Turks and Caicos Christmas 2021 - Day 6: Spa, dining on the beach

Sunday commenced with an 8 AM(ish) trip to the grocery store, because we forgot that it closed early last night. 

After a light breakfast (on the veranda), we loaded up the car and drove over to the Grace Bay resort area. The ladies had booked some massage time at the spa at Seven Stars resort.

Rudy and I had kicked around the idea of dropping them off and heading to Turks Head Brewery, but it's closed on Sundays (possibly related to "no alcohol sales on Sunday" law).

Instead, we threaded our way through the resort area, out to the beach, and claimed a pair of lounge chairs under a straw hut thing.

We did our best to blend in, but eventually got harassed by their security, who suggested that we should buy "day passes" (at $100/person, plus tax). After the guy didn't like my mostly-true explanation about waiting for a spa appointment, I just said "okay" and went back to reading my book, and eventually he gave up and left. (It helped that the towels we had brought looked suspiciously like their resort towels, almost as if they might've come from there...)

After about two hours of relaxing in the shade with a book, mixed with a few dips in the water, we wound our way back through the maze of manicured gardens to the spa, regrouped, and decided where to go for the afternoon.

Just a few minutes down the road, we arrived at the public beach parking near Hemingway's.

There was a man offering various chairs, umbrellas, tents, etc., for rent, conveniently by the beach entrance.

Seeing very little competition for space, we set up for the afternoon adjacent to Hemingway's.

It turned out to be a quiet stretch of sand, between the busy resort area of the main Grace Bay Beach crescent, and the all-inclusive resort area where we had walked a few days ago (before giving up our quest for food and turning around).

I was able to find a spot in the shade, and splurged on a $5 chair rental.

Eventually, we saw a waitress from Hemingway's offering menus, which was all it took to convince us to have a late lunch on the beach. It helped that there were drinks available, too.

I think we're all in agreement that this was the perfect spot to spend an afternoon, as we stayed almost until sunset.

There was even a random encounter with some friendly strangers that Jeanne and Rudy had met yesterday, while Sabrina and I were beach-walking.

Around 4:15 or 4:30, we finally packed up and headed home, just in time for 5 o'clock daiquiri hour.

We ran out of mango purée, so some people got wild berry pomegranate.

Tomorrow, we might go watch the sunrise at a beach, and then we need to get COVID tests. Unclear what else is on the agenda.

Turks and Caicos Christmas 2021 - Day 5: Christmas Watersports

Christmas morning started similarly to the other mornings here, with breakfast on the veranda.

Unique for today, however, was a Christmas-sock fashion show.

Just after 10 AM, we headed down to The Bight beach park for our appointment with Captain Marvin.

Captain Marvin was 10 minutes early, which was nice.

We piled on the boat and signed the waiver, without reading it, of course.

With five people, we could do a 3/2 split or 2/2/1; we opted for the former, and sent the three ladies up first.

When I stood up to film the launch, a gust of wind took my big, floppy hat right off my head, out the back of the boat, and into the water; there wasn't a way to stop and get it without dropping the parasailers into the ocean.

The routine is: send passengers up about 100' and cruise around, then dip them in the water, then back up to 300'+ for a view of the entire island for 5 or 10 minutes, then wind them back in.

The landing is a bit abrupt, in some people's opinion.

Once the ladies landed, Rudy and I were up.

Almost as soon as we were up, I saw a huge stingray cruising the reef. I immediately wished I'd brought my phone up with me, but probably would have lost that too.

Our landing was equally as rough, but without any funny exclamations.

We unharnessed and shed our lifejackets, while Captain Marvin and his first mate packed up the sail/parachute.

They dropped us off back at The Bight beach park, where we started, a solid mile from where I lost my hat.

I happened to have binoculars in my backpack, so Sabrina and I walked a mile or so up the beach, roughly to the location of the last photo I took before they went up, and scanned the waves for awhile, to no avail. 

We made it all the way to Smith Reef / Turtle Cove, where we snorkeled on our first trip. Had the wind and the current been slightly different, we may have found it. It was a lovely walk, nonetheless. There were a few people wearing Santa hats at the beach.

Once we sauntered back to the others, we sunned and swam for a bit, then departed around 1:30 to search for a new restaurant. As we were driving past the Airbnb, we stopped to swap out a few items, and I donned my backup hat.

Next, a brief interlude:

A few days ago, we had spotted a water filling station (one of several, it turns out). We happened to drive past the one right by our house, so we stopped to investigate.

A gallon jug of local, purified water currently goes for something like $2.20 at the IGA (imported [Florida] spring water is even more), so we decided to do as the locals do and get refills.

Despite the sign indicating $0.50/gallon, it was only $0.40/gallon. What a bargain!

For our late lunch / early dinner, we traveled past the airport down to Chalk Sound, arriving at Las Brisas (at the Neptune resort [thus, the statues]) just after 2 PM.

Sabrina and I had followed the road along the southern edge of Chalk Sound, the first time we were here, (on our last day), but we didn't see it quite like this.

What with this being our Christmas dinner, we made sure to eat our fill while enjoying the picturesque surroundings of their gazebo dining area.

I would definitely recommend the "Azorean stuffed chicken" (stuffed with chorizo), if you're ever in the area.

The restaurant is also the watersports rental center, so after lunch/dinner we procured three of their finest crafts and headed out to explore the sound for an hour or so. Lauren opted to test out a chaise lounge on the beach, instead.

The tandem kayak we rented, it turned out, was not one of their finest craft, as it had an old repair that had broken, opening a hole into the sealed cavity... which caused it to slowly take on water.

By the time I realized it, we were more than 1/4 of a mile out. By that point, we had to abandon ship to get the hole back above the water. As soon as we leaned over, the water inside the kayak shifted to the same side and we went over sideways. 

We half swam/paddled the kayak back to the beach, with Sabrina up top and me walking/swimming in the shallow water, trying to avoid stepping on sharp coral under the soft, sandy bottom.

Lauren was kind enough to document our soggy return, wherein I pointed out the obvious problem and swapped boats. 

Jeanne and Rudy took the opportunity to switch their watercraft (with each other).

We hustled back out to roughly where we had capsized, and enjoyed the sun, breeze, and water for another half hour or so.

While we were down at the southernmost area of the island, it seemed like a good opportunity to enjoy a sunset over the ocean; just before 5, we popped over to Sapodilla Bay Beach.

It's impressive what several years' worth of iphone camera improvements can do, BTW.

As the sun turned in, the bugs started to emerge, so we quickly fled back to the parking lot.

The sunset was providing a lovely gradient to the sky, looking north.

Behold the grandeur of the public parking lot.

This was not a terrible way to spend Christmas day 😉

It's going to be difficult to beat, next year (or whenever we can do this again).

Tomorrow is Boxing Day, as this is a British Territory, so maybe we should go shopping? I'm not sure what the traditional Boxing Day customs are, here.