Sunset over the Lighthouse

The next day was our last on the island, and we spent it lazing around the dock. Aimee and Jill decided to take out the paddle boards again looking for some sea turtles, and again finding a six-foot sandbar shark. Having been there for both sightings, Aimee much preferred the above-water vantage point. But the real attraction was soaking up their last twenty four hours of blissful independence.

Not a child in sight.

Our only real task that day was getting the COVID test required for re-entry into the United States. Like everything relating to COVID on the island, we were very impressed with how professional the operation was. There were several testing sites around the island (including most of the bigger resorts), and conveniently the main lab was right next to the grocery store we frequented. We walked right in, and were registered for a test within minutes. 

The lab technician was fantastic (he clearly swabbed a lot of noses), and was a world-class small talker. He had us all charmed by what I’m sure were the same jokes he used for each patient (I speak from experience), and stories about his visits to Arizona for his previous job with the World Health Organization. He advised us that there are no worse patients than celebrities (no nose is exempt), and we tried to imagine who he could have been referring to. At one point, the technician asked Dean about his last name. Dean met small talk with small talk and asked the tech what his last name was. The tech replied, with what I’m sure he thought was a conversational dead end. But Dean immediately put together that it was the same last name of our Mahi Mahi fisherman from Josephine’s. Figuring that it was a common name, Dean said that they had just met someone with the same name on Middle Caicos. “Wait.” The tech said. “Nat?! Nat from Middle? That’s my cousin!” We shouldn’t have been that surprised, since there are only about 38,000 residents collectively on all of the Turks and Caicos Islands. But it just solidified the impression that these were some truly friendly islands, and we were supposed to be here. This was the culmination of our crazy COVID year, and couldn’t have picked a better location to come down from it all.

After our tests, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some local snapper for Dean to grill at the Lighthouse. It had been our plan each night since we got rained out at Omar’s, but had to keep putting it off for one reason or another. 

It was a fitting last dinner. Afterwards, we took in one last sunset from the top of the Lighthouse. It didn’t need to be said out loud. We were so lucky to have spent the last week there.

Our flight the next morning didn’t leave until late afternoon, so of course we spent the morning sneaking in some last minute snorkeling. And despite everything we had seen, this was probably the best of the trip. We saw tons of fish, a couple of graceful sea turtles, and precisely zero sharks. A perfect way to cap off the trip.

Aimee brought her contacts this time.

Then it was off to the airport. Begrudgingly (and uncomfortably). 

Fittingly, the Turks and Caicos airport is mostly outdoors. We toasted the islands from the open air bar on the second floor, and made imaginary plans about when we’d come back. We missed our kids, and it’s always nice to go home. But we were in no particular rush, and had decidedly mixed feelings when we saw that the weather in Dallas for the return trip was, unfortunately, perfect. 

A midnight quandary, dancing Canadians, and leopard print flats

The room was ready for us around 5pm, and we ate a take-out dinner from the hotel restaurant. Our conversation paused whenever someone saw a shadow move, but the “infestation” never amounted to more than a couple dozen half-inch insects accumulating near the light fixtures. I took a mental note to capitalize on that attraction and leave a light on in the living room tonight to lure any stragglers out of the bedrooms.

The downstairs bedroom that Aimee and I were in seemed like it was going to be a safe bet. Not a bug seen all evening. But Jill and Dean’s upstairs bedroom seemed a bit more prone to overnight surprises. We spotted about a hundred or so carcasses on the roof panels outside their window, where the insects had apparently set up their hive. There’s no sleeping after that, so Jill and Dean evacuated to one of the backup cabins.

It wasn’t my best night of sleep, but it wasn’t the worst. It would have been completely uneventful had I skipped the “one last beer” that resulted in me getting up to pee sometime around midnight. The debate to get out of bed or fight through it was brief. There was no way I could make it until morning. So the real debate was do I bring a flashlight or not. Not an easy decision, since ignorance would be bliss, and several more hours of sleep. But this was a new room on a dark island, and there wasn’t the faintest sliver of a new moon to guide me. Besides, feeling one of the water bugs crunching under my bare feet would have resulted in at least as much sleep lost. So I briefly tapped the switch on my flashlight to illuminate a path, and turned it off before I could focus on any small objects. The strategy worked. I made it to the toilet and back without any surprises, and was none the wiser if there were any bugs on the ceiling. Then back to sleep before I could convince myself otherwise.

We woke up at the crack of 9:30 am, free of any painful blisters. With the exception of a handful of now-dead bugs clustered around a lampshade in the living room, the house looked just as much of a paradise as it did the night before. We consciously decided on a strategy of willful ignorance regarding whatever chemicals may have been available on a small island that could kill a swarm of water bugs at the last minute, and prepared a simple breakfast.

We spent a lazy morning on the beach, and then checked out the nearby Indian Cave. It’s name is a bit dated, but references the indigenous people that used to live in it. 

Photo by Jill Knuth

We didn’t stay long, though, since the current inhabitants were a swarm of ferocious mosquitoes. Whether they were out for revenge on the neocolonialist visitors or just a product of the tropical conditions, we took the hint.

For lunch, we went back to the appropriately-named Seaview Cafe. We had forgotten that the hotel staff told us that a band was going to be playing there for lunch, but quickly remembered when we saw the musicians setting up their gear when we walked up. The music was supposed to start at 11, but we were the only ones in the restaurant at 11:45. So we braced for an awkward meal while the band dragged out their sound check to wait for more of an audience. But we didn’t factor in Island Time. I have a reflexively hard time subscribing to cultural stereotypes about promptness, but it was absolutely 100% accurate that afternoon. By 1:30, the place was packed with what had to be every resident of the island. We couldn’t tell if the band was still sound checking, or if they were just really, really laid back about their set list. Either way, they were killing it. Between the charmingly awkward Canadian expats cutting it up on the dance floor and what appeared to be a group of Providénciales municipal water employees living it up on some sort of team building trip, we soaked up some fantastic people watching for the remainder of the afternoon. The reggae covers were a nice bonus.

