Taylor Bay Beach

So the exploring continues! and we hit another spot I've been wanting to see for a while now! On Tuesday, the last day of my 5 day weekend, we headed out to find Taylor Bay.  It wasn't the easiest place to find and as usual there are never any signs to anywhere! but when we reached this, it was worth driving down a few of the same roads over and over:

As usual we were the only people on the beach! It was an amazingly secluded spot with those super vibrant turquoise waters and white sand.  The strip of beach is pretty small here but what's cool about Taylor Bay is the water is shallow all the way out to where you can see the change in the colour of the ocean.  I've heard of people who own those lilo's that have spaces for drinks in who come out here and just float on the water all afternoon! I must remember to buy one of those one day...fill it with root beer and head back to this very spot and do just that! 

Imagine these lucky lucky people who live here and get to wake up to this view every morning! I've picked my future house for staying on the Island! 

Check out that clear water! It never ceases to amaze me.

We stopped in at Sapodilla Hill on the way back from Taylor Bay.  We went to Sapodilla Bay a few weeks back, and after we returned I was browsing on the internet and found out that there are ancient inscriptions at that spot too, so we went to try and hunt them down.  We climbed what we thought was Sapodilla Hill and found nothing, although we did find this cool little monument right on the top of the hill, I thought it made a fun picture! 

I later found out we climbed the wrong hill, we should have climbed the larger one behind us to see the inscriptions - oh well we'll just have to make another return trip soon! 

In other news, Byron had his first taste of kiteboarding this week.  I'd like to tell you that's him in the picture above, but it's not, just a random kiteboarder that was at the beach the same time as By.  Since it was his first time he didn't even get to the water, but just had to get used to the kite on the sand.  Apparently they are huge and crazy heavy so it takes some work to control it! He went with our Branch President who is Argentinean.  He is a keen Kiteboarder so I'm sure they'll be doing it more in the future.  

Also Byron had his first wedding yesterday, it went really well and he took some great shots! He also emailed some photos he has taken recently to a friend of ours who owns a gallery here.  She let him know yesterday she has a buyer already who wants to have these 3 prints below put on to giant canvases to go on the wall in her living room - so things are really looking up work wise for By and his photography is going down a storm.  

I think we're being blessed for the work we are doing here in building up the kingdom of God in the Provo branch! I've just realised I haven't yet posted but last Sunday Byron and I got new 'callings' at church.  A calling for those who don't know is like a responsibility you are given, an opportunity to serve at church.  So I am now the new Primary President and Byron is the Sunday School President, which means he oversees all the different scripture classes we have running on a Sunday and I oversee the primary organisation which is for all children at our church between the ages of 3-12.  My sister Mel actually does the same thing back in Leeds.  The funny thing is though in the UK and the States you usually have a Primary President along with counsellors, a music leader, teachers for individual age groups and a whole team of adults who oversee the children.  In Turks and Caicos that team consists of me, just me! It means alot of preparation before Sunday and it's going to be busy busy but I'm excited for it, and have so many fun things planned for the kids! 

Tracking down the 'Pirates of the Caribbean'...

On Saturday we had an awesome day! and managed to tick off 3 of the things on our 'to see' list! be prepared for a picture overload because I want to show you EVERYTHING! 

First, we had a spot of lunch at 'The Patty Place'.  I think Patty's originate from Jamaica and as I mentioned before they are very similar to our pasties.  A friend of ours had told us Patty Place did pretty tasty patties, however we thought Chinson's were far superior and they could definitely learn a thing or two about service with a smile down at Patty's! 

We carried on our journey to the other side of the island.  This is a very remote side of the island and unfortunately in recent months there have been a number of muggings and even a murder where we were headed since it is so secluded! but we didn't let that stop us and made sure we said a prayer before we left, and all was well! Here is the dirt track we drove down for about 30 minutes to reach Pirate's Cove.

This is the scene that awaited us, and it really reminded me of some of the landscape you'd see in Thailand.  We parked the car and set off climbing over the rocks in search of the hole we'd heard about that led down to the actual Pirate's cave.  It was a fairly long walk and in the heat of the day, I was pleased to finally find it:

We began our climb down to see what we could find! 

