Peak experience – snorkeling in Turks and Caicos

Last week I had the pleasure of heading to Turks and Caicos (TCI) for work. Last weekend I was with my family and when I told anyone that I was heading from chilly Baltimore to TCI literally everyone started laughing uproariously. Hard to argue with that logic. I flew from Baltimore to Providenciales, usually called Provo, and the distance between those two places in December seemed a lot more than 3 hours of flight time.

TCI certainly delivered, the entire time there I kept thinking that it lived up to its up market brand. It all starts with the ocean, which somehow is even more clear than the waters off the Bahamas. I didn't even think that was possible. And to make the azure water even better there is a reef right off Gracie Bay. The water is complemented by impossibly fine white sand that is velvety to the touch and goes for miles.

My dad used the phrase peak experience to talk about travel moments that become transcendent moments in your life. He wrote peak experience in the context of returning back to Kenya 38 years after serving in the Peace Corps - http://livingthekoroldream.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html.

While we have been traveling Mu and I co-opted the phrase.

I had a peak experience while snorkeling in TCI in those perfect waters. First I was enveloped in a school of brilliant blue and yellow fish, at least a hundred, to more swimming lazily but keeping their shape as a group. After moving on from that school of fish I saw a turtle about the size of a coffee table book zooming around near the reef. Nice!

The turtle was so nice that I dove down to see it a bit closer and then to my surprise the entire floor of the reef moved. Whoa, there is another turtle here and it is seriously large! I had not noticed and would have missed it entirely with the shell blending perfectly in to the reef. The turtle was riveting, kind of hanging out on the ocean floor and not doing much. The baby turtle kept heading out and then coming back to momma. It was super cute and time kind of stopped.

Once the big turtle decided it had enough of this weirdo at the surface just watching, it headed towards deeper water. I followed the turtle as it swam away, and it took a moment to register there was something else on the ocean floor. Momma turtle swam over two black forms, which it took me awhile to realize were sting rays. These two organisms were the same as the turtle, one pretty large one and then an enormous one. A baby and its mom just hanging out on the sandy bottom. I would have NEVER noticed the Manta Rays without following the turtle.

The big ray was even more captivating than the turtles. It was seriously large, probably about 10 feet across and with a stinger as tall as a person. I have never seen any rays this size ever, nothing even close. It was so large as to be a bit unnerving, and reinforced that the water is a medium where people are out of place. How long has this Ray been alive? How much does it weigh? Could it hurt me? It could definitely hurt me, right?

Time stood still again and I kept talking and laughing to myself into the snorkeling gear. Amazed at this transcendent beauty just a few minutes swim from the beach. Wow.

Living up to its name - exploring Gold Rock

Mu and I had the pleasure of spending this past weekend on one of the other islands, Grand Bahama. On the Grand Bahama, we spent our time in Freeport/Lucaya -- The Bahamas' second largest city and quite a contrast from Nassau.

Nassau has tons of houses and streets from before 1800. These are right in the center of town and it is a fun part of walking around for lunch or something to think about -- a direct history that goes back a couple of centuries. On the flip side, the traffic can be quite bad with traffic patterns that go back at least a couple of decades. The balance is most certainly positive, but the congestion of Nassau has been a bit of surprise.

Freeport is a contrast, it is a planned city that is quite spaced out with grand boulevards dissecting the city of about 40,000. I was brought over to the city for work which was a fun reason for travel. Travel with a purpose has always been our favorite type of trip.

We arrived on Friday night.  I worked on Saturday and then we rented a car for Sunday and headed towards the east side of the island.   On the east side, we checked out the Lucayan National Park. This park is wonderful, it has a couple of the blue holes that are mesmerizing. It also has some nice mangrove swamps that are haven to tons of birds.

Those are both nice, worth a trip for sure. But the clear highlight of the park, and the island generally in our view, is the Gold Rock Beach. It is the leader in the pack for the nicest beach in the Bahamas in my limited sample. We walked through the mangrove swamp and came to this perfectly white sand beach with crystalline water of that special hue that seems endemic to the Bahamas. We were the only people on the beach, which made it even better.