We eventually got back into our rental “car” and made our way back down to the ferry dock. There was no one at the car lot, and we couldn’t find an office or key drop anywhere. We figured that we were supposed to just leave the keys in the car and head on out. It would have felt weird anywhere else, but a potential car thief would have made it about 45 minutes before simply running out of road.

We watched the afternoon ferry pull out a few minutes after we arrived, but there were still more people on the dock than could seemingly fit into the last boat of the day. We seemed to be the only ones concerned about that. The twenty-something unarmed police officer in a T-shirt and (no joke) leopard print flats clearly wasn’t. She directed people down the boat ramp in groups of five and kept the still-dancing municipal water employees from missing the ferry (or the ramp altogether).

The floating party lasted about 20 minutes, and we pulled into the Provo dock around dinner time. The drive back to the Lighthouse was about the same length as the ferry ride, and we spent nearly all of it breathlessly thanking Josephine and her magical Mahi Mahi for getting our vacation back on track.

Nat and the Princess

If the words Seaview, kidneys, and water bugs don’t seem like they should be in the same sentence, start here.

If they make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, you’re right were we were at this point. We spent 15 minutes in our parked rental car processing what we had just learned. The prospect of a finite number of seats off the island definitely increased the stakes of our deliberations. Could we even leave the island if we wanted to? But no good decisions are made on an empty stomach. Even through it was barely 10am, our bodies had grown used to consuming a thousand calories by this point every day during the prior week.

Seaview Cafe was barely 5 minutes away, and a sign on the door said that they didn’t open until 11. But just like the hotel, one of the staffers prepping the kitchen saw us outside and put us on speakerphone with his manager. That was clearly the norm around here. We didn’t really have any questions for her (unless she happened to moonlight as an entomologist), but we used the opportunity to ask about dinner. The restaurant at our hotel closed at 3 pm. Prior to learning that 10 minutes earlier, we had been banking on it for dinner. So if we stayed, we’d need to figure out a plan. As it turned out, Seaview wasn’t technically open for dinner, but accepted take out orders if you got them in before 2 pm. Our hotel did the same thing, so we figured we’d just take our chances with that.

Again sitting in a parked car with nowhere to go, we took stock of where things stood. Our hotel might be infested with nocturnal parasites, nothing on this island seems to be open, we’re not entirely sure if we’ll be having dinner tonight, and we were going to be out a ton of money regardless. 

But the first glimmer of hope came when Jill took a quick walk to the back side of Seaview. “This place has a beautiful sea view. I don’t know what that guy was talking about. He might just be a grump.” And suddenly we all realized that the average person who could afford to bring a big group of people to Middle Caicos might have a different definition of infestation than we did. To him, maybe seeing 2-3 roaches is an infestation. To us, that’s just called somewhere you live during your 20s. A true infestation means that you don’t know if you’re grabbing your toothbrush or a cockroach when you reach into your toiletry bag. All of us were more than willing to chalk that up as the cost of staying in what was otherwise paradise.

Photo: Jill Knuth

By that point, the clouds that had rolled in that morning were starting to part. Also literally. So we decided to proceed with our hike. At least we’d get some more nice views out of the trip. 

We had brought enough food with us to cobble together a decent-enough lunch. That would leave us enough time to make it to the hike and then back to the dock by 2 pm, when the midday ferry would arrive. We wanted to ask the the crew if they even had any seats on the late shuttle before we started making any concrete evacuation plans.

The only problem was the road. A few miles past Seaview, it went from “Not bad for a remote hurricane-prone island” to “Yeah, this feels about right for a remote hurricane-prone island.” We were kicking ourselves for not reserving a Jeep, and were starting to push our rental car beyond its rather modest limitations. 

Speaking of our rental car, this was the control panel. 

Unreadable in any language, it seemed to be displaying our route overlayed on top of some distant Asian city. There are no freeways on Middle Caicos. Even the road was becoming less so by the minute. The touch panel didn’t work, and we couldn’t adjust any of the settings. Which made it all the more disconcerting when the car quite literally started speaking to us in Japanese. It could have been something as innocuous as, “Please keep your seatbelts fastened.” Or it could just as easily have been saying, “The small gerbil powering this automobile is about to die an awful death, please turn around immediately.” We erred on the side of not killing the gerbil. 

Getting progressively more frustrated with the day, we decided to work our way back to the docks. There was a restaurant that I had noticed nearby that we could hang out at until the ferry pulled in. But after the 45 minute drive back across the island to the restaurant, we saw an empty parking lot out front and knew what we would find even before we tried to open the door: It was closed.

We had heard so many wonderful things about North and Middle Caicos, and were absolutely floored by the bust of a day we were having. What were we missing? But there was only so much disaffection that can happen in such a beautiful setting, and we couldn’t help but laugh about the situation we had found ourselves in. And no, you don’t need to feel even remotely bad for us. A rough day on this island is still an eight and a half. We were fully aware of that, even at the time.

We knew that our empty bellies weren’t helping our outlook, and we still had the food we brought with us. So we decided to pull off the road eat it on one of the beaches that we kept driving past (and past and past). Our first attempt brought us past a neighborhood that clearly wasn’t for tourists. 

An abandoned development project cast its half-constructed pall over a neighborhood that didn’t seem particularly bad, but would have been an extremely conspicuous place to eat our Brie and Dijon. We already felt ridiculous enough.

Hungrier and hungrier, we drove on. Our next attempt at a lunch site quickly devolved into a pot holed dirt trail that was heavy on the dirt, light on the trail. We nearly got stuck turning the car around, and a loud “CRACK” as our car’s frame collided with the large rock in the middle of the trail nearly ended the trip (or at least the driving portion of it).

As the ringing in our ears subsided, Dean broke the silence with “Well, who is ready to just call this?” After our implied consent, he continued, “We can just take the 2 pm ferry back to Provo and sleep at the Lighthouse. We’re out that money either way.”

No arguments from the passenger compartment. Middle Caicos just wasn’t for us.

But as we were driving back to the dock, we passed by the only remaining restaurant we had seen on the island. Princess Take-Away. A small, dusty beach shack with signage that might as well have said, “Make sure you have extra toilet paper tonight.” 

