Providenciales
The worries about one island being more beautiful than the other one are lost when we fly over a large colourful lagoon while landing.
The main island, where most of the population of Turks & Caicos resides is called Providenciales, but it is known by everyone as PROVO. Since the island is substantially bigger than Grand Turk, a couple bicycles are not going to cut it, and we pick up our rental car before heading to our newest VRBO.com destination... The Villa Wyakha. V.W. is located on Long Bay, on the opposite side of the island from Grace Bay.
It's not a long drive, but we definitely find we are getting away from the main highway, when we turn off of pavement and work our way to Long Bay. A large property, lots of vegetation, and a large entry gate greet us as we pull up to the front of the property. Surprisingly, much like the Crabtree Apartments, It was exactly like the pictures. A 4-plex, with 2 suites upstairs, and 2 suites downstairs. We had the upper one bedroom suite, with an amazing view across the jungle to the Caribbean Sea behind the owners villa.
The view from our deck... owners Villa at the center
From our room, it's just a short walk down a sandy trail and we come out onto the beach at Long Bay. It's the middle of the day, and looking in both directions, we are the only ones on the beach. The sand is like icing sugar, the water is like a warm bathtub, and it is so shallow you can walk out for a kilometre without the water coming above your chest. This may be paradise too.
The property is amazing, with a great beach, and most of the property left in a very natural jungle like setting, with a few unique touches.
With the natural jungle setting, it is not surprising that we are seeing a whole lot of curly tailed lizards. I love these little guys, they eat bugs. They are so cute when they see us and stop frozen, thinking we can't see them if they don't move.
After a day spent enjoying our own beach we decided to start checking out the rest of the island. First stop would be the Eastern end of the island. The Marina was literally 2 minutes up the road, not much there, so we explored a little more...
Emerald Point
Our first beach stop was the amazingly white sands of Emerald Point, there was very few people here except for a few joggers, maybe that was because the water was a little cooler than on our beach, or it was a little too far for the resort-set to walk from their beach chairs and swimming pools. The closer we get to Grace Bay, the more crowded it gets, from a serene white beach to mayhem in 10 minutes.
TURTLE COVE
Having seen enough of Grace Bay in a span of about 10 seconds, we moved on to our next stop at mid-island, the marina inlet town of Turtle Cove. Lots of different boats from rafts to massive yacht's, and some cool little marina side restaurants like the Tiki Hut.
BLUE HILLS
The next part of the island as you move west is where the locals live, lots of small houses and shacks, some cool beachside cafes and shacks, and a beach area that is much more suited to snorkeling and Conch farming. The variations of blue in these waters were very cool.
CHALK SOUND
After somehow missing the road that went to the Northwest point of the island we ended up in a beautiful area of the island known as Chalk Sound. This was the colourful lagoon area that we flew over when we came into the airport. First stop... lunch at Las Brisas! The view from our table was incredible, a table on a deck overlooking the pale blue waters of Chalk Sound. I'm pretty sure I had seafood.
As we wound our way up around Chalk Sound, the colours of the water combined with the little islands and the epic mansions made this a memorable area. One home had a rotating bridge that allowed the owner to drive across his moat to enter the property.
Our last stop of the day before buying some groceries and heading back to our "Villa" (teehee), was a mangrove area outside the downtown. Strange little carving adorn the lagoon, and hundreds of egrets have made the mangroves their home.
One of the downfalls of our new location was we were east facing instead of west, so we didn't have the sunset on our beach every night. So tonight we went Somewhere to watch the sunset and have dinner. That was the name of the restaurant... "Somewhere", honest.
The blue waters brought out the colour in my eyes, the sunset brought out the sunburn on my skin.
After spending an entire day just hanging out on our beach with maybe 2 other people passing all day, we decided to do a trek the next morning to find the Northwest corner of the island and a famous beach known as Malcolm's Beach.
MALCOLM'S BEACH
It's a bit of an interesting unpaved road to get to this beach, we had to stop at one time and decide if our rental car really should continue down this road. But once we got there, it was worth it. There was only one other car in the parking lot... a 4X4.
We realized we probably should have brought our snorkeling gear as it seems to have an amazing mix of sand, coral and little fish. I guess a little wading and enjoying the view will have to do, that is before the massive crowds of 2 other people showed up... time to go.
BLUE HILLS AGAIN
After actually finding our destination this time, and enjoying the morning at Malcolm's Beach, we decided to grab some lunch at a place called "Horse Eyed Jack's". Of course we had to stop at the scenic pier when we noticed it was covered in Tern's all facing the sun.
As I got a little closer to take a picture, one by one they all started squawking at me, it was getting really loud, and I didn't want to be involved in a scene out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, so I backed away. It wasn't until I got in the car that they stopped.
Before having lunch we wanted to do was pick up a couple souvenir shells to take home with us, this is an easy task as the locals have pallets set up displaying their catches, a wide mix of different types of Conch shells. In order to support the local economy we purchased a Queen Conch from one vendor, and a King Conch from another.
There is two seaside restaurants side by side here, the infamous Conch Shack, and Horse Eyed Jacks, although they both looked unique, we chose the one with the classic truck parked in front. What a great choice, an amazing assortment of food, Jamaican influenced, with lots of seafood... and we were the only ones in the restaurant when we arrived. Front row patio table overlooking a beautiful beach setting.
THE HOLE
Not far from our place is this "Highlight" called The Hole... the maps show an arrow pointing at it, and since it is so close, we really should check it out before heading back to our beach. Off the side of a gravel road is a little pullout/parking spot, and we had to be careful or we would have driven right into it. There it is, a hole... what once was a cave until the roof collapsed, OK. Back to the beach.
With the winds picking up a bit, we returned to a dozen sails in the sky, kite surfers had invaded Long Bay, not our part of Long Bay, but up the beach a little ways. Even the owner of our Villa took out his kite, as their dog Seven ran up and down the beach barking at the giant bird.
A nice breeze blows across the island the next morning, the sun is shining, seems like a perfect day to go on a sail boat.
SAIL PROVO
It's only 2 minutes to the marina, it's only 5 minutes to Little Water Cay, also known as Iguana Island. The Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana used to be prevalent throughout the islands, but due to development, human and dog predators, the last safe location for the Iguanas is the protected Little Water Cay. From the sandy shore we walk to a short boardwalk trail that allows us to see the iguanas in their natural habitat.
Like anywhere else in the world, the most annoying part of wandering the island is a 2 year old that is screaming, crying and whining the entire time. I'm surprised we saw anything at all, luckily they got back on the boat quickly and we could hang back and enjoy the nature.
We get back on our sailboat. From Iguana Island we sail our way out to the far side of the reef opposite Grace Bay. It's snorkeling time.
A wide assortment of colourful fish are traveling around a very active coral reef, apparently the coral reef here is rated #3 behind the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and the Belize reef, so now we have snorkeled the top 3! As we float along, a large Manta Ray swims by in the distance, I was too shocked to even try taking a picture. Apparently puffer fish are more my speed. When we get these pictures back I realize I am going to have to get a proper underwater camera, as the colours and life of the reef just don't show up on this camera.
After some quality time in the water away from the screaming kid, we all get back on the boat, the sails are raised, and we sail along some of the smaller islands. Passing several other sailboats, and more of that amazingly blue blue blue water, it's a dog's life.
Our 2nd "Three Hour Tour" has come to an end, and after polishing off a couple glasses of Rum Punch we head back to the marina.
Since we are on vacation we need to do a little shopping, and have a little lunch at a place called Yoshi's Sushi. But first thing we check into an organization that has a shop here called Potcake Place, a rescue and care organization for the Potcake Dogs that we saw so many of on Grand Turk. We seriously considered being a courier for a puppy to bring back to Canada, but the Canadian government will only allow that to happen if the courier is the owner, and 10 hours with a puppy stuffed under our seat just didn't seem like a good idea, never mind what Silva would think of us coming home with a new family member. Instead we made a donation to the organization to help their cause. Our donation would pay for a new litter of 7 puppies to all receive inoculations against disease, it felt good to do something to help.
Every day that we sit on our beach we stare out at a shipwreck on the reef. The owner told us there is a kayak we can use, so we decide this morning that we would kayak out to the shipwreck. After finally finding the kayak hidden in a box behind a sand dune we start our paddle
It was a little windy and choppy, which made the trek a lot more difficult than we expected, but what really surprised us was just how far away it was, and how big the ship really was. Turns out the little ship we see is actually a large freighter almost 2 km off the shore. The ship named Fort Shevchenko was originally from Russia, and was sold in 1999 and renamed La Famille Express. It broke free and ran aground on the reef during Hurricane Frances in 2004, and has been there ever since.
After snorkeling around the ship a little, I climbed back into the kayak, barely avoiding flipping Norine out. With the wind to our backs the row back is much quicker. Of course later that day the water is as flat as can be, would have made sense to go then instead, oh well!
Back on our beach, as we are visiting with another couple from Edmonton, (the beach was packed with all 4 of us 
) a herd of horses comes down the sand, part of a horseback riding tour. It's a little surreal as you are laying in your beach chair and people ride by.
It was our last night in Turks & Caicos, so we decided to splurge and go to a nice resort restaurant. At the Gansevoort Wymara Resort is a restaurant called Bagatelle, it was amazing, the service was above and beyond, and my last lobster of the trip was the best meal of the trip. Full and happy we headed back to our Villa for the last time.
On our last morning we wandered down to our beach for the last time, it was over 30° Celsius (90° Fahrenheit). We had to head to the shade to cool down before heading to the airport for our long flight home. Why exactly were we leaving this place?
Flying from Turks & Caicos to Toronto, it`s sad to see the water change colour back to the dark blue, the clouds start surrounding us, and we land in Toronto with the temperature at freezing. At least when we get to Vancouver it`s above freezing, but of course it`s raining.
The next day we are sitting at a Canucks game in a frozen rink with a sunburn... surreal.
We always have had a rule about never travelling to the same place twice, there is too many places to see, but the beauty of Turks & Caicos and the warmth of the people makes us seriously reconsider that decision.