I think I’ve already mentioned that we have to use other people’s WiFi to connect to the Internet here in Provo. We usually go to the Green Bean. It’s a nice cafe with a great atmosphere, good food and friendly staff.

Philip, who works there, asked Phill the other day “Where do you work?”. Phill said “Uh…I don’t, we took a year off and we’re just passing through on our sailboat”, to which Philip replied “Oh…I thought you guys lived here!”.

So if we’re at the Bean so much, why no updates lately, I’ll flatter myself to think you may ask? The truth is, I was a bit sick of myself and I didn’t want to inflict any more of my blather on you. I’ve just snapped out of it, though, so I’ll tell you what we’ve been up to here in Provo.

Turtle Cove Marina, Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands (20-Dec-2012 to Present)

I already told you about our arrival on December 20th, how we slept like babies that night. The next morning (Philly’s birthday), our new neighbors on Freedom Boat arrived. Ike and his crew, Tony and Erin, started out in Key West and travel all over looking for great places to surf. Surf Exploration, on a sailboat! Oh, and did I mention they’re great musicians? They played at all the local bars and we were fortunate to see their show a few times before they left.

Incidentally, Ike, Tony & Erin were the first of many people we’ve met here who seem to be doing exactly what they want with their lives.

Later that morning, we rode the bike to the airport to greet Phill’s sister Susanne, her husband Steve & their four awesome kids when they arrived.

It was about a 5k ride, and hilly in places. We’ve discovered that I can peddle from the back (Phill just perches his feet up on the cross bar), so at least I was able to relieve him on occasion. People passing us in cars would double-take like they’d never seen two people double-riding before. Every look was followed by a smile, though, or a laugh in some cases. A few people slowed their cars, and shouted “Be careful!“, which was nice, but started to make us a little nervous, like maybe it was particularly dangerous to cyclists on Provo (now that we’ve been here a month, the only danger to cyclists we’ve experienced is sharp bits on the road that can give you a flat).

They drive on the left side of the road, British-style, by the way. We were confused at the roundabouts (not a single traffic light on the island) so we got off and walked through the first few. We toured the local grocery stores on the way to the airport, and stopped at Chinson’s for a quick lunch.

We made one wrong turn just before the airport and had to backtrack a bit, but we had about 15 minutes to spare when we got there, so I got a vending machine ice cream cone (first of my life). The plane arrived and we were all excited to see each other.

This is a picture of the short walk to the beach from the Grace Bay condo Susanne & Steve rented for the week.

The good pictures I took of the beach at Grace Bay are trapped in the melted-down laptop – this one doesn’t quite do it justice.

It was a fun week. We enjoyed the beach, snorkled on Smith’s Reef (part of Princess Alexandra National Park), had a nice dinner out one night and great dinners in at the condo, a local mass on Christmas Day, Maskanoo on Boxing Day and even parasailing!

Steve took some footage while he was up parasailing (for some reason I like cheesing videos up with music – sorry!).

Best part of the week, for us, was spending it with family (it really took the edge off the home sickness), and we were sad to see them go on the 28th.

The day they left for home, we rented a scooter from Scooter Bob.

We visit Scooter Bob often. His shop is just down the dock from us and he is kind enough to call us a cab whenever we need one. He also set us up with some blue water fishing lures we look forward to using if we ever get sailing again :).

Not the most exciting, but here’s some footage of the ride.

 

These birds caught Phill’s eye so he pulled over to say hello. They got into a huge scrap right after we took this picture…

The birds’ cage is outside a TCI garden center. It was a fortunate stop, because we got to see some “Turk’s Head” cacti, for which the islands are named (the Caicos part comes from the Lucayan “caya hico”, meaning string of islands).

We scootered to Blue Hills, Long Bay and Five Cays and went past downtown but didn’t know it at the time. We drove around for hours – long enough to get sore bums – and it only took about $4 in gas to fill the tank (and gas is expensive here!).

After Scooter Bob, the next livin’-the-dream person we met was Captain Randy. Phill and I were walking down the dock and Phill said to me, in jest (I think), something along the lines of “Could you please try to listen to what I say maybe once a day??” to which Captain Randy, who was working on a boat nearby, chuckled and chimed in something like “All you need to learn brother, are two simple words – ‘Yes Dear‘”, to which Phill replied, and this I remember “Like, a happy wife is a happy life?”. Randy laughs, we strike up a conversation, and he ends up inviting us to North Caicos for New Year’s Eve.

So December 31st rolls around, and we take the TCI ferry to North Caicos (what a fun ride, by the way – beautful water!) and Captain Randy comes to pick us up at the warf.

He arranged accomodations and a rental car for us at Al’s Bed of Roses/Rental Car/Grocery Store. Basic, clean and comfortable room – everything you need and nothing you don’t, which suited us just fine. Our camera battery was dead, otherwise I would have taken a picture of our rental car. I can’t remember what make it was, but it was space-cowboy cool. Low, futuristic, and rough around the edges.

We drove from “North” to “Middle” for the afternoon and visited Bambarra Beach – it was a bumpy ride, but very beautiful once we got there. Too bad the camera was dead. In lieu of pics of our own, here’s a link to other people’s pictures of Middle Caicos.

We met Captain Randy and his great group of friends for dinner at the Pelican Beach Hotel back on “North”. After a very delicious meal (the entire dining room applauded the chef as she tried to sneak out of the kitchen unnoticed) Randy drove us to this beach that was spittin’ distance from Parrot Cay, where we met Bernie & her family, and enjoyed an amazing fireworks display.

Then we all went to a local night club that was just down the road from our place at the Bed of Roses. We had a great time welcoming the new year in a local place, rather than the tourist-spot we might have wound up at (alone!) had Randy not generously invited us.

Shortly after Freedom Boat left on December 28th, new neighbours arrived in the slip beside us. We learned later that Chunda was owned by a very accomplished and pioneering gamefisherman, Stuart Campbell, and continues to be skippered by equally legendary Captain Bark Garnsey (here’s a pretty well-known video of Mr. Campbell getting pulled off Chunda by a marlin). Bark & his crew, Spencer, shared their catch with us almost every time they went out fishing, so we were able to enjoy fresh wahoo, durado (Mahi Mahi) and cero mackeral. What an amazing treat that was for us; not only did we get to sample some of the wonderful fish we hope to catch ourselves in the not-too-distant-future, but were able to share the finger dock between slips 19 and 20 with two guys who seem to be living the dream.

So we’ve met some inspirational people here, and been fortunate to get to know them a bit…but there’s more! We went out for dinner one night to The Sharkbite here in Turtle Cove, where Phill was sure he recognized the hostess who seated us. Turns out Phill and Shannon worked together twenty years ago at Baxter’s in Ottawa, and as well as hostessing that night, Shannon owns the place! She told us that another former Baxter’s co-worker, Janet (who manages Vino Tiempo in the Regent Village in Grace Bay), also lives here in Provo.

When Shannon & Janet came over to the boat for lunch a few days later, Janet explained the final assurance she needed to leave her life in Ottawa and move to this tropical paradise was when Shannon said “Why not try it? It’s not like it’s prison – you can always go back!“.

Sage advice for anyone contemplating a big life change, I’d say.

Through Janet and Shannon we’ve enjoyed meeting lots of great people here in Provo. As was the case in Jekyll Island, Georgia, the weather has kept us in TCI longer than we’d planned, but the people here have made staying easy.