The mangrove cuckoo seen a lot singing in the scrubby vegetation here. Unlike our cuckoos in the UK this bird lays 2-3 bluish-green eggs and looks after them in its own nest.

The Turks and Caicos Islands is a British Overseas Territory 575 miles south east of Miami, south east of the Bahamas and north of the Dominican Republic. They are considered a part of the Caribbean region, we sailed 400 miles from the British Virgin Islands to get here. There are more than 40 small islands and cays with just eight being inhabited, they are separated into two groups by the Turks Island Passage that we crossed when leaving the Turks group of Grand Turk and Salt Cay to the east to get to the Caicos group to the west which includes South, Middle and North Caicos, Providenciales - the most populated, Pine Cay and Parrot Cay.

When we arrived here the overwhelming feeling was that this would be a friendly place. The Customs and Immigration personnel were helpful and made us feel at ease unlike the British Virgins where there is surly and unnecessary bureaucracy verging on the downright unpleasant. We don't understand why; we saw several people getting agitated at their treatment and didn't enjoy the experience ourselves. Turks is very different, the Immigration and Customs Officers displayed the crests on their uniform both very proud of the links with British heraldry.

These islands in the north of the Caribbean look very different to those we have visited lower down the chain. Sailing gradually north from Grenada we have gone from mighty and volcanic with lush rain forest vegetation to low profile landscapes with low rainfall, and scrubby vegetation. Turks and Caicos are part of a limestone plateau which rises 8 -10 thousand feet from the sea floor and is shared with the Bahamas and Florida, this accounts for the startling whiteness of the islands. There are interesting birds but a sparse fauna of snakes, iguana, gecko, various lizards and the great blue land crab which we have also seen in South Pacific atolls of the Society Islands. However, what these islands lack in landscape they make up for in seascape, the sea glows, it is full of coral, fish and sea creatures are abundant and the beaches are fringed with rustling palm trees and bird calls.

Home to over 31,000 full time residents, the islands attract more than a million tourists a year with over three quarters of a million arriving in tiny Grand Turk via cruise ships, that's well over 200 a year! CovID19 has put a stop to all this so the economy of the islands has has come to an abrupt halt.

We arrived in Providenciales from Grand Turk on 19th March and entered South Side Marina to find a dozen or so boats moored. All were concerned and affected by the growing threat of CovID19: a Canadian boat with two children that had planned to sail further down the Caribbean chain, several American boats from various parts of the US with similar intentions and a German boat that had intended to transit the Panama Canal to start a circumnavigation. A day or two later an almost new English catamaran arrived, they had been here previously and returned after visiting Puerto Rico but not wanting to be locked down there. Having had their boat shipped to the US they sailed from Fort Lauderdale wanting to reach the BVIs and carry on down to Grenada for the hurricane season. They had seen our home port Lowestoft printed across out stern with the boat name and asked us where we were from. Things became rather odd and surprising then as we discovered that we live about 5 miles apart in Suffolk, we in Beccles and they in Mettingham. We had both lived in the area for 25 or more years, never met and, of course, not realising that there were fellow yachties down the road as it were. To cross paths in the Turks and Caicos Islands still seems quite extraordinary.

Lock down came here on 26th March. It was not unexpected as it was happening in every Caribbean country rather quickly now. We are still very thankful that we ended up in such an excellent situation for what will be 8 weeks and 2 days by the time we leave. The only places that we have ever spent longer than this whilst sailing are New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa but we weren't pinned down in one place in those countries as we have been here. There's the rub, we have spent so long in Turks and Caicos Islands but been able to see so little of it.

Most of the US boats and the Canadian boat with liddlies left mainly to try to get home further north or to get across to the American Virgin Islands of St Thomas and St John. We dwindled to 5 boats then another English boat arrived having been anchored out and moved on by the Maritime police who directed them into the marina. They eventually left to try to get in to the US as they were aiming north for Canada.

