turks and caicos through your eyes

28 July 2012

i always love seeing turks and caicos through other peoples’ eyes, i love it when we have friends over and they get excited with views i might take for granted. perhaps there is a lot that i am missing.

my jaw dropped when i found bea’s blog, la tartine gourmand. i almost can’t believe her pictures of our islands – is this really where i live!?

check out her gorgeous pictures and head over here to read more on her family vacation in turks and caicos, their stay in long bay area and visit to north caicos government farm, plus a delicious eggplant recipe she made after visiting the farm!

his dive story

25 July 2012

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The island experienced a boating accident a few months back and many resorts started to request to have swim buoys installed in front of their resorts and fix, if needed, their boat lane markers. For those not from the TCI, as part of the deficit containment initiative, the government earlier in the year had slashed many workers from various agencies, one being the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) which was eventually merged with the Department of Environment and Maritime Affairs. Under DEMA, there exist a shortage of resources both in man power and equipment. At the Grace Bay Club where I work, we recognized this issue and decided to purchase our own buoys and boat lane markers with the help of Vikram, our project manager, to help DEMA but more importantly to help protect our guests and local residents who come to the public beach in front of our resort.

With the help of Provo’s Zero Tolerance Committee under Mike Bookalam, Caribbean Security Services (Mr. Simmons of CSS), Beaches Resort (for the tanks and dive gears), and of course DEMA (Paul Dickenson), we started the project. Evan,our beach supervisor, and I volunteered to help as the job requires at least 5 individuals as you will see from the video. 3 in the water and 2 on the surface including the boat captain. it’s tedious and time consuming work….

Drilling in front of Grace Bay Beach is not so easy as there is a rock plate underneath and sometimes will not go all the way in. It was a hit and miss case many times as we were looking around for what we think is soft sand to drill. My responsibility was to maintain the buoyancy of the lift bag as it holds the machine afloat and release the air as needed to apply downward pressure as we are drilling. Of course, I had to make sure the machine does it drop on Paul!

While doing this, in between breaks, I was able to dive around and saw some nice and big starfish… Paul and I also saw something that we will most likely never see again any time soon…while we were drilling, we saw a big crab run towards the pin and suddenly grab something from underneath the sand. We both followed it and realized that it was a mother crab taking its young away from the drilling to safety. We stopped drilling and I followed her to video her with her baby. Enjoy it!

Go check out my previous diving posts HERE.

James

dreams of sushi

24 July 2012

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hey friends, i hope you had a lovely weekend.

i have officially started the countdown for my vacation in portugal. and since i’m leaving in less than three weeks, all of a sudden i feel the urge to have long walks on the beach, do a lot of exercise and get a long lasting sun tan!

on the weekend, we watched the documentary jiro dreams of sushi – have you seen it? i love watching documentaries (and sushi!!). this one is about jiro ono, considered to be the world’s best sushi chef. it is beautifully done and gives you huge sushi cravings!

“Find a job that you love, take pride in your work, and always strive to learn and improve.”

Have you any documentaries to recommend? Would love to hear :)

mexico | tulum

20 July 2012

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this is the third part of our trip to mexico – hope you enjoy, read the first and second parts too!

we arrived to tulum at dinner time, after driving from merida for almost 4 hours, and making a stop in izamal. i was specially looking forward to this part of the trip, it meant we were sleeping in the same place for three nights in a row and we were finally back by the sea.

tulum beach is a stretch of beach filled with eco and rustic little hotels, cabanas and restaurants. the beach is long, you can walk forever and the fact that there are no multinational or 5 star properties it makes it have more character.

once again we stayed at coqui aoqui (more about this property here). we took our first day off from any cultural trips and did some rest and relax. we spent all morning between a breakfast of huevos ranchers and mango juice, and reading by the beach. as i’ve mentioned before this is not the best time of the year if you want to do beach, the weather was irregular, but it was quiet and it didn’t stop us from enjoying our stay.

in the afternoon james went cave diving, it was his first time diving in a cave and he was so excited about it. when i saw his videos i am sure i would completely freak out if i had to do that – my claustrophobia is definitely getting worse with age! and whilst he was out i went for a massage at the hotel’s spa.

on our second day we had to go back to our culture fix, so after stopping at el tabano for delicious huevos mexicanos for breakfast, we went to visit the tulum ruins.

these were a bit more busy and with rain coming on and off we had to exercise our patience. tulum ruins are definitely the ones with the most gorgeous setting, it is nothing like we had seen before – the ancient ruins on a cliff by a beach with turquoise water – unimaginable! so not only you get to see the ruins but you can access the beach and bath whilst looking at them.

we stopped by tulum pueblo for quick lunch. since there are no good pizzas in our lovely island, i had been craving one for a while…we got our fix at la nave, an italian recommended by bea, from coqui coqui – and the pizzas were pretty amazing.

in the afternoon we drove to coba, another mayan site, just over 30min from tulum. after visiting chichen itza, uxmal and tulum, i had little energy for more ruins – but i was glad we came.

this site was not big and it was divided in two parts. to get to the second part we had to rent a bicycle to get there and i found it really fun to cycle under the trees, kind of relaxing. when we got there, james went up the pyramid. me? with my fear of heights, i kept my feet on earth and took pictures.

on our last night in mexico and went to tulum pueblo for dinner, rather than the restaurants in tulum beach. we walked through the main street, stopped by the little souvenir shops – i fell in love with this and so many other mexican goodies from mixik – and we ate our last tacos and empanadas.

see more picture on facebook here

to read more on our travels, go right here :)

lemon 2go coffee / providenciales

18 July 2012

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i have a new addiction in provo – and it’s the cappuccino from lemon2go coffee.

i know you would think that living by the beach and in the heat of turks and caicos i would be addicted to rum punch or margaritas.

i seriously have to stop myself from stopping by for a cappuccino every day – the quality of the coffee is amazing (forty ninth parallel) and the cappuccino is perfectly prepared every-single-time.

they have other coffee options, like iced lattes and frapuccinos – check their facebook page for their daily inspiration.

the setting is gorgeous, they have, not only, the best cappuccino on island, but they also sell the most beautiful flowers. i love every time i come in, the shop is packed with flowers, candles and soaps, amongst other temptations – i want to buy them all!it’s my definitely my favorite coffee spot and oh so miss it when i’m off island!the shop is located on grace bay road, in front of salt mills, call them on 1 (649) 941-4487 or check their Facebook page and their website.