I wasn’t optimistic. It takes quite a bit to get me to think twice about eating somewhere while traveling, and I was thinking at least three times about this place. But I figured fried fish and plantains can only harbor so much E. coli. What did I have to lose?

Josephine, the proprietor and presumed Princess, invited us into her restaurant (which appeared to be an extension of her home), and let us know the lunch options that day: Fried fish, fried chicken, fried plantains, and fried potatoes. When it comes to potentially questionable restaurants, I’ve found that with very few exceptions, the ones with the simplest menus often turn out the best. So I was growing more optimistic by the minute. And it turned out to be justified.

Not only was the matronly Josephine quite hospitable, her cooking was excellent. It wasily one of the best meals we’d had in Turks and Caicos, but that was only half of it. The real highlight was Nat, another North Caicos local who pulled up in his pickup just after we arrived. Based on the fishing poles hanging out the back of his truck bed and the cooler he brought into the restaurant, Josephine had almost certainly called him over shortly after we placed our order. In fact, when we asked her what type of fish we were eating, Josephine told us in her think accent, “Ask him (pointing to Nat). He’s the one who caught it!” Nat proudly told us that it was Mahi Mahi. This day might just be turning around after all. 

The initially soft spoken Nat quickly opened up with us after he and Dean bonded over the barracuda that was hanging off the back of his truck. And opened up was putting it mildly. For 30 minutes, he talked about everything from local fishing holes to the importance of COVID vaccines.

Fed by Josephine and charmed by Nat, we revisited the idea of staying on Middle Caicos. Before anyone said a word, it was clear that we were staying. A full belly went a long way towards improving our outlook at the prospect of having a few hundred extra roommates. The fish was that good. But more importantly, the sun was now fully out. The island went from beautiful to stunning.

It’s magic was undeniable. So we decided to take our chances and head back to the hotel (stopping at a local convenience store to pick up a can of bug spray for good measure). The place felt infinitely better the second time around. I don’t know if it was the full sun or the full belly, but the hotel looked completely different. Guests were swimming at the beach, and the smell of grilled seafood wafted over from the now-open restaurant. A cheerful manager greeted us as we walked up, and before we could say a word, told us that our cabin had recently developed a water bug infestation. “The bites hurt, and cause your skin to blister. We don’t want that for you.” We loved her already.

She told us that our check-in would be a bit delayed since the maintenance and cleaning crews were still finishing with the pest abatement. Torn between slow clapping and shedding a tear, we just stood there with dopey grins melting onto our faces. We listened as the manager told us that she had also worked out a backup plan. She would prepare two other cabins that we could move into if more bugs came out at night. Given that it was nearly too late to catch the ferry by that point, we were enamored with her honesty and resourcefulness.

This is the Caribbean. Humidity bottoms out at 80%. Bugs are an inevitability, and it’s unreasonable to expect anything different. This is their turf. We’re just visiting. We fully embraced that, and would have settled for anything smaller than a baseball falling on us while we slept. This was clearly going to be far better than that, and we were more than a bit embarrassed that we had considered abandoning the place. And we were so glad we didn’t. As we waited for the room to be ready, we walked down to the beach. I don’t even know where to begin.

Not only was it one of the prettiest beaches on the planet, it backed up to the largest system of above-ground caves in the Antilles. The soft limestone had been worn down over millennia to create one of the most unique environments we had ever seen. In fact, we followed an unmarked cobblestone path from our cabin down a homemade set of steps to a hidden beach that would have otherwise been unreachable. 

Photo: Jill Knuth

Photo: Jill Knuth, obviously

Absolutely magical. What were a few blisters in the morning?

Trouble in Paradise

Sunday brought our first real day of adventure. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't planning on writing about this trip. Not only does it feel a bit indulgent to be traveling during such a difficult year, but I also didn’t think I’d have anything interesting to write about. There are only so many ways to say, “We had a lovely afternoon on a beautiful beach.” But three events made me realize that there may be a few interesting stories to come out of this trip. The first was the scramble after our cancelled flight, the second was swimming with directly on top of a six foot shark, and the third was today.

Our plan was to spend the night on Middle Caicos, two islands over from Providénciales (our home base). To get there we had to take a ferry to North Caicos, rent a car, drive about an hour, and pass over a small causeway connecting it to the smaller Middle Caicos. Not much of a production. And really, it wasn’t. Dean booked the hotel a couple of days earlier, I booked the ferry last night, and we had read that it wasn’t hard to just walk off the ferry and rent a car at the dock.

The ferry ride itself was easy and fun. It was comprised of about two thirds tourists exploring another island, and one third locals commuting to work. The entire ride took about 20 minutes. 

As expected, it took maybe five minutes to rent a car. We were hoping for a Jeep, since most of the roads on the outlying islands are pretty rough, but those had all been reserved ahead of time. So we got a small Japanese import similar to what we were driving on Providénciales. 

The closest thing we had to an agenda or destination was a hike on the far side of Middle Caicos that was supposed to be very pretty. We decided to head out there first, Since the rest of our schedule was nothing more than putting our feet up at the beach. But since everything on both North and Middle Caicos is on the single main road that runs across each, we were going to drive right past our hotel first. We thought it might be nice to drop our luggage off before we explored the islands. Crimes against tourists seem to be exceptionally rare in Turks and Caicos, but it seemed prudent to not leave all of our belongings in an unattended car during a remote hike.

We drove for about thirty minutes, past palm-tree lined shanties and the occasional mini-mansion almost certainly owned by Canadian expats. We saw three restaurants (all closed), and at least twice as many churches (all open). It was a quiet Sunday morning, and sleepy was an understatement. The only cars we saw on the road (literally, the road) were the Jeeps we saw for rent at the dock. We nearly drove right past our hotel until we saw a faded sign through some overgrown foliage. We drove up a cobblestone driveway with a long-since abandoned guard tower. The unfathomably-beautiful natural surroundings created quite the juxtaposition with the built environment straight out of a murder-in-paradise Hallmark movie.

The hotel itself consisted of a couple of cottages scattered on a lush green cliff overlooking a secluded beach. It either was previously a plantation estate, or that was a strong inspiration for the architect. There was a big house in the middle, and a handful of smaller quarters surrounding it. Since each of the smaller cottages only slept two, we had reserved the big house. It wasn't too hard to identify which one was ours because 1) it was big, and 2) there was an older white man sitting outside of it, the only sign of life in a complex that otherwise seemed abandoned. In fact, we couldn’t even find an office to check in at. Nobody had said it out loud (at that point), but I knew I wasn't the only one having second thoughts.

Running out of alternatives, we slowly walked up to the man in front of the big house. He had been watching us ever since we pulled in. We meekly introduced ourselves ("hello, we aren't carrying much cash and we taste terrible") and asked if he knew where the office was. He chuckled and said, “Yep, there’s no sign,” pointed to what could generously be described as a shed and said, “But there won’t be anyone there until two.”

A housekeeper emerging from one of the smaller cottages snapped us out of our confused paralysis. She came running over to us and held up a phone. She pleasantly explained to us that the manager is typically only on site for the afternoons, and then dialed her up for us. Over speakerphone, she told us that check in was at three. We thanked her, and didn’t even bother to ask if we could leave our bags. The housekeeper went back to her work, and we made our way to the car. But before we could get in, we saw the man from earlier quietly walking towards us. It was immediately obvious that no good was going to come of it. “Hey, so, I don’t want to be a wet blanket on your trip, but they have a serious bug problem here. They call them water bugs, but I don’t know if they’re cockroaches or whatever.” 

Ok. We can work with that. At least we still have all of our kidneys.

He explained to us that he was here with his grandchildren (collective exhale, almost certainly not a serial killer), and they didn’t have any other boarding options with such a large group. But he strongly suggested that we look elsewhere, or even just head back to Providénciales. He said that hotel staff had sprayed for insects that morning. But since the "water bugs" only come out at night, there wasn’t any way to know if it had worked. 

Shocked, and again paralyzed by our confusion, we didn’t really know what to do next. We had plunked down quite a bit of money on this hotel room (like, embarrassing amount of money), but recouping our investment wasn't worth being trapped on Nightmare Island. There weren’t really any other hotels to speak of out there, and once the last ferry left at 4:30 that afternoon, there was no way of getting out. We decided that we'd figure out want to do over lunch, and asked the man if there were any places to eat around here. He said, “There’s a place down the road called Seaview Cafe. No much of a sea view, but the food is pretty good.” This guy was turning out to be a walking backhanded Yelp review. We thanked him for the info, and got back in our car.

None of us knew what to do next, but everyone stayed level headed about the predicament we had found ourselves in. We decided that we could see what the house looked like when we checked in, and if it was a dump, we would make a beeline back to the dock and catch the last ferry back to Providénciales. But it was just 10 am at that point, so we had plenty of time to kill. We figured we would check out Seaview Cafe and figure it out from there.

And with that, I think I'll cap of this post. I know that's not fair. Sorry, not sorry. I could move the story along with another couple of paragraphs, but that's not what happened to us. We didn't get to just keep reading, knowing we had survived by the simple fact of this post existing. We had to sit wordlessly in a parked car watching some literal and figurative storm clouds roll in, and then drive aimlessly around an actual desert island for two hours trying to figure out what to do. And without any telecommunication service, we had no choice but to presume that water bugs were the size of golf balls, carried mysterious tropical diseases, and swarmed by the hundreds.

Who wants some lunch?

Open Water

Saturday was a big day. We only had a couple of fixed items on our agenda for the entire trip, and one of them was today. Turks and Caicos proper is made up of dozens of islands. Only a few of them are populated, and most are smaller than a football field. We’d be kayaking through a couple of the smaller ones this morning.

With decidedly mixed emotions, Aimee and I woke up to our first alarm of the trip. Despite this, Dean had already been up for hours and had caught barracudas two and three. And now that we had come down from the shock of nearly flossing a shark’s teeth, we could process how amazing that was. When we asked him how he got his hooks out of the barracudas ferocious jaws, he said, “You know, just with my pliers,” as if he were scooping up a goldfish at the pet store. I had no intention to verify his technique.

And speaking of the shark, we some more underwater predator research and found out that our dorsal-finned laxative was a sandbar shark. 

Photo: Aquarium of the Pacific

Like most shark species, this one isn't known to attack humans unprovoked. But it's unclear if sneaking up on it and exploding into a fury of eight flailing limbs counts as a provocation. I'm glad we didn't have to find out.

We had a simple breakfast, and got into our go-kart of an automobile. 

[I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but as a British territory, most of the cars (including ours) had their steering wheels on the right. Pre-pandemic, Dean and Jill spent a month living with some family in South Africa, so they had infinitely more experience with left-sided traffic flow than Aimee and I did. Accordingly, Dean did most of the driving, and that morning was no exception.]

We got to the docks and easily rented a pair of double kayaks. This was clearly a common activity in Turks and Caicos, and the kayaks were quite nice. Our charming dockhand, Rohan, gave us his take on how to navigate the boat channels safely, interspersed with the good-natured humor and genuine warmth we’ve received from every person on the island. He reminded us that it's critically important for the person in back to match the paddling cadence of the person in front. Or as he put it, “I’ve seen a lot of couples take these boats out smiling and bring them back on the brink of divorce." We couldn't fully tell if that was one of his jokes.

The only technical part of our journey was the first hundred yards. We had to cross the main boat channel used by small freighters and inter-island ferries, both of which were on tight timetables and were not known to yield for kayakers.

But that part was surprisingly easy. We happened to be there during a quiet time of day. The wind was mild and the currents were pretty calm. That freed us up to take in the absolutely jaw-dropping beauty of our surroundings.

Photo: Jill Knuth

Our first stop was a small island that was entirely covered by a mangrove forest with some small channels running through it. It wouldn’t have been navigable on anything larger than a kayak, and we felt very lucky to be able to explore it up close. 

