Before we began Cruising and were still Dreaming the Dream, we'd been told about these incredulous waters. We'd researched these waters. Then, amazingly enough, our Living the Dream allowed us to experience the amazingness of these waters ourselves. We then told Others about these waters. And now, today, as we sail through them we realize that we'd totally forgotten how absolutely INSANELY STUNNING these waters are.

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The Caicos Bank is an atoll area about 60 nautical miles across of the most spectacular, crystal clear, aquamarine waters, you would ever hope to lay your eyes on, or even sail through.

It's indescribable. It's breathtaking. It's brilliant blue and clear and mesmerizing and there just aren't enough Words in the Dictionary to do it all justice.

Crossing the shallow Caicos Bank is not for the faint of heart though. Especially not if you draw 6 feet 4 inches, like Banyan does and so the route across needs to be chosen with care, with a knowledge of the levels of your timing and the tides, pending your depth and Pucker Factor Levels, and with keen eyes simultaneously watching the depths, the charts, as well as visual cues for any dark looming coral heads that might suddenly appear in your way.

We were enjoying morning coffee in Cockburn Harbour (South Caicos), and Dave was looking at the weather, when he announced,

"Doesn't look like we can get to Grand Turk!" and then, quite regretfully continued, "There goes our visit to Margaritaville"!!

Grand Turk is the Capital of the TCI islands (a British Overseas Territory), and has been several times offered up to Canada, for the right purchase price. And refused. What's UP with that, Canada, eh?

We studied and calculated and analyzed and squeezed and re-squeezed our numbers. The wind direction just wasn't right, to sail or motor the 20 nm to Grand Turk. And then once there it also had to make for a comfortable couple of days stay there at the openstead type of anchorage, all while sipping us some ice-cold Margaritas. And then we still had to make it the 20 nm back our track, across the Banks, check out, and make it to somewhere in the Bahamas, given this incessant walloping of the Nasty Cold Fronts, using up no more than the one week allowance that we'd been given for $100, without having to pay an additional $300 for that extra minute if the weather turned ugly and stopped our progress.

Not an easy decision now that we were here, and given what the Weather Gods were offering up. Damn! It's no small wonder very few cruisers make it to Grand Turk and regretfully, this was another one to come back for.

And so with a Sigh, we got ourselves ready and headed out of Cockburn Harbour, sadly waving good-bye see you some other time to Grand Turk, and instead pointing our bow West towards Providenciales, or rather, Provo.



It was a glorious day. Sunny and warm with beautiful blue skies above us and beneath us? Waters so crystal clear you wouldn't even know you were in them. Waters so crystal clear we could see the starfish laying in the ripples of the sand as we glided by, with about one foot of water beneath our keel, our sail casting just a slight shadow on the Starboard Side.



"Wow, I just saw a Man of War Jellyfish" exclaimed Dave, right about the same time I was contemplating how cool it would be to stop, anchor, have a swim, all after lunch, of course.

Perhaps not.

We motor sailed along, no hesitation about using our watermaker in here.



Crazy Beautiful isn't it?



I stood at the Bow for a while as there were some dark spots coming up ahead of us and as depths reached a scary 0.2 inches under our keel, hoping the CaptN back there in the cockpit was watching my finger pointing port or starboard, that still allowed us a few extra inches of depth.

52 nautical miles later found us across the banks without a scratch or a thump, and we chose to seek refuge by Bay Cay, (as given the direction of the winds we figured Sapodilla Bay would be rolly).

We shared what ended up being a "See You Later dinner" with Gwen and Guillaume, (SV Slow Waltz) as they were continuing on their way, and we were staying in Sapodilla Bay for a few days of Adventuring.