Caicos Islands offer unspoiled hideaways
The more rum you drink, the more worms you’ll see.
THE EVENT always ends tragically: All the males die and sink to the bottom of the sea. But the beginning is fi lled with light, promise and pitchers of rum punch. And so, on the fourth day after the full moon of September, I boarded a 52-foot catamaran with several other passengers. We set sail under a cotton- candy sky to watch a spectacle with a Grimm’s fairy tale twist – the mating of the glowworms in Turks and Caicos.
As night fell, all eyes, including those rimmed red from too much sun and drink, turned to the calm waters surrounding Providenciales, on the Caicos side of the country. We combed the dark bay for the electricgreen sparks that signalled the worms’ arrival.
“The more rum you drink, the more worms you’ll see,” said Captain Rock, as crew members refi lled empty cups.
Not long into our watch, illuminated splotches started to appear on the water’s surface. Each fl ash represented a condensed love story: Boy worm meets girl worm. They dance, he fertilises, and they split. The male then bids the world farewell. “It’s not a bad way to go,” said the captain. “He probably has a smile on his face.”
The coupling ritual, which lasts about 15 minutes, occurs in a specific place - off the northeast tip of Providenciales, or Provo - three to five days after the full moon. Like Odontosyllis enopla, many visitors also stick close to one island.
They plant their sun umbrella in Provo, the entry point for all international air passengers, or Grand Turk, the capital and cruise ship port that received more than 900,000 oceangoers last year.
Despite the country’s binary name, Turks and Caicos is not a duo like Batman and Robin. The British overseas territory encompasses 40 islands and cays, including eight inhabited isles, that hang like extra links off the Bahamian chain.
The Turks Island Passage separates Caicos to the northwest and Turks to the east. Puddlejumpers bridge the 22-mile-wide divide; ferries ford the shorter passages; and kayaks span the smaller gaps. And on one tiny stretch between Caicos and Long Cay, I nearly hitched a ride from a passing stingray.
A big red bar divides Provo’s timeline into Before Club Med and After Club Med. The landmark year was 1984, when the country’s fi rst big resort opened, kindling a hotel-building spree and tourist boom.
In B.C.M., the third-largest island was home to about 100 people and one or two modest lodgings. The roads were unpaved, and phone service and electricity were spotty. In A.C.M., nearly 24,000 residents – out of a total population of about 32,000 – inhabit the island with the only international airport. (Caicos plans to add a second facility next year.) More than a dozen hotels, including the families-gone- crazy Beaches, huddle along the 12-mile-long Grace Bay.
The Ritz- Carlton is the latest property angling for a spot on the pearly-white-sand strip. If the company succeeds, its 12- storey hotel will be the tallest structure in the land, dwarfi ng the palm trees and stand-up paddlers.
I stayed at Club Med Turkoise, the pioneer of Provo; the allinclusive’s dated decor took me back to the early frontier period.
The resort sits on the eastern end of Grace Bay, the Meryl Streep of beaches. ( Most recent accolade: TripAdvisor’s 2016 Travellers’ Choice Awards voted it the best of the world’s top 25 beaches.)
On my fi rst morning, I stepped onto sand as refi ned as cake flour and walked barefoot for miles. The overall landscape stayed the same, a pristine spread of ocean and beach. Only the quality of the lounge chairs and the quantity of the aquatic toys varied as I traversed the back yards of the different resorts. I was aiming for Turtle Cove, on the western edge, but turned around twothirds of the way to rest my tender arches. The following day, I rounded the unexplored bend to meet a modern-love treasure hunter. — WP-Bloomberg
Captain Rock