We saw small and medium-sized fishes in the shallow, translucent waters, and all sorts of tropical birds flying through the trees. Every now and then, we’d come across another small group of kayakers, at least a third of whom didn’t listen to Rohan’s advice. They looked absolutely miserable as their paddles clacked into each other while their kayaks spun in circles. The only requirement to rent a kayak was some cash to cover the fee, and it was clearly many peoples’ first time.

But we were having a great time, and our marriages remained unharmed. Next stop was Iguana Island, named for obvious reasons. 

Our plan was to have a picnic lunch there, being careful not to feed any of the native inhabitants. While the other three of us were ogling over the beach we had pulled up to, Dean marched through 15 feet of vegetation to the other side of the island. Skeptical that anything could be more beautiful, we repacked our food and followed him through the trees. He was unquestionably correct. We emerged to one of the most stunning white sand beaches I have ever seen, in person or on the cover of airline magazines. 

Photo: VisitTCI.com

We had semi-accidentally stumbled on Half Moon Bay, and had no trouble understanding how it got it’s international reputation. We saw a handful of boats anchored off shore that easily cost more than both of our houses combined, and wondered which celebrity was on each of them. We also took a bit of smug satisfaction that we were picnicking on the exact same beach for nothing more than a $35 kayak rental charge. The day cruises we were next to easily cost thousands. 

But our lunch on half-moon bay was brief. We saw some ominous clouds rolling in, and had memories of the storm that rolled in while we were at Omar’s. But what really got our attention was when all of the yachts pulled out at the same time the clouds rolled in. If the captains of those floating apartments were concerned, our little kayaks weren’t going to stand a chance. So we packed our things back up and paddled off towards the dock. There was a bit more boat traffic during our return, since several other boats were making their way back to shore. But it wasn’t too hard to avoid them. The bigger issue was the increasing wind and current that came in with the storm. My arms are still tired as I type this a few days later.

But thankfully, we easily made it back before the storm hit. I drove us home to give Dean a break behind the wheel, and successfully navigated the island’s only major highway (loosely defined) back to our house. Dinner was some mussels we had bought from the local grocery store, having vowed to cook most of our meals at home after the sticker shock of the first dinner. As we had dessert in the Lighthouse, we watched one of the more beautiful sunsets of our lives, and couldn’t have been happier to be there.

It takes a lot of this to kill you

Aimee and I slept in, again. But by now, Dean and Jill were wising up to us. We had all decided the night before that they would take the car to another beach for some early morning snorkeling. We’d barely notice.

Dean and Jill had likely been gone for hours by the time Aimee and I made our way outside. Since we knew our friends would be coming back soon, we decided to stay close to home. Our plan was to snorkel the local reef outside our front door and then swim home via the cove that led to our back door.

The reef swim was delightfully serene. My only concern was making sure that Aimee didn’t get surprised by a barracuda. We had since found out that Dean was right; the fish don’t usually bother humans. But I still wanted Aimee to have a nice time. She didn’t have her contacts with her the last time we went snorkeling, so this was her first real visit to the massive reef encircling the islands. As it turned out, the barracuda would be the least of our worries. 

We casually paddled around the natural and artificial (concrete) reefs, and checked out the tropical fish that inhabited them. After snorkeling for about an hour, we saw Jill and Dean make it back home. So we set off for the cove. The tide was going out at that point, so the mouth of the cove was blocked by a barely-submerged sandbar. We had no choice but to take off our fins and walk at several points, but at least we didn’t need to worry about dodging boats. 

The bottom dropped back to about 8-10 feet as we made our way into the mangroves deeper in the cove. We were hoping to see a sea turtle that tend to frequent that area, so I was looking out as far as the visibility would allow. Along the ground I saw a huge log about 10 feet from me and 8 feet from Aimee. Then I saw that the log had a tail. And a dorsal fin. By the time we realized that the “log” was actually a six-foot long shark, we had nearly drifted right on top of it. 

I pulled Aimee back and pointed out what I had seen. To her credit, she stayed calm as we treaded water and talked through what we should do next. We decided to continue swimming to our house, since the route back to open ocean was nearly as long (and still left us in the shark’s turf). We put our masks back on, and looked down to make sure we didn’t literally bump into the shark as we swam through the murky, shallow water. But the shark was gone, and we could now barely see five feet in front of us. Not good.

For the next ten minutes (going on an hour and a half), we quickly and silently swam our way through the cove, gradually making peace with our impending doom. Even the field of jellyfish we swam through barely registered. We had a bigger threat on our minds. 

As soon as we saw a break in the mangroves, we climbed out using a neighbor’s dock. Then we breathlessly kicked off our fins and walked/trembled our way back to the Lighthouse.

When we saw Jill and Dean, we blurted out a senseless word salad about what had happened to us. But they got the point, since we mostly just kept saying, “shark” over and over again.

As soon as the commotion had settled, Dean casually mentioned that he had caught a barracuda that morning. Ironically, he had been worried about spooking us, since it was right where we were swimming. We all shared a nervous chuckle at what had previously seemed like our most pressing concern.

Photo by Dean “Still Has Both Thumbs” Knuth

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rest of our day was spent on dry land. We passed the afternoon on the dock, holding our books at reading distance while we relived our close encounter for the next three hours. 

As we sipped on some sunset margaritas, one of our neighbors came down to sit near us along the bay. The small fishing boat tied up to her dock had a Canadian flag flying from it, but we got the impression that she spent most of the year in Turks and Caicos. During a pause in the small talk, she looked around at how pretty our surroundings were and said, “It takes a lot of this to kill you, doesn’t it?”

She was right, it would certainly take quite a bit. Or one shark. It would take a lot of this or one shark to kill us. I’m glad it wasn’t the shark today.

Belongers

After our close encounter with the barracuda, Dean spent the evening wondering how he might be able to catch one.

Out of friendship, I supported Dean's preparations. But I couldn't stop asking, “What are you going to do after you catch one?” Dean was convinced that he’d figure it out once he got there. Dean, maybe. Me, absolutely not. So it was an easy decision when he asked me if I wanted to get up early the next day and go fish for one. But to be honest, he had already lost me at, “Do you want to get up early?”

