We took a 25 minute ferry ride from Grand Turk to tiny Salt Cay, its the smallest (2.6 square miles) and least populated of the inhabited Turks and Caicos islands. Much of the center of the island is covered with salinas to harvest sea salt, an industry that boomed for about 250 years, but saw its demise in the 1930's. It is home to less than 100 people and its main industry is tourism in the winter months when humpback whales migrate about 1 mile off shore. The diving here is also excellent.
Debbie, who owns the hotel we made reservations with met us at the ferry. We reserved through their website a couple days prior, but the only reason she knew we were coming is because Ryan's dive master on Grand Turk is her husband and he called to let her know. Other than a couple local variety stores and one restaurant, the island shuts down in September and October during the low season. Debbie had to open up and ready the room to accommodate us. She even found some homemade key lime pie in the freezer for us to sample, Ryan's favorite! Thank you Debbie for your hospitality.
We drove some rusty old bikes (after Debbie kindly filled the tires with air) to the north side of the island to see this lovely beach and cool off in the ocean.
Fan coral that washed ashore.
My rusty bike in front of a wall lined with conch shells.
One of the many crabs scurrying around Tradewinds.
Miss Pat cooked us up a salad, cracked conch, peas n rice and beets for dinner. Ryan thinks beets taste like dirt and usually passes, but these were seasoned with vinegar and really good. Even Ryan ate the beets!
The next morning, we took a 8am ferry back to Grand Turk and visited the cruise center. This weather station cracks us up!
Me emerging refreshed after sweating like crazy carrying around our bags on another hot day. We grabbed lunch at Jack's Shack and caught our flight back to Provo.
Its a small world: Debbie is from Dayton, Ohio. She went to nursing school at Ohio State University and got her nurse practitioner degree from Arizona.
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