A pattern for daily life emerged as certainly it had for most people we have heard from. For us this amounted to two periods of exercise a day 05:00 to 09:00 then stay put until 17:00 to 19:00 with supermarket or pharmacy trips allowed at anytime of the day. As the majority of boats left the marina we had oodles of space and two large pontoons to use like our backyard. Together with the little garden area on the way to the showers this has been great for stretching our legs but one pontoon we have been able to use like a workshop area, a real boon whilst we have done maintenance and boat jobs. Our mornings started at 06:30 or 07:00 rather than 05:00 when snoring could probably still be heard or waking stretches were in progress. The morning walk became de rigeur for us and two other boats although our pace couldn't match their younger ones. To keep ourselves fit we undertook long but what were sometimes rather boring walks each morning as the main activities of Turks and Caicos islands are definitely based around the marine environment but the sea and beaches have been closed. So we have toured the area, seen the havoc wreaked on properties and vessels from hurricanes Irma and Maria and met quite a few residents at more than social distancing but enough to have a friendly chat.

The most exciting thing, supposedly, to see on land is Prince's (the singer) $10,000,000 house and estate (sold sometime after his death) however, it is 2 miles down a dusty road after an already long walk so we haven't seen it to date but you will find a couple of pictures in the gallery.

The properties here are mostly vast and not always lovely. These are generally built by Americans who have a strong hold here, some by Jamaicans and Europeans, there is a Jamaican and a European food section in the local Supermarket. The indigenous ex-African population live rather differently.

However, we have seen feeding osprey, tropical herons fishing and many other birds; we have recorded videos of different birds singing. There is a small Caribbean green backed heron that lives under a pontoon in the marina, never heard a heron calling but this one gives the most raucous screech whenever it can. There are lots of fish including the feisty barracuda and some unusual ones like the poisonous cow fish, then there are a few turtles that join them in the marina where we swim every day for an hour or so as part of our evening exercise time. The sea life here is wonderful as there are miles of reefs but we have seen little of that under lock down which is frustrating.

During lock down we were aware of the buzz of helicopters and roar of Marine Police boats patrolling the islands. Anxiety was growing within government due to attempts being made by Haitian migrants using a rag tag of vessels to get into the islands particularly Providenciales. Turks & Caicos Islanders are mostly descendants of Africans who were brought in to work the salt pans or the cotton plantations. The expatriate population, who benefit from the tax free residency here, consists of British, Canadians, Americans, French, Bahamians, people from Hispaniola (Haiti & the Dominican Republic) and virtually everywhere in the world. However, there is already a fairly large Haitian population who could give refuge to these illegal immigrants if they managed to get in to the island. Well over 150 of these very poor migrants have been transported back to Haiti but it is known that several have got through and disappeared into the community. This is a great threat to the biosecurity of the island and the government successfully secured back up support from UK in the form of a platoon of marines who will work with local forces to deal with this problem. This is so difficult as these poor Haitians are trying to escape from an island that has been devastated by hurricanes and is deep in poverty at this time of pandemic, they are looking for help and rescue. However, Turks and Caicos, although relatively wealthy, is tiny with limited health resources and could also be devastated by any influx of potential virus carriers/sufferers and they need to protect the population here.

Gradually the few other remaining boats left the marina: our English neighbours managed to get permission to go to Martinique which takes them nearer to Grenada for laying up and a flight home; the 57ft German boat, which can deal a lot better with rough weather than we could, left for the Azores and Europe. The last American boat to go are live-aboards wanting to get south to Trinidad to wait out the hurricane season so they aimed for Puerto Rico as a start, despite the virus raging there, because it was reported that two of the ports there were open to yachts. Finally the Canadian boat which was holed crossing the coral field of the Caicos Bank had been returned to the marina and their young crew spent a couple of days on board preparing for the journey back to Canada, they left 3 days ago. The marina has seemed very empty and the 'swimming pool' very large.