So Aimee and I slept way in the next day while Dean went down to the water.  By the time we eventually woke up, Dean and Jill had already been up for hours. So we had a quick breakfast and packed up the car for a day trip to the other side of the island. 

We spent what was left of the morning snorkeling Smith’s reef, more than worthy of its international reputation. The Turks and Caicos islands are surrounded by one of the largest barrier reefs in the world, and the country does an admirable job protecting them.

Lunch was at another charming little beach shack, similar to the one we had dinner at the first night.

But this one had an important difference. It was owned by a “Belonger.” 

Like most Caribbean nations, Turks and Caicos has a complicated and often brutal history. Some scholars think that these islands are where Christopher Columbus first landed in 1492. Either way, Spanish sailors definitely landed here shortly after. Exploitation and outright slavery soon followed. Between the labor conditions and newly introduced infectious diseases, the local population was completely decimated over the next decade. There wasn't a single indigenous survivor by 1513. The islands remained uninhabited for a hundred years until the British colonialists brought African slaves with them in the 1700s. Not quite a century later, Britain abolished slavery in this part of the world. The colonialists quickly bailed on their plantations when the true difficulty of farming these islands became apparent. The former slaves were granted ownership of the land they used to work on, and their descendants became known as Belongers. The country remained a British territory over the next two centuries, so the current population includes transplants from all over the Commonwealth (primarily Canadians). But the only people who can vote in local and national elections are Belongers.

The dual classes of citizenship structure creates a minor but persistent tension in business operations. It’s hard to separate foreign ownership of businesses from the exploitative history, and the Belongers are reasonably skeptical when outsiders buy up a lot of land or try to push out Belongers from important industries.

We later found out that the restaurant we went to during our first night on the island was built by a millionaire Canadian attorney. He built it as a vanity project near his vacation home, and has an eight paragraph, comically obtuse autobiography on the restaurant's website. He lives in a clearly haunted mansion that we can see from The Lighthouse, and doesn’t seem to be particularly beloved by the local community. He's known for two things around here: paddle boarding to his restaurant for cocktails every night, and yelling at people who encroach too close to "his" section of the public beach in front of his house.

The complete inverse of this expat caricature was Omar, who ran the equally charming (and less costly) beach shack that we had lunch at today. We watched him bus tables, serve food, and rub elbows with the steady stream of Belongers, Canadian second-homers, and tourists patronizing his restaurant. When he made his way over to our table, I casually mentioned how nice it is to see a place like this run by someone who isn’t a millionaire Canadian.

His business owner perma-smile immediately melted away, and he leaned in close with a look of true appreciation. “Thank you for saying that. I tell you what, man. I’m here every day working my ass off, trying to make this community a better place. I’m not just rolling up every night to sip on some rum.” And then he paused, reset his wide natural grin, asked us where we were visiting from, and went back about his routine. As he was walking off to the next table, I could almost see the twinkle in his eye.

The ulterior motive of our trip to that side of the island was to buy some fish at a local market right next to Omar’s. But the boats weren’t due to come in for another couple of hours, so we killed some time at yet another world-class beach, and then wen’t back to Omar’s happy hour and some of his signature rum toffee cake.

Photo by Jill Knuth

We spent the next few minutes taking some more snapshots of the impossibly-perfect view from Omar's patio. 

But within minutes, the ominous-looking clouds you can see forming in the background became quite a bit more ominous. A light pitter-patter on the tin roof at Omar’s quickly became horizontal rainfall and palm trees bent to nearly 90 degrees. Oh yeah. It’s hurricane season.

Photo by Jill Knuth

We waited out the worst of the storm under the partial coverage of Omar’s patio. But it was better than being on the road. We ended up giving up on the fish, since the boats were still an hour away (at best, given the storm). So we made our way back to the Lighthouse and cooked up something else for dinner. Dessert was a box of Oreos that everyone had given Dean a hard time about when we were packing. We quickly changed our tune while munching on them from the top of the Lighthouse. Another perfect day in paradise.

Light kayak, large man, open ocean

This place is absolutely magical. Outside our front door is open ocean and a miles-long barrier reef. Outside our back door is a mangrove-lined cove. You can't lose. 

That first morning, we took advantage of some equipment that came with our rental house. Aimee and Jill paddle boarded the cove while Dean and I made plans to kayak out to the ocean.

Photo by Jill Knuth

Dean was ready to start fishing, and I was ready to hold a fishing pole while staring aimlessly out at the sea. The water in this area is quite calm, so we casually floated out to sea while casting our lures every couple of minutes. 

Photo by Dean Knuth

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But Dean did, and quickly had an 8-inch fish on his line. We had bought some fishing permits earlier that morning, but didn't really plan on keeping any. We were just out there for some Instagram and release.

Photo by Dean Knuth, obviously

From about 50 feet away, I saw the commotion and took pride in our 0.5 fish-per-person average. I figured that it would stay that way indefinitely. But then I felt a tug on my line after the very next cast. And then another tug, and then another tug. 

But first, some background. Dean and I both have the same tiny fishing rod. Not a coincidence. I have one because Dean got one, and I know enough about fishing to use the same gear that people who actually catch fish use. The rod is essentially a kid's toy, but it works great for the small streams and ponds of Northern Arizona and it travels well. Like most toy rods, it comes with cheap and thin line that is essentially repurposed dental floss. I’ve never bothered to change it, because I’ve never caught anything bigger than a goldfish. But Dean has. So he was fishing with a super thick line that was actually intended to be used by a grown up. His rig can handle big fish, mine can’t. Now back to our story.

We left off with me feeling a strong tug on my line. Historically speaking, that's usually just from me pulling on a lure that got stuck under a rock. But this time, the rock was moving. Quickly. My line zigged and zagged across the bow of my kayak, and then zoomed out perpendicular to my right.

You know where this is going, and you’re mostly right.

So the fish is pulling me hard to the right, and the dinky kayak I’m on is one wind gust away from rolling over. And then I felt a wind gust. As I feel myself about to go over, I jerk on the line and it snaps. Proving both Newton and Murphy correct, I fly off the left side of my kayak.

