Prague 2018 - Day 0: Jet Lag

It's been four years since our last Prague vacation, and, just like the last time, we're sort of tagging along on the Moravian College spring break trip.

I say "sort of" because we're offset from the official trip by a day or so, aren't lodging with them, and are only partially participating in their itinerary. Joining us on this journey are two of Sabrina's colleagues/friends, Shannon and Brenna.

As with any spring break vacation worth the trouble, this one began with a snow storm.

It was just starting to turn to snow around 10 or 10:30 AM, yesterday.

By 12;30 PM, it was bad enough that Lehigh decided to suspend all bus services, and then close at 1 PM.

Sabrina and I ventured out just before 4 PM, to go pick up Brenna and Shannon, in near-blizzard conditions.

There were trees down, power outages, accidents, and roads closed. Our flight wasn't until 11:30 PM, out of JFK airport, but we were on the road around 4:30 PM.

An hour or so later, our intended route wasn't looking promising, so we took a break for dinner, and to allow some time for the traffic situation to improve.

After dinner, the wind was driving sleet into our faces so hard that we had to walk backwards to the car.

Traffic had cleared up substantially, so the remainder of the drive was fairly normal. The upper level of the Verrazano bridge was even open, despite all the red X signs above the lanes suggesting otherwise.

We finally got to the JFK parking lot at 8 PM.

Against all odds, our plane managed to fight its way out of New York, after some delay, some de-icing, and some waiting on the runway.

As if sleeping on a red-eye flight isn't sufficiently difficult, there were a few choppy spots over the Atlantic.

We were late enough getting into Lisbon that we had no time to spare to make the connecting flight. We rushed through passport control and customs, arriving at the gate for the flight to Prague just as it was boarding.

The 3-hour jaunt to Prague was uneventful, and we landed at Vaclav Havel Airport at 5:30 PM, local time. It had been almost 20 hours since we left home, at that point.

We collected our luggage, figured out a public transit plan to get to downtown Prague, rode the bus to the metro station, took the metro downtown, switched lines, walked a few blocks, and eventually found the Airbnb.

After some initial difficulty contacting someone to let us in, and carrying our luggage up (what felt like) at least 200 stairs, we settled into the apartment around 7:30 PM. This left us just enough time to find a restaurant (Lemon Leaf Thai), eat dinner, and grab a shower before passing out for the night.

Tomorrow, we recuperate. The rest of the Moravian contingent should be arriving tomorrow, and we plan to join them for dinner. Other than that, I don't know that we have any specific plans yet.

Turks and Caicos 2018 - Day 5

Our last (half) day in Turks & Caicos was a bit of a wildcard. Checkout wasn't until noon, and our flight wasn't until 3 PM.

In the morning, we took a quick drive over to Grace Bay, to walk around and shop for a souvenir or two.

Unfortunately, we discovered that many of the shops are closed on Sundays, and we were there before the remainder of them opened. Sometimes "9 AM" means 10:30 AM (Island Time), so while waiting, we had a lovely stroll on yet another day of perfect weather.

Despite the above photos looking like someone built 20 of the same Lego set, there are some interesting establishments to see while walking through this commercial area of the resort neighborhood.

Eventually, several shops opened so we could pick out a few T-shirts.


We returned to the house, finished packing up, and checked out (so to speak). The plan we settled on to end our visit was to take a scenic ride along the southern edge of Chalk Sound, stopping along the way wherever there was a decent view.

Additionally, we treated ourselves to some air conditioning for this last hour or so in the car, so we could remain cool and clean for the flight home.

The (relatively) long and winding Chalk Sound Drive was almost the only remaining paved road we hadn't driven yet, according to the map on the page linked above.

There were even a few decent spots to get a panoramic view of the turquoise sound, like this road that dead-ends practically at the water's edge.

If you're ever in the area, this is definitely the best vantage point.

As the visittci.com page mentions, there is a lot of new development happening along the edge of the sound. We visited an empty lot that had a spectacular view and a large bulldozer.

A Nissan March is not a very capable off-road vehicle, in case anyone was wondering (but it has a fantastic turning radius).

Around 1 PM, we set a course for the airport, stopping for slightly more than 3 gallons of (full-serve) gas en route, and returned the rental car.

The tiny airport was jammed full of people, but we found some seats in the second floor "departure lounge", which also has outdoor seating overlooking the runway. Why anyone was sitting out there, exposed to the merciless sun and the sound of jet engines, is beyond me.

Despite the chaos, we managed to coax a few lunches out of the bar/cafe in this area before our flight started boarding. In keeping with the theme of "anything goes" on the island, they let some passengers board through the rear door, resulting in a traffic jam in the aisle as people going both directions tried to squeeze past each other with luggage.

Sabrina snuck in a few incredible (and illicit!) photos during takeoff.

This one is a good portion of Providenciales, with Mango Cay and Little Water Cay (Iguana Island) in the middle, then (Big?) Water Cay, and Pine Cay and a few other small islands in the distance.

And here we have all of Pine Cay in the foreground, Big and Little Water Cays, and Mango Cay in the middle, and Provo curving into the clouds in the distance.