It was such a pretty view from the mouth of the cave! 

and we were super excited to find this starfish that had been washed up on the shore.

You can get an idea here of what the cave looks like on the inside.  We saw lots of names and words inscribed into the walls (including LDS...I knew our missionaries must have left their mark when they visited!) but we were disappointed not to see any of the ancient pirate inscriptions we had come searching for! 

We thought perhaps there might be more caves so we searched around and found lots more holes, but none of them had caves underneath them! so after a quick rest after all the climbing we headed back to the car! 

and were excited to stumble upon the inscriptions by chance! It turns out they weren't inside the caves but were actually on top of them! 

I can't make this one out...

but this one was obviously inscribed by shipwrecked sailors.  It reads 'Air St. Louis burnt at sea 1842', apparently this ship was travelling from Boston to Old Orleans and was burnt in August of 1842 and subsequently wrecked on the Caicos reef.  It travelled pretty far from Old Orleans to the Caribbean? I guess we'll never know the full story on that one.

The third place I have been wanting to visit for a while is the lovely 'Bonefish Point'.  It consists of the beaches that run alongside Pirate's cove.  You can see in the picture above that there are 3 or so other beaches far in the distance too.  All of these beaches are completely isolated and we didn't see one person the whole day we were there.

Here's our starfish by the water! 

I just wanted you to get an idea of how it was literally just us...and then all these stretches of beaches to ourselves! Byron and I have travelled to quite a few amazing beaches in our time...Mauritius, Thailand, South Africa and Greece just to name a few of some of our favourite beaches we've found but we both think this beach may just become our new number 1!  It was just so peaceful and secluded and having the whole ocean to ourselves was pretty incredible! 

Here's scuba Byron! he was hoping to do a spot of snorkelling but didn't see too much, but here he is showcasing his snorkelling gear that his work bought for him as a leaving present before we left the UK - it was such a thoughtful present as he has used it so much here! 

...but all good days must come to an end! We were sad to be leaving Bonefish point but happy to catch this lovely sunset on the way...

and as we drove across the Island back to where we live the sun set fast and pretty soon the night sky was black but we saw the most amazing orange glow in the sky! It was huge, and we couldn't believe that it was actually the moon! I had never seen such a huge, and such an orange coloured moon ever! Unfortunately by the time we could pull over to take a shot it had got higher in the sky and appeared much smaller than we had first seen and less orange but it still looks quite cool here.

Somewhere...a great Mexican with an even greater view!

Yesterday morning I awoke to this amazing sunrise...coupled with the fact I knew I had a 5 day weekend ahead of me, I knew it was going to be a good day!

We had a bit of a lazy morning, which was greatly needed after a really busy week at work. We went to Friday night volleyball as usual and had a victorious night, and then Byron made me very happy by suggesting we go to Somewhere for dinner. I have been wanting to go there ever since we arrived after reading up about it and seeing that it served 'Tex-Mex' food and since Mexican is my fave food I definitely wanted to try it, but it had closed for the whole month of September like many businesses do on the island. It just re opened on Thursday for the tourist season which was great news for us.

It is the only restaurant on the Grace Bay beach stretch that has a second floor which means it has the most amazing deck overlooking the ocean. I've been told you can catch incredible sunset views there which we will definitely have to go back for, I'm sure we will frequent it often! This was the view we had there:

It has a really laid back atmosphere and I love all the lights everywhere, coupled with the flaming torches:

On trip advisor out of the 69 restaurants on Provo, travellers have rated Somewhere as the 5th best place to eat on the Island.  Most of the restaurants that come above it are really posh and fancy ones which aren't really my kind of places to eat at! The prices were really reasonable, our tacos were £8 each which is super cheap for Provo, and the service was really fast which is also unusual for Provo! 

Here I am with our tasty multi-colour tortilla chips! and check out my strawberry smoothie in the background! It was delish...but unfortunately nearly as expensive as the tacos! I think I'll be sticking to the sprite next time too! 

