Our ship pulled into Grand Turk early this morning. We lucked out and had the perfect view from our balcony. Had breakfast delivered right to our room so we could eat it on the balcony overlooked the island.
By 7:45am, we were off the ship and in search of Grand Turk Diving Ship to pick up our rental bikes. Took a few minutes to find it, but once we did, Chris at the shop couldn’t have been any nicer. She had our bikes waiting for us along with water for the ride. Although these bikes were nothing like ours at home, we still had a good time cruising around on our Huffy road bikes complete with baskets on the front and old school breaks that you push backwards to stop....
From the shop, we headed towards Cockburn to pick up a map from the main dive shop. Then it was off to the Lighthouse at the opposite end of the island. Grand Turk is relatively small (7 miles by 1.5 miles) run by the British. The roads to the lighthouse were paved and flat, but frequently bumpy. We passed by the town pond/salinas where islanders use to work. The areas were flooded at high tide, then dried out or drained so salt could be raked and sold. Today there are several types of birds living in the salinas including the pink flamingos that we saw. As we continued down the road, we passed several stray cows, and an occasional dog, horse, or donkey. Compared to other Carribean Islands, Grand Turk is much less developed and barely commercialized. Sure it has running water, electricity, and paved roads, but there is still a lot of open space that has yet to be built on. American chains are nowhere to be found here. Parts of the island have nice modern homes while other homes had tin roofs and were falling apart. At one point we passed the elementary school, which appears to be a one room schoolhouse. The girls wore pink jumpers over white shirts and the boys wore khaki polos and shorts. I should probably never complain about working conditions again as this school didn’t look like it had much inside. Not sure if this is true, but there seem to be two classes of people living here: white Brits who run shops and government services, and black natives born and raised on the island.
We reached the lighthouse by 10am and spent an hour reading the historical signs about the area and taking in the view. The lighthouse was initially built to prevent ships from striking the Northeast Reef off the shore. However, in desperate times, it is said that islanders turned off the lighthouse to cause shipwrecks so they could loot the ships and sell off the goods. The view of the reef and the turquoise water all around was beautiful! Apparently the U.S. Navy thought so too since they built a base right next to the lighthouse (it has since been abandoned).
After a quick snack, we hopped back on the bikes to work our way back towards town. Didn’t made it very far before Joe’s chain fell off on one of the bumps in the road. Took several frustrating minutes trying to get it fixed. On the way back, we decided to check out Christopher Columbus Landfall Park (beach running along the side of the island). We accidentally become Columbus superfans in the last few years, meaning we’ve somehow followed his travel routes in Spain, the Canary Islands, and now in the Carribean. Some historians believe Columbus could have landed here in Grand Turk on one of his voyages. We rode through Cockburn next which is the capital of the island. Not much going on here for a capital “city.”
Our last stop of the day was our long-awaited trip to Governor’s Beach. We were both shocked to find the beach pretty empty mid-day. The nice part about this beach is that it is not very commercial. They did have restrooms, a bar, beach chairs and a rental shop, but the majority of the beach was left untouched. We found a spot under the trees and went right in the water. Once you got in the turquoise water was fairly warm. There was a bit of a current, though, and some rocks or coral that made it a little tough to get out. Overall, this was a great spot though, and close enough to the port that we could see our ship.
We returned out bikes at the rental shop by 2pm and walked through some of the duty free shops at the terminal before getting back onboard the ship. Went straight to the Lido for lunch with the whole family as the ship pulled out of the port. After lunch we found some comfy deck chairs on the Promenade and took a nice nap before dinner. Tonight we returned to our table in the dining room for even more food. We were pretty tired from biking in the heat today so we only stayed for part of the evening show before calling it a night.
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