A friendly welcome from Provo Radio

Hello Turks and Caicos! Our 28 hour, 184nm journey went well. We pulled up anchor on Jan 15 at 6 am and were tied up at Southside Marina by 10:30am on Jan. 16. It was a fast passage with wind from the north/northeast that grew in strength by mid afternoon on Jan. 15 and stayed strong all the way. We were mostly cruising along at low 7 knots but did see some 8 knots!! With all that wind came some pretty substantial waves (the only downside of lots of wind) and they were mostly hitting us on the side. It was a bit of a rough ride which made sleeping during the night difficult but we made it here in one piece.

We left Clarence Town with a catamaran and we sailed along with them for most of the daytime (until they were too far ahead for us to see them). Not far from Long Island, we got a call (on the radio) from the catamaran to alert us to activity in the water directly ahead of us. Whales were breaching and smacking their tails on the water!! It was so cool to see and even from a distance their bodies were clearly visible as they breached. We also had a tern flying around the boat for several hours (and unfortunately he or she made a mess on the top of our bimini), swooping in front and then soaring back towards our enclosure. It was fun watching the little bird dance it was doing! We did have another bit of excitement that afternoon (besides the bird). We were sailing along at a good speed and needed to adjust the main sail. I was at the helm and had just secured the main sail sheet after letting the sail out a bit when our auto pilot randomly switched from auto to manual. We immediately sailed off course and ended up gybing the sails (all three sails went from the starboard side to the port side) very roughly!! We had to do a full 360 degree turn to get the sails back on the correct side and get us back on course.

As the sun was rising on Jan. 16, our approach to the Caicos Banks was noticed by Provo Radio. Every entering vessel must chat with Provo Radio to give details about the vessel and crew. The officer who called us was very pleasant and the process was easy and fast. We received a super friendly welcome and after our lumpy passage, it was nice to get such a happy hello! We had the same easy and pleasant reception at Southside Marina. We stayed here last season so we were familiar with the shallow channel to get into the marina. We were very fortunate this time because we arrived at high tide – no problem getting into the marina this time!!

The marina has a really nice bar and grill at the top of the hill that overlooks the marina. We went up there last night and ordered food for my birthday! As we were waiting for our food (and enjoying a lovely beverage) the woman behind the bar told us all to look into the sky. Wow!! We got a little show! A Space X rocket was launched from Texas and exploded over the Caribbean!! We saw and heard quite the display! Thanks Elon for such a wonderful show for my birthday!!

So here we are in Turks and Caicos! Like the Bahamas, T&C has a 3 month cruising permit that costs $300 but it also has a 7 day permit that only costs $50. We had planned to just stay here for 7 days (hoping for a good weather window during that time) and then moving south to the Dominican Republic. Unfortunately our insurance has messed this up for us. Anything south of T&C is a different zone (for insurance purposes) and you have to get a navigational extension (which costs $$) to be insured. So we have this extension but it doesn’t start until February 1. We had thought we could just pay for the 8 extra days but that turned out to be very expensive. We’ve now decided to stay in T&C until February 1 and then head south!