We're able to follow our kayak journey in both of these photos, which I think is neat.

After an uneventful flight, we landed in Newark around 5:30 PM.

Turks and Caicos 2018 - Day 4

Our plan today was vaguely "more beach and snorkeling". After doing some research last night, we settled on Smith's Reef as our snorkeling destination. (The map on that page was very helpful.)

We rented fins, masks, and snorkels from a dive shop that was on the way to the reef (shout out to Provo Turtle Divers) and headed for the western beach access.

After walking along the rocky beach, around the point, we piled our bag and towels in the shade of a dune, roughly in front of the first reef area.

We were in the water just before noon, and immediately found plenty of colorful coral and fish, not far from shore.

I got reacquainted with the difficult task of taking underwater photos on an iPhone.

In addition to dozens of colorful species of fish, we also saw some squid, almost immediately when we got in (not pictured).

Most of the fish are uncooperative when it comes to photography, unfortunately, so it's hard to keep them in frame.

About 20 minutes in, I noticed that my phone case was leaking, so I returned to the beach to deal with that Situation before it became a Problem (see Bermuda, last year).

I felt that I had taken enough photos to establish the scene, so we returned to snorkeling with Sabrina's phone tucked in a zippered pocket. The plan was to dig it out only for an exceptional picture or two, as her case doesn't have a wrist strap and I wasn't thrilled about having to dive to retrieve it from the reef.

Almost immediately after returning to the water, we found an enormous sea turtle swimming along the edge of the reef. We were not prepared with the camera, though, and somehow managed to lose the turtle while surfacing to use the touch screen. Despite the turtle literally being a metaphor for something slow, this particular one seemed to be in a rush to hide under a ledge.

Later, I found another turtle lounging on the ocean floor next to the reef. It was nearly indistinguishable from a rock, as it wasn't moving and was about 15 feet down.

There were only two occasions when I could tell that Sabrina wasn't thrilled to be snorkeling, based on the sudden panic-squeeze she applied to my arm or hand.

The first was a large fish leisurely swimming past us, far enough away that we couldn't make out details. I have no idea what it was... it was dark blue or maybe black, and had sort of large, maybe-symmetrical fins on the top and bottom, but wasn't very long. I could actually hear Sabrina say something about "shark" as she crushed my hand, as she saw it. It was not a shark. (Update: after more research than it deserved, we have decided it may have been a large Ocean Triggerfish)

The second occasion was when we suddenly encountered a school of (what I have since learned were) Horse-eye Jack. They didn't seem to be concerned about our presence, so I gradually swam towards them, semi-dragging Sabrina with me, until her death-grip made it apparent that we were close enough. We may have been only 6 or 8 feet from about 20 of these large fish. Rather than try to get a photo, we just watched as they slowly swam by, but their formation looked something like this (from the Smith's Reef page on visittci.com).

I don't know what she was worried about; according to the wikipedia article, "The fish is generally wary of scuba divers; it will move slowly away as divers approach." Presumably that applies to snorkelers as well.

Several times, I thought there was a yellow fish following us, since I kept catching glimpses of (what looked to me like) the same fish when I would turn around for some reason. Sabrina agreed with me when I brought it up later. Apparently, it might not have been a figment of our imaginations.


We took breaks for water, and to relocate farther down the beach at the next reef area. We repeated this several times, for a total of almost 4 hours, by which point we were out of water, and also getting tired and sunburned.

The wind had picked up quite a bit since we started, and the ocean was getting choppy to the extent that it was difficult to avoid sucking some water into the snorkel, so we took this as a sign that it was time to stop.

By then, we were closer to the central beach access than to where we had started, and we figured some time to dry off before getting in the car couldn't hurt, so we kept meandering along the beach.

Despite the temperature (and humidity) being in the 80s, and the brutal heat of the sun, the steady offshore breeze made it quite comfortable on the sand.

The half mile walk back to the car, along the paved road, was somewhat less comfortable, as the wind stopped immediately once we left the beach.

We returned the snorkel gear, drove back to the house, and performed our sunscreen/sand/salt removal rituals slightly earlier than usual today.


As we had skipped lunch, we opted to start dinner early, beginning with a repeat visit to the Magnolia for an appetizer, a drink, and a panoramic view at sunset.

After the sunset, we drove a few miles (and 3 or 4 roundabouts) west to the Blue Hills area, in search of da Conch Shack (& Rum Bar).

(It would have been nice to find this map of the island a week ago. Bonus points if you can tell me why there are two regions marked "12".)

Those low white walls were made of conch shells, as were the pink walls between the parking lot and the road.

I think it was the closest we've come to literally eating a meal on the beach here, but only because we opted to sit on one of the elevated decks, instead of a picnic table on the beach.

Sabrina had some sort of coconut and conch stew/chowder, and I had a platter of build-your-own jerk chicken tacos. There was a steady 10 mph wind the entire time we were there.

If you look carefully in the background, you can see a... beach vendor? selling shells, jewellery, carved wooden trinkets, etc.

We have no specific plans for tomorrow, other than getting to the airport in the early afternoon for our flight back to the frozen north.