Grand Turk

It’s Saturday 27^th, so it must be Grand Turk.  For the geographically challenged, Grand Turk is one of the low lying Turks and Caicos archipelago, some 30 miles South of the Bahamas and 100 miles NE of the Dominican Republic.  It’s only 6.5 miles long and 2 miles wide.  A decent tidal wave would wash this place away, as its highest point can only be about two foot six above sea level!!!!  This place is also strange in that it is a British Crown Colony, but the official currency is the US dollar!!

Fame came to Grand Turk in 1962 when Col John Glen landed in the seas nearby after orbiting the earth 3 times in Friendship 7 spacecraft.  Some 3 months later Scott Carpenter did the same thing and also landed nearby and was also brought to Grand Turk for a medical and debriefing.

The ship berthed at 08.00 this morning at a tailor made pier for cruise ships.  There is also a new terminal complex, which houses the immigration, customs and shopping centres.  Best place that we have berthed at so far, as you disembark onto a modern jetty, then walk about 100yds into the modern terminal.  A fantastic coral sand beach is adjacent to the terminal complete with sunbeds and all free!  You can just walk along the waters edge to find beach bars, and boats to take you out snorkelling etc.

Here is our ship Ventura berthed at the terminal in Grand Turk

We spent the morning on the beach, where temperatures were well over 30 degrees.  Hope it’s not too cold at home!!!  After a mornings worship, we returned to the ship for a spot of lunch (Toad in the hole).  By this time the clouds had come over and it had started to rain, so we decided to get a taxi into the main town of Cockburn.  I think ‘main town’ is a misnomer, as there really is nothing there.  For the most part, it looks as though a hurricane hit it about 50 years ago and they decided not to do anything about it.  We visited the museum, which was quaint and the local people are rather proud of, but apart from that, not a lot seems to happen here.  Friendly people and a safe place; only about 5600 inhabitants and almost totally dependent on tourism, hence low crime.  When our cruise ship docked the inhabitants nearly doubled!

On the way back to the ship in a taxi we passed some old salt flats and there were flamingos paddling about.  The taxi driver stopped and we were able to take photographs of the flamingos in their natural habitat.  We also saw an osprey along with pelicans and all sorts of wading birds.  We could have stayed there for ages putting Fifi La Snapper’s ideas into practice.

Back on board with plenty of time before sailing at 5.30, meant that we could just sip a quick G&T before slipping the moorings and going into first sitting at 6.30.  As usual, dinner was excellent – Terrine of Guinea fowl, followed by fillet of lamb and baked apples in short crust pastry, that melted in the mouth and topped off with creamy custard.

The ship’s clocks go forward an hour this evening, so the extra hours sleep we got yesterday will be cancelled out.  For anyone just joining this blog – apologies for the lack of pictures, but the satellite broadband service is very very slow and it is just taking forever to upload a single picture.  That’s not such a great problem, but the cost per minute is!  I’ll try to add pictures when we get home, so you can get a full flavour of the cruise,

Another day at sea tomorrow, en route to St Maarten.  Therefore another full day of sun worshiping, weather permitting.  Big day tomorrow, lots of cards to open.  Have booked to go to the Asian restaurant for lunch, with the young couple on our dinner table, then into Marco Pierre Whites restaurant for dinner.  Somewhere along the line we have also got to polish of the complementary bottle of shampoo that’s still in the fridge.  God it’s hell here!!  Rather hoping that Gatwick is going to be frozen up for a few days, so nothing is leaving, which means we can stay on board in Barbados for a few more days.