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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
