Bonefishing is great in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Turks and Caicos Island sunset on the south shore of Provo
Today was a flat calm day and the ocean showed not a ripple. I sent one of our guests to the bonefishing flat in the photo just a short ways down the road from our villas. He spent part of the afternoon wading in search of bonefish. When the sun sets on the south side of Providenciales, it’s a good opportunity for a photo. You have to be on the beach early though as the sun goes down at 5:20 or so. Hope to see you enjoying some of our fabulous sunsets soon.
Marta
Shak Shak Tree
Here’s a photo of the Flamboyant tree or Royal Poinciana ablaze with colourful flowers on Provo. I mentioned in a previous post that the Junkanoo band often has many percussion instruments that include the shak-shak. This instrument is like a maracas and at one time, the seed pods of the Royal Poinciana or Flamboyant tree were used as a shak-shak in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I thought this was interesting as I didn’t know what a shak-shak was.
Marta
Junkanoo drummer beats out an island rhythm
Junkanoo parade in the Turks and Caicos Islands
We made it to midnight and watched the fireworks from our deck. We had to get up at five to take guests to the airport for the early Miami flight. The downtown traffic circle was blocked off by police as the New Year’s festivities and junkanoo on Provo were just winding down. At the same time that we are going to bed, our island friends are heading out in the wee hours of New Year’s Day to celebrate and party till the morning. The junkanoo parade is the highlight of the festivities… full of people in colourful costumes dancing to up tempo combinations of goatskin drums, cowbells, horns, shak shak (see post) and other instruments. You can’t help but join in as the performers go through some wild, uninhibited and hypnotic dancing as they bang on drums and move to the island rhythms. The term “rush” is given to this all-out, no holds barred form of dancing in the streets and everyone joins in (“jump up”). We wish everyone all the best in 2009.
Marta
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Christmas vine blooming on Provo
Happy New Year everyone!!
Finally while travelling down Venetian Road, I spotted a vivid flash of red……….Ipomoea is the official name of this wild vine that grows in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Other names for this beautiful wild flower is Wild Potato or Christmas vine because it generally blooms around Christmas and New Year. This one was growing along the roadside but most often you see them climbing and clinging to trees. I can’t believe the colour as it is always such a bright scarlet red.
Cheers, and I hope we can stay awake to bring the New Year in!!
Marta
Turtle eating sea grass
Wow, what a great day of snorkeling at Coral Gardens reef on Grace Bay. Not one, not two but THREE spotted eagle rays. Our guests headed out snorkeling and came across these three spotted eagle rays. They also followed a young turtle and saw many other fish of all colours and sizes. The snorkeling and diving here in the Turks and Caicos is some of the best in the world. There’s lots of other neat places where you can see all sorts of marine life just waiting to be explored by you and your family.
Hope to see you soon!
Marta
Too much rum??
Hi everyone,
Today I took some Harbour Club guests to Da Conch Shack on the beach at Blue Hills. This was their first try at tasting conch which is the local favourite food here on Provo. We had great conch fritters and the curried conch was exceptional! The guests were entertained by the bartender as they sipped on a traditional rum punch. All in all it was a great day.
Marta
Hi Everyone!
Well, we thought we would get a jump on 2009 and start something new…
So here it is, our personal blog about everything fun in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Mostly it will cover the island of Providenciales, or “Provo” as we call it down here, because that is where our Harbour Club Villas are.
We have accumulated a fair bit of knowledge of fishing, diving and all around vacation fun over the past years of living down here. So we thought it about time to start sharing it online here so that everyone could get a jump on planning their vacations before even getting on the plane!
Anyway, please free to contact us with any questions you might have… and if you’ve stayed with us before, leave us some of your thoughts about your vacation trip you had in our comment section.
That’s all for now, I have to go check in some new guests and Barry has to clean the pool! 😉
Bye for now,
Marta