The beach is littered with these massive driftwood stumps, all twisted and mangled and bleached by the powerful sun. Mu headed over to a sand bar and set up shop for some serious sun bathing. I think she must have been looking forward to this kind of relaxing for weeks.

Since sun bathing is not really my speed I got on my snorkeling gear and swam the half mile to Gold Rock. The swim was kind of dreary since the reef only started a half mile out. But man was it worth the swim, as the coral on the reef had spectacular colors and some crazy big structures. The complex arrangements of the reef were really impressive, especially when some of the lincoln log-esque coral arrangements had super heavy coral sitting on top of something that looked like it wouldn't support more than twenty pounds.

After a bit of exploring it was time for me to make the swim back to my lovely wife. We had both gotten just what we wanted from our day at this most perfect beach. The gold in the name is well deserved and I have a new standard bearer for best beach in the Bahamas.  

Slowing it down in Andros

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  It was a great time of year here in Nassau, lots of sun and the pleasure of hosting a great friend. And then my lovely wife arrived for good the day after. So yes, it was quite the good week.

The week was made all the better with a work trip to one of the Family Islands – Andros. This island is by far the largest of the Bahamas archipelago, even if it is divided into three separate sections that are in effect their own islands due to the logistics challenges of getting between the regions. It is actually necessary to fly back to the Nassau to get from the south of Andros to the north or vice versa. Most of the island is desolate pine barrens growing on top of rugged limestone and vast mangrove swamps. It is the kind of place where that show 'Naked and Afraid' gets filmed.

For this work trip, I was excited to head to the north part of the island, which is not visited frequently by tourists.  I flew to Nichols Town (the biggest settlement, at 500 people, in northern Andros) and spent the Sunday exploring the island with my buddy.  Andros is well known for blue holes, which actually should be called black holes because there is not much light to get a blue hue.  These geologic features are deep caves that fill with a mix of rain water and salt water seeping in from the ocean.   These two types of water do not mix though. The first hole we explored was actually right off of a beach and was just salt water.   It was kind of choppy so the visibility was sub-optimal and with the huge sting ray chilling in it, it was pretty creepy.

Then inland we found a more classic blue/black hole.  This one, called Uncle Charlie's hole is over a mile inland. Driving down a random dirt track through pine trees to find the blue hole, it felt improbable to find something impressive.  Man was I wrong.

All of a sudden there was a little lagoon with 5-8 foot cliff walls. The water was black, and forbearing. We scoped it out and then it was time to jump in.  I went first and the water was actually quite refreshing.  Then with the snorkeling gear it became apparent just how bizarre this quirk of geology is. With the mask it was easy to see the cliff walls extending down maybe 10 feet max, then the bottom of the cliff cuts away like and it gets spooky. Swimming out to the middle of the hole was an exercise in trust --trusting that it all was going to be okay, because it sure did not feel certain. Especially since, the visibility should be excellent in this clear water. When snorkeling in the waters off the island where I live I can have visibility over a hundred feet. Here that same impressive visibility just tailed off to nothing.  This water cave extends hundreds of feet down and was explored by Jacques Cousteau.

After those adventures it was time to head north and track down some food, no easy feat on a Sunday on the family islands. Finally we stumbled on this dive of a sports bar which serendipitously had the Pats game on against Detroit. A beer, some chicken and football felt just about right to hang out with some of the dudes that live in the tip of North Andros and were just chilling.

Then it was time to head home, squeeze in a run on the deserted beach and hit the hay.  It was so quiet in our little corner of the island--leading to a feeling of peacefulness and deep relaxation. I got to finish my book, which had taken way too long to read.  No TV, no internet and such quiet. I slept like a champ and was ready for full and super interesting days of work.

If you are curious about the work part of my trip, check out this summary on Facebook from the US Embassy account: https://www.facebook.com/wilson.korol/posts/10152866389955930.