Turks & Caicos

Yippie!!! Today is one month since we left our dock in Boca Raton and headed out.  It is appropriate for this to be the day that we arrive in a new country.  Last night we exited the Bahamian waters and about 7:30 am, we reached the banks of the Turks & Caicos.  New territory that we have yet to explore!

We have a book called Passages South, The Thorn-less Passage and have been using this book to help pick the most comfortable trip south (like almost every cruising boat headed south does).  However, we are finding great issues with the book.  Here is a perfect example.  The author writes that we should leave Mayaguana around midnight in order to arrive at the channel into Caicos at first light.  We were passing his recommended departure point in Mayaguana around 1am (only one hour later than he suggestions).  We made really good time crossing the deep water between Mayaguana and Caicos and arrived at dawn.  He said it is important to arrive in first light so you can manipulate the channel, through a reef and watch for coral.  This passage is supposed to be laden with coral heads.  Our GPS doesn’t even show marks for “coral”, it just has the whole area slashed out and says “reef”.  Well, this morning, we arrived at first light and it wasn’t long before we headed dead into the rising sun.  We couldn’t see anything except glare!  The author obviously had not done this route at this time of the year or else he never would have pushed the issue of “first light”.

Also, since it was supposed to be such a coral-laden path, we went extremely slow.  Larry was on the bow, watching for coral.  He watched and he watched.  The depths remained excellent and we never did see those illusive coral heads.  Granted, there were patchy areas of “gray” but as we passed near them, it turned out to be only sea-grass … no coral. 

We motored into the harbor, headed for Sapodilla Bay.  We followed the charts and when we reached the bay, we had to double check to make sure it was the correct bay.  All the pictures of Sapodilla Bay showed numerous sailboats anchored.  This bay, at this moment, was completely empty.  Where were all the boats?  We started getting a little concerned that maybe something was brewing and we weren’t aware of it.  But, we put our apprehension aside and found a nice little spot in paradise.

Larry went to the government dock and cleared us into the country.  It cost a total of $100 for clearing in and out.  We paid both fees now but when we are ready to leave the country, we will need to go to Customs again and officially clear out.  We need to do this within 24 hours of our intent to leave.  For $100 we are allowed to stay in this country for 7 days and cruise their waters.  If we want/need to stay beyond that time period, we must purchase a cruising permit that is good for 90 days and the cost is $300.  We definitely will do everything we can to depart before the 7 day pass expires.

Late morning, we heard Megerin on the VHF radio.  They were also headed for this area and were traveling with a catamaran.  They left Rum Cay about 7am and headed straight here.  This was very surprising.  Originally, they also had talked about spending time in both Atwood Bay and Mayaguana but decided to take the current weather window and come straight to the Turks & Caicos.  They arrived and anchored near us about 3pm but were exhausted from their trip and agreed we’d connect tomorrow.

We had an early dinner and celebrated the arrival to the first of many countries we’ll visit outside the Bahamas.  Okay … then we celebrated again and again.  After 3 bottles of champagne and not having really slept in 30 hours, we turned in early for a very restful sleep.