As you know, I was on vacation last week.

We went to Turks and Caicos, and we stayed on Grace Bay…

But to get there: You don’t have to quarantine in TC when you go, but you must be approved by the government. This starts with a PCR test done within five days of departure- We left on a Tuesday meaning our PCR would need to be processed over a weekend…and most labs don’t process over a weekend. So our vacation experience began with searching for lab that could process the results. Ok- two labs…because in the intervening days, my Husband and Daughter were in Florida visiting my mother in law.

Then you need travel insurance.

Then you need to upload all info onto a sight, fill out application and wait to be approved.

We were lucky- we got our approval on Sunday- two days before take off. We met people who didn’t get approved till 11 hours before their flight…

We also had to have an antigen test before we left the airport in TCI…

But…

the trip was totally worth it all.

Beaches: beautiful. People take care of the beaches. There was no garbage littering them. Just sand and shells and a little bit of seaweed. And the sand was gorgeous…fine grained….

The water was soooo clear! Now, I’d heard from people who visited before that the water used to be even clearer, but after the last hurricane 25 yards of beach was eroded. But the water was still pretty spectacular.

We took a snorkel trip to the reef. Caicos is the third largest reef system (after Australia and Belize). It was lovely! We had the absolute best Captain though. The crew on these types of trips make all the difference. We also got to see a dolphin which was very cool!

Hmmm…what else?

Had an awesome massage.

Had delicious fruity beverages.

Had the best shrimp fried rice and conch fritters ever!!!

Rented a hobie cat which was amazing.

Saw a stupidly expensive bracelet at the airport that I’m trying to find a knock off of.

Read a bunch of beach books.

Iguana Island

Eavesdropped on some interesting conversations.

There’s a dog shelter…Potcake…that allows you to take a puppy out for a walk on the beach. So you know that we did that….Our pup was named Hero and he was just adorable. The shelter has a 100% adoption rate (we saw three dogs that got adopted) so if you are looking to donate to an animal charity, consider this place.

Sun

Surf

Beach chairs

Relaxation

On the whole, it’s amazing what six days without responsibility can do for a family and individual well being. We all learned to like one another again. It’s been a tough year. It’s OK to take care of yourself…to do something that is totally relaxing. Our mental health is important…

53 thoughts on “Anything Can Happen Friday: Vacation”

  6. I envy you the ability to get away, somewhere, anywhere! I remember the island as being lovely in the early 90’s but I was bored after a few days. We went on a snorkeling boat tour out to the reefs and a minibus tour to tour the island which was not very developed at the time. My biggest complaint was my own fault, as I had been so looking forward to sitting by the pool and reading, (my idea of paradise) but I brought a poor selection of books with me (four and none of them any good) and there was nowhere to buy any more, as no shopping, one souvenir shop on the whole island, in a strip mall. That was long before the days of e-readers! It was a diver’s paradise. I’m happy to hear the beaches are still clean. The other issue was I had gone to get away from work, and the resort we stayed at was full of Abbott salesreps who had won the trip for meeting their quotas, so any conversation with anyone new you met eventually detoured into medical territory. I had to deal with purchasing Abbott supplies through my job at the hospital and it was not my favorite company.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. To be fair…it’s still a very mellow island. We played tennis a bit. My family could, and did, spend hours in the ocean…I plopped myself in the pool quite a bit. And I had very fun beach books, which was necessary

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. I thought there was a warning against going to the Turks. A travel advisory about increased crime. What did you experience ?Exercise increased caution in the Turks and Caicos Islands due to crime.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      2. There’s a warning on beverage cups that contents may be hot…doesn’t mean you shouldn’t drink the beverage. Technically, I could have had accidents on the street, in a car, on the plane, on a boat or in the ocean or the pool. Life is risk. You have to figure out if it’s acceptable risk

        Liked by 1 person

  17. The logistics would probably irritate me, but I’m glad you wrangled your way through them. TC is such a beautiful place to visit. I don’t doubt you and your family came home much refreshed.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  19. OK what’s a hobie cat ?

    Sounds great, I have been trying to book my birthday gift from my son for last years birthday, it is becoming a nightmare and I am only trying to book one night in this country.

    Looks like you had a great time.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Months and months ago you said you said you’d hold it to me when I said things would get better 😀 ………………..lovely to hear you enjoyed your vacation and fingers crossed I might be sooon!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  21. I’m so glad you were able to get a way for such a fabulous vacation! It truly is important to take care of yourself, especially after such a tough year. And not to sound ignorant, but what’s a PCR test?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Ok. Basically there are three types of COVID tests. If you are taken to a hospital, they will give you a blood test. But that’s only done there. The antigen, or lapis test is a small swab of nasal passages and the results are within 5 minutes (think of it as an early pregnancy test for COVID…the stick turns a different color) the problem with the rapid is that there’s a merging of error…it’s the least reliable. In the middle of the blood test and the antigen is the PCR…swab goes farther up your nose, and the results must be done in a lab setting. It’s far more accurate than one,and less invasive as the other.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s