Grand Turk

Grand Turk

Do we eat soon?

Sandy's karaoke

           Grand Turk is 7 miles of island in the eastern area near the Bahamas. English owned and almost flat. We left very early onto a 75 foot catamaran sailboat. We stopped about 200 yards off the shore and snorkeled. Amazing! The water is 25 feet deep and crystal clear. Closer to shore nothing much is happening, but all of a sudden the bottom is teaming with life. Coral covers the ocean floor and the fish are everywhere. The fish are every color. Blues, yellows, reds, oranges, whites, purples and combinations of all. Some solid, some mottled, some striped. I saw fish from 2 inches up to 18 inches. The largest was a white fish with a yellow stripe on either side just below the back fin. The coral waves, some like giant leaves, some miniature trees. Little cities of sea cucumbers, pushing up cylinders like mini skyscrapers, 3 inches wide and 3 feet tall. There was also a funny thin walled vegetation that formed a rough circle, about 18 inches wide. The walls higher and lower around its circumference. Fish swam everywhere, most on the bottom and often kissing the coral or rocks.  20 feet of this and the reef disappears and drops suddenly to 7000 feet.

            We topped the morning sail off with a stop at a pristine beach with mostly white sand broken with long dead shelves of hard coral. The surface smoothed by the waves and the feet of many explorers. The look out into the sea is dazzling. On the horizon a deep, deep blue water, almost black, closer to it suddenly turns turquoise. Almost Day-Glo, this color indicating shallower water. The sun is intense and fries our backs and casts floating sparkles across to forever.