. When everyone disembarked the cruise ship we
effectively doubled the island population!
Tons of people spend their time sitting on the beach here but we are
glad that we braved the heat and got a small look around the island
itself.
There was, of
course, one idiot on our bus with us. He
loved the sound of his own voice and spoke VERY LOUDLY. He was rude to the bus driver and made a
comment that if he ever bought a house on the island, he would build a large
fence to keep the natives out. I don't
think he even realised what he was saying was offensive. He was simply too stupid for words.
Our last few minutes
on the island were spent looking around the port shops and we did find a few
nice things here. I am going to finish
up now….sea day tomorrow and one last update from us before we come home.
Toodle loo. Oh...we won the trivia AGAIN this morning!