If one needs, in January, to swim in the British Atlantic, then surely there’s no better place than Grand Turk?
We arrive alongside Rotterdam, our ship’s younger sister, identical in everything but decor and artwork - we left Fort Lauderdale together and will also be in Dominican Republic together tomorrow before we make separate paths.
This tiny island, just 5000 inhabitants, is delightful, on many levels but not least for it’s gorgeous white sand beaches, crystal clear waters and only shaped cacti.
First though, we head off from the south point where the cruise terminal is located, and head north, past hurricane damage, which we find repeatedly on the island. Our destination is the lighthouse, built in Britain and assembled here in 1852. It’s a National Trust property now GPS has mostly retired all lighthouses, but for over 120 years a kerosene lamp burned nightly to warn sailors of the treachery nearby.
Our walk is characterised by several markers - to say that it’s hot doesn’t really make the point it is HOT, and that we’re alone is also noteworthy, we don’t see anyone else walking at all, just a few fellow shipmates in LPG propelled golf carts, a new advent since we were here ten years ago when we did it in go-carts! There are lots of beautiful butterflies, although very hard to photograph as they never seem to land, and some lovely flamingoes.
Another is how incredibly friendly the islanders are, pretty much everyone waves and/or says hello. Not all like Britain then? In fact they are Britains, the Turks and Caicos chain of islands, numbering thirty, is a British Overseas Territory, just like Gibraltar, the Falklands, our sector of Antarctica and so on - there are 14 across the world in total.
Having explored the lighthouse we head back past the local college, and lots of donkeys, then veer off the (only) main road onto a rough track. This is the bit that tackles the western side of the island. It terminates at the old conch factory, where (presumably) conch meat was packaged for export. Sadly all dead now, just a ruin, but it brings back memories of a conch burger we’ve had somewhere in the Caribbean (not unlike turtle burger - a firm favourite in Grand Cayman) or was it in Australia?
Returning via the local quarry we stock up on water, mango juice and Oreos to start the return journey, past the local airport, towards our ship.There is a NASA landing module situated at the entrance, celebrating Friendship 7 the US’s first manned orbital flight, in 1962 when John Glenn landed close to the island and remained for several days. We return to the cruise port, check out how close the beach is and plan to return after lunch.
A lovely lunch of Cæsar, club sandwich AND pizza are needed after our arduous walk, then we quickly change to swimwear and, much to the concern of our concierge Jennica (the admin department called her on turnaround day worried we were missing) we head out again with only an hour to spare before sailing, to grab a swim right adjacent to the two ships.
We are very good and make sure that we return via our lounge to confirm to Jennica that we’re back … then head upstairs to jump into the aft deck pool, and maybe savour a strawberry daiquiri as the sun sets, chatting with Debby and some new people from Manchester who are doing the back to back one cruise behind us. Jennica surprises us with some lovely chocolate covered strawberries!
Tonight’s show is the one with dancers, twin pianist/singers and another singer, it’s a great popular music anthology we really enjoy, apart from the idiots who won’t wear masks, or indeed clap their appreciation - such losers.
Leaving them behind we head to Pinnacle, our sanctuary, to enjoy iceberg salad, an exceptional veal medallion dish chef Felix has created especially for us, with mushrooms, pink peppercorns and sherry venegar sauce (stunning) and finish with half a key-lime pie.
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