Hello from Turks & Caicos

Hello from Turks & Caicos! After the last few weeks of intense work, I’m appreciating a little R&R. Although I’m on vacation, I have so much work that I’m actually still working. At least I’m doing it in paradise?????

We flew in yesterday and had a little bit of excitement at the car rental. We needed an automatic (I really gotta learn how to drive a stick one of these days), but the car rental said that they didn’t have any. After some minutes of negotiating, we finally wrangled an automatic out of them.

We’re staying at a lovely loft duplex in a neighborhood called Flamingo Park that we found on AirBnB. I like staying in houses/apartments better than hotels when we’re staying at a place longer than a night or  two. I like having more space and being able to cook.

Some early observations of Turks & Caicos. Gas is very expensive. It’s 4.50+ per gallon. Grocery is expensive here, as would be expected for islands. A small jar of honey costs $8. A rotisserie chicken is $12. Things are about 2 to 3 times more than what we would pay in NYC. A friend warned us about how expensive alcohol is, so we bought a bottle of rum at duty free.

Today we went to Grace Bay for some sun. We can’t get over the water here. The intensity of the blue is amazing and it’s so clear! We’re awestruck.

I heard about a glow worm/sunset cruise that sounded interesting. A day or two after a full moon, glow worms come up one hour after sunset to reproduce. The glow worms appear as long strands of green light. After reading reviews on Tripadvisor that you didn’t see that many glow worms and that the event only lasted a few minutes, we decided to simply drive to Sopadilla Bay and see the glow worms at the dock. We arrived in time to see the sunset, which was simply majestic. Then we hung out at a gazebo that was near a dock until the glow worms came out. We waited about an hour. We were starting to get worried that  they weren’t going to show up at all, when all of a sudden we heard shouts from other people and then we began to see them for ourselves. Most of the time the glow worms look like spots of light in the ocean. They actually glow for several seconds before fading away. Occasionally we saw a bright green strand. That was cool. The entire “show” lasted for a few minutes.

I’m glad that we went out to see the glow worms but I would have been really disappointed had we not read the reviews. I knew what to expect and we were satisfied with our experience. I think seeing the glow worms from the dock  or from the gazebo like the way we did is a good way to see them. It’s free and we got the exact same show as the people who paid for the cruise. In fact we left the beach at the exact same time as the people in the boat.

Needing to still work sucks, but it sucks a little less when you’re in the Caribbeans.