With less than a month before we return to Canada, we are taking Windancer IV back to Fort Lauderdale where John originally picked her up in November, 2005. It has been an incredible journey, but she is ready to return to the mainland.

Traveling from the US Virgin Islands on May 23 we did our first overnighters in a long time. With no wind, the passage was unbearably hot. To cool off we periodically would take cold showers and then slowly heat up again while sitting on the bridge. With new fishing lures behind us, we entered the deep waters looking forward to a wahoo or dorado bite. Bite we got, with a wahoo snapping our pink squid in half while avoiding the hook.

On the morning of May 24 we spotted dolphins swimming in our bow and were graced with moms and babies frolicking together. Over the two nights at sea we encountered huge lightening, thunder and rain making the passage uncomfortable and wet. We arrived in the late afternoon on the bank of Grand Turk and anchored in 15 feet. Ahead of us, lay the island and 150 feet behind us, the seas dropped off into a 6000 foot abyss. Over the next two days John, Connor and I dove three different spots in the clearest waters we had ever seen. While diving the wall (imagine a reef on its side) we saw amazing sea life including stunning, albeit poisonous lion fish, large grouper, lobster, enormous crabs and all the regulars including angel fish, snapper, barracuda, squirrel fish and parrot fish. While snorkeling a wreck in the shallow waters off the boat, Connor spied a nurse shark who spied him in return and calmly swam away - Connor doesn't make for the best vegetarian dish.

From Grand Turk we sailed across the Caicos Bank. Starting in deep waters, we watched the depth meter go from over 500 feet to 20 in a matter of minutes. It was an eerie feeling sailing in waters between 6 to 20 feet for over 8 hours. To cool off we anchored in the middle of nowhere in 10 feet of water and snorkeled the small reef off our port. We arrived in Providencial (aka Provo) late in the day and after following a series of designated way points, we turned into the South Side Marina under the guidance of the dockmaster who informed us, "if you ground, don't worry, it's sand, just keep coming." Bottoming out as we turned into the marina, we did a fast back up and safely made our way alongside.

Turns out, our timing could not have been better - it was formal night in the marina. Formal defined as, 'we wear nametags' at the BBQ. Joining the local cruisers who were mostly staying out of the marina in the near-by annex or in Sapodillo Bay, we fried up the last of our dorado and shared some cruising stories.

The next day, we rented a car and toured the island hitting Da Conch Shack for lunch where we watched the chef pull lunch out of the sea, hammer it and remove the conch and then tenderize it with a mallet. We dined on conch fritters, fried conch and conch chowder coupled with Turkshead Ale. We then headed up to Grace Bay and crashed the Ocean Beach Club East where we swam off the beach and then grabbed some time in their pool. It is off season and only a handful of guests were staying at the resort.

On the way back to the boat we provisioned at a beautiful grocery store since we had been told that provisioning in the Bahamas, our next destination, was almost non existent.

We bid a fond farewell to the people of the Turks and Caicos as we headed off to Sapodillo Bay for a quiet night. The people of the TCI were overwhelmingly friendly and honest - from the local who drove us to the customs dock only after moving his little 2 year old daughter into the back seat onto my lap to the customs official who tracked us down at the local library to return our copy of our immigration papers, to the dive shop team who drove to the end of the pier to transport our tanks for fill and then rented us 9 tanks for our three dives while filling our tanks for free. His partner then drove back to the dock, picked up the nine empty tanks, drove us to the gas station where we got diesel, swapped out our tanks and drove us back to our dinghy. In Provo, the folks who ran the marina greeted us with a welcome package chalk full of info and made sure no question went unanswered.

We never thought we would get to the Turks, but we did and having been there, and seen its beauty - the beaches, the waters, the diving and the people - it will definitely be on our got-to-go-back-to list.