In the chaos, I manage to grab my water bottle and tackle box in mid air, but my rod is nowhere to be found. I looked around as I treaded water, but it was clearly a lost cause. And I had more pressing concerns, namely the upside down kayak drifting away. But thankfully, the kayak was as easy to right as was to tip. So I tossed my remaining gear inside, and gracelessly kicked myself back into it. But again, light kayak, large man, open ocean. By now, Dean had heard my thrashing, and looked over just as I was rocketing off the other side. So, again in the water, I did what any self-respecting fisherman would do, and pretended to intentionally muck around for my rod.

Dean pointed out that I would just be kicking up mud and burying the rod further, and I muttered back something like, “Yeah, yeah, good idea, I should probably just hop into my kayak and definitely not dive right back into the water.”

Thankfully, my witnessed second attempt was far more graceful. The practice helped. Then Dean and I regrouped, and decided to use the walkie-talkies that he had ingeniously brought from home. We radioed Aimee and Jill for our snorkeling gear, and they walked it down as we beached our kayaks.

As we were swimming back out, I saw Dean’s fins suddenly pop out of the water. Seconds later, he resurfaced with my rod on the first attempt. With crystal clear water and negligible current, it wasn’t hard to find. So we took the opportunity to snorkel around a bit. A few artificial reef balls were sunk in the area, and a nice little ecosystem had built up around them. And then about 20 feet off to my right, at the edge of what we could see in that area was a three and a half foot shadow looking back at me from a single eye on it’s right side. It was clearly not a shark, but its aggressive jaw line and unblinking eye-contact made the hairs on the back of my neck go up, nonetheless.

I tapped Dean on the shoulder with my fishing rod and pointed out what I had seen. All three of us paused and floated for a moment. Without speaking, we all decided to swim in opposite directions (Dean and I obviously going towards the shore). When we got back to the beach, we tried to make sense of what we saw. “Did you see that eye?” “Did you see those teeth?” 

Dean, who had done far more research for this trip than I had, said, “I think that was a barracuda. Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was a massive barracuda.” His initial reasonable statement was followed by an equally unreasonable one. “Let’s go back in and check it out!”

Awkward silence.

“Come on, Myles, that was amazing! I’m pretty sure they don’t attack people.”

“Dean, how confident are you that barracudas don’t attack people?” I asked.

“Pretty confident.” He shrugged.

I trusted his confidence enough to get back into the water, but not enough to let him take the inside position. So I swam along, making sure to stay on the beach side of Dean at all times. 

But Dean was right, or the barracuda swam off. Either way, we made it back to shore fully intact. As we were walking home, Dean and I recalled the types of fish we saw while swimming in the reef. We realized that there was really only one thing that could have snapped my line.

Yes. I'm pretty sure that I accidentally caught a barracuda. And I’m never putting stronger line on my reel.

Back on track

Well, I wasn’t going to write about this one. 

The world is not the same place it was during our last trip. To be honest, I feel a little bad that we can finally relax and catch a breath of fresh air when so few can’t. Quite literally in many cases.

But it’s shaping up to be a trip worth sharing. Too much has happened in the past 24 hours for me to relegate it to just a couple of snapshots.

This trip started as a wild idea, and only got less likely as time went on. After the first wave of COVID-19 cases settled down last summer, our friend, Dean, pitched the idea of going to Turks and Caicos a year later (after the pandemic had died down, we hoped). Dean is big into fishing, and wanted to explore some super unique sites out there. We just like vacations. It was a match made in heaven. 

Dean booked us all a rental house, and I used some frequent flier miles to reserve some seats for Aimee and me. Everything was cancellable, so we figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Fast forward through two more waves of cases, a worldwide pause on international travel, and in our case, a move across the state. With each major event, we became less and less confident that this trip would happen. It kind of became a punch line around our house that we'd never actually see Turks and Caicos.

As the trip got closer, more and more pieces fell into place. Most importantly, the CDC gave their blessing for vaccinated people to travel. And locally, cases slowed enough on the Reservation that staff was again allowed to take leave. Turks and Caicos put a robust screening program in place and again opened up for tourism. This might actually happen. “I’m cautiously optimistic” became the new way we talked about the trip.

All we had left to do was get ourselves tested a few days before we departed. We were scheduled to leave on Monday, so we got tested on the preceding Thursday. But we still hadn’t heard about Aimee’s test results by the time Aimee's parents arrived on Saturday night (bringing kids to Turks and Caicos would have defeated the purpose). We were starting to sweat it a bit. We needed negative results to get on the airplane, and were quickly running out of options. The mood was a sour resignation. We all had the perpetual feeling that this trip wasn't actually going to happen, and missing (or negative) test results just kind of felt like the natural conclusion to all this build up.

But in an amazing coincidence, Dean actually happened to know someone who works at the major lab company that was running our swabs. The friend was able to get us in touch with after-hours customer service who let us know that the result was tied up by a small issue with how Aimee’s name was spelled in their system. A couple of key strokes later, we received our results online and submitted them to the super-impressive Turks and Caicos tourism website. Our documents were reviewed by someone in their health department, and we were emailed our approval about 3 hours later. Our cautious optimism just got a lot less cautious!

The next day, we had a nice morning with our kids, and got out the door with a surprisingly limited amount of tears. Having Ya Ya and Pop Pop around certainly helped.

We met up with Dean and Jill at their house and packed everything into their SUV. Between the snorkeling gear and an entire suitcase full of food (it’s quite expensive on the island), we could barely close the doors. And that was before we loaded up Jill and Dean's dog, who was getting dropped off at Jill's parents' house for the week.

The drive down to Phoenix was easy (no kids, after all), and vacation started early with beers in the pool at Jill’s parents’ house. Our flight left at 5 am the next morning, and we were spending the night there. So after  what would have been insufficient sleep if we were trying to do anything beside go on vacation without kids, our alarms went off at 2:30 am. But we couldn’t complain.

Security was a breeze, since there weren’t many people flying at 3:30 in the morning. But it was still slightly jarring to be back in an airport, and there was more activity than I would have expected. That said, it felt infinitely better than the last time I was in an airport, deploying to Detroit in the early days of the pandemic. 

