Trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands

Turks and Caicos, an island of turquoise water and friendly people.

The Royal West Indies Resort in Providenciales is the place to stay. It’s well maintained, very clean, has great staff and restaurants and is right on Grace Bay Beach (photo on the right). Walking the beach was quite pleasant! The sand never gets hot and the water feels cool, sun is brightly shining with clear blue skies.

Everything on island is imported, so food (groceries and restaurants) is bit expensive. There is the Fresh Bakery & Bistro within walking distance of the resort, having some delicious food at more reasonable prices.

Beach snorkeling, Coral Gardens and Smith’s Beach are good for beginners, shallow and safe, best place we found was up the beach from Coral Gardens, where we snorkeled for hours while beach goers walked by to Coral Gardens.

Queen Trigger Fish

For boat snorkeling, Silver Deep took us to three reefs offshore a few miles. Two were too deep for the average snorkeler and too deep for photography. The third was a great shallow reef, with lots of coral, sea fans, and friendly fish (like the Trigger Fish to the right).

Turks and Caicos is the conch capital of the world, go to the Conch Farm for the tour and learn about how they raise conchs.  Rental cars are available, they drive on the left side of road, gas expensive, so are the taxi’s. $60 for 2 for round trip to airport, which is small, you walk up to plane to old style steps.

The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory consisting of two groups of tropical islands in the West Indies.

Note: Immigration and Customs are very thorough, they will search everything several times, they even looked in my wallet.

Despite that minor hassle, Turks and Caicos is a great place to visit, to relax and enjoy yourself, the people and the water make it a little piece of heaven.

Here is a video taken during one of our snorkeling trips. Be sure to view it in Hi-Def mode if you have highspeed internet!