They are known for having the best fish tacos on the Island so By gave them a try, and I think his smile says it all! He was very impressed...I stuck to chicken tacos, being the fish wimp I am! but they were still great too! 

All in all it was an awesome way to start off the weekend! 

A Week's Worth of Fun

So this week has been a busy week.  We have had a new boy join our program and there's big changes happening right now so I've been a little lazy on the blogging front, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy! 

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Last Wednesday we ate at Tiki Hut Cabana and Grill.  We ate here in the first week we arrived too but I’m not sure I blogged about it.  It’s a tasty little restaurant and it’s down on the marina so it’s a really nice setting.  Also they have a ‘Ribs and Chicken’ special every Wednesday night and as By is such a big ribs lover we had to go back a second time, it was a really tasty meal!

 It was another funday Friday with Josiah and Shomari in the form of a trip to the beach.  Those boys love the water! The past few weeks we’ve just been swimming in our pool since the waves have been pretty rough but as you can see the ocean was perfectly calm and was enjoyed by all!  On the way to the beach we saw a random Cockatoo which was just flying around outside our friend’s house! Apparently he lives in the neighbourhood and spends his days roaming around whistling at all those who walk past!

 

Here we are walking onto the beach our friend, Milah, lives right on.  It’s called Emerald Beach and is our other local beach we usually visit.

 This was one of Jo’s ‘cheese’ faces, last week he was even calling Byron ‘cheese’ because he associates him with the flash and the camera!

 We gave Shomari double protection with arm bands and a rubber ring! Check out how clear the water is:

 By came along to enjoy a spot of swimming, and to be roped in to taking some more great photos like this one below:

When we had to head back to School, we hosed the sand off the boys and didn't realise this would bring them as much enjoyment as the swimming did! Some of the faces they were pulling were classic:

On Saturday, after watching too many amazing gourmet hot dog-eries on the food channel, we were craving gourmet dogs! So Chef By rustled us up some awesome hot dogs with Mexican chilli on top, and we even accompanied them with some Oreo shakes too!

 Yesterday By had another successful fishing day, and so Mexican Monday had to be unfortunately replaced (again!) by Fishy Monday instead! The missionaries had been fishing with him too so they stayed for dinner and they all ate their catches, whilst I of course had chicken! 

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, I leave you with some more of By's awesome photography.  These are pictures he's taken of conch's that we have collected ourselves right off the beach! 

Malcolm's Road Beach

On Saturday we ventured to the other side of the Island, literally.  I've added a little map of Providenciales below to show you exactly! We live in Leeward, marked by the red star on the right hand side of the map and we travelled to Malcolm's Road Beach, marked by the red star on the left hand side. This journey took us a whole 45 minutes! and I'm pretty sure that's the longest journey you can take by car on Provo! 

It didn't help that half of the journey was along dirt roads like the one below.  It sure was one bumpy ride!  We were really driving through the middle of nowhere...

but it was all worth it when we arrived to find this:

It was basically our own private beach for the day! At one end of this remote beach is a resort called The Amanyara and it basically consists of individual oceanside villas you can stay in for around £1000 a night.  As you can gather by the price tag, it's not for the average Joe, and is infact a bit of a mecca for Celebs.  Just 3 weeks ago Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (of Twilight fame) were staying there...can you imagine if we had decided to take our day trip 3 weeks ago! How crazy would it have been to just bump into Rob while splashing around in the sea! haha

It was actually quite a rocky beach so we were able to do some 'rock climbing' and explore around which was fun.

By was rather taken with this rock that fits perfectly within another rock! I liked the way it resembled a heart myself!

and no post about the Beach is complete without the obligatory conch shot!

I was rather pleased to discover I had colour co-ordinated my toenails with the sea!

There was this cool hut at the entrance to the beach and I thought if we took a picture of us sitting under it you'd be able to see the sea in the background, but we couldn't quite get the camera high enough to accomplish that shot! 

So here I am sitting at the end of the walkway with the ocean view I was after!  What a blissful way to spend a Saturday!