As Aimee and I waited for Jill and Dean to clear security, my phone chimed an alert. American Airlines was informing us that weather in Dallas (where we had a layover) had cancelled all flights in or out. The message continued “We are unable to reschedule you at this time, please see an agent.” That tracks.

An avalanche of emotions followed, but none of us were even remotely surprised. This trip still felt like an impossibility, and the message was only confirming our suspicions.

Our next stop was the gate, where at least 40 people who had received the same message were waiting in line. I recalled the advice of my frequent-flier dad, “Never wait at the gate when your flight gets cancelled.” Every one of those 40 people would be competing for the same few remaining seats on other flights. Until a few years ago, I would have only been able to call an 800 number and cross my fingers. But I now could rely on one of my favorite military perks, the Admirals Club. After dropping our bags and making a first pass at the coffee bar, we went back up to the club's check-in desk to see if they could work any magic. This was a much better option.

As we waited, the agent’s furrowed brow and continued keystrokes slowly chipped away at my optimism until I was convinced that we were--at best--days away from sitting on the beach. But she suddenly brightened up, hit enter on her keyboard a few times, and said, “Oh great! There you go!” She was able to find seats for Aimee and I, and would now check for Dean and Jill. But given the difficulty in finding the first two, we were all still holding our breath. Aimee and I would have passed on our seats if we weren't all able to go as a group. It would have felt really bad to leave them behind, especially since Dean was the driving force behind this trip. 

Speaking of driving force, were all a little embarrassed about being in the first wave of post-pandemic tourists, especially for such non-essential travel (although after a year without childcare, that definition could be debated). For the months leading up to our trip, we could only reply with a meek and mumbled, “Turks and Caicos” whenever anyone asked where we were going. Aimee and I would follow that with, “But it’s our friend’s idea. He works for a rafting company and is a professional outdoors person.” Similarly, Dean and Jill would replace that with, “But we’re going with a doctor and a nurse, and they say it’s fine.”

Whatever the justification, it looked like we’d all be going. The agent found seats for all of us on the same red eye flight through Miami that night. So we took one more pass at the Admiral’s Club buffet while she worked on getting our luggage sent down to baggage claim. An hour later, we had our bags in hand, checked in for our redeye, and were ready to go. It was 6:00 in the morning.

So Jill called her dad, and we went back to their place. Aimee and I took a mega nap well into the afternoon, setting a precedent for the rest of the trip. Then came more food, more beers in the pool (peppered by Dean calling out, "Let's get this vacation back on track!" every time he brought out another round), a second nap, and then back to the airport. With our thoroughly upset sleep cycle, no one slept great on the airplane. But again, it didn’t matter. 

We spent a couple hours in the Miami Admirals Club, fighting through an overtired haze. 

As we boarded the flight to Turks and Caicos, we ran into a couple we met in the Phoenix Admirals Club. We had been talking about the steps required to travel to the islands right now, and they asked us if we got the VIP customs package. We most certainly did not (and didn’t even know it was a thing). Dean later looked up the hotel they were staying at, and rooms started at $1,000 a night. That explained why they asked us if we wanted to go in on a chartered flight together after our first leg was cancelled. We had presumed they were joking, and were likely wrong. 

I quietly wondered if we were traveling way outside of our league. In addition to people who can even fathom paying $1,000 a night for a hotel room, T&C is apparently a popular celebrity hangout. And as my little sister pointed out when I told here where we were going, “Oh, nice, that’s where all the hipsters go on their honeymoons now.”

She was proven correct when we got off the airplane and made our way to the customs line. There were two very distinct demographic groups: Instagram super users 20 years younger than us, and Botox super users 20 years older than us. But we took a bit of solace knowing that our suitcase full of food would prevent us from having to interact with either group very much.

Immigration and Customs was a breeze, as was the impressive health screening station. They did the usual temp checks and symptom screenings that we were used to seeing at daycares and hospitals. But the real accomplishments were the mandatory pre-travel testing, universal mask enforcement, and hand sanitizer stations everywhere. It’s clear that their entire economy is dependent on a continued influx of visitors, and they take outbreak prevention very seriously. Turks and Caicos only had 18 deaths from COVID throughout the pandemic, with a comparably small overall infection rate. The country's very professional public health operation deserves every bit of their recently downgraded CDC travel warning.

There you go, Dean. You’re welcome. A doctor is weighing in and thinks it’s reasonable to travel to Turks and Caicos.

And, wow, were we happy about that. The charmingly rustic airport gave a great first impression. The palm tree-lined and perpetually damp tarmac was straight out of a 1960s travel brocure.

From there, we made our way to the car rental agency. Each island in Turks and Caicos is quite small, but still too big to walk or bike around. Aside from inter-island ferries, there isn’t much public transportation to speak of, so car rental is essentially required. Unless you get the VIP customs package, and a driver from your $1,000 a night resort takes you everywhere. That’s not us. This is us.

There were very serious conversations about taking multiple trips back and forth to our rental house, but our comically small car managed to fit all four people and six suitcases. Thankfully, our house was close to the airport (everything is), so we made it without permanently bending the undercarriage.

Prior to our trip, we had all tried to avoid looking at too many photos of the area. We didn’t want to get our hopes up if the trip didn’t pan out. Plus, it’s nice to arrive somewhere without knowing everything about it. That sense of discovery is a lot of the charm for a place like this. Well, that and the perfect weather, turquoise waters, and silky beaches.

Our rental house is named “The Lighthouse,” named for the three story lookout tower built above one of the bedrooms. We could view nearly half the island from there (see above), but we couldn’t get past the white sand beach about 50 feet from our front door. So we went there. We had no plans, no kids, and nowhere to be. We could just do that sort of thing.

We kept walking along the beach to one of the more famous beach shacks on the island for some rum drinks and perfectly cooked snapper caught earlier that day. It was a delightful evening, even if the eye-popping tab reminded us why we had packed a suitcase full of food.

But that didn’t slow us down. We budgeted out the rest of the week, the sting buffered by another round of rum drinks, and couldn’t have been happier to be there.

Photo by Jill Knuth

This vacation was definitely back on track.