Damn! Group trivia yesterday was hard! We only got seven out of the sixteen questions! Another team got fifteen. I think they were cheating! And doh! I just remembered that music trivia was tonight; I would have done better at that.
After our embarrassing showing, Mark and I slunk back to our room for a bit. We decided to go up to the Crow’s Nest and found Dan and Alex just getting a game of Phase 10 started. We joined in and played for probably two hours. Alex won. We returned to our rooms to get freshened up and then met at the Lido Market (which is the collective name for all the cafeteria-style walk-up eateries vs. the dining room), but I couldn’t find anything that looked appetizing. When the boys were all finished, we went up one deck to the 24-hour food counters where I got a small pizza. I think all of us agree that the food is not bad but also not earth shatteringly good. The pizza, however, was excellent, as was the spaghetti and meatballs I’d had earlier in the afternoon. I guess they know how to do tomato sauce.
Dan and Alex and James and Tom went to a show last night (Dan and Alex bailed part way through; James and Tom toughed it out to the bitter end), but Mark and I turned in early. Doing nothing is exhausting!
I slept a little better than I did the night before, and we woke to find we’d docked at the port in Grand Turk along with another Holland America ship. They were impressive sitting there side by side.
Onshore, we knew we wanted to go Cockburn’s (“pronounced co-bern”) downtown and then to the lighthouse, but it took some discussion to decide if we were going to take a taxi or rent a golf cart and drive ourselves. We finally settled on the golf cart, but only three of us ended up going. It was quite hot in the sun, and I think it was too uncomfortable for the other members of our group.
I was nominated to be the first driver, and of course, we got very lost. I’m not sure if that was my fault or the fault of my navigator. (I’m looking at you, Alex.) Mark defused the situation when I started getting frustrated by reminding us that we were having fun exploring despite being lost. After all, the island is only seven miles long and one mile wide. How lost could we get, and despite our golf cart being the slowest transportation on the road, we had plenty of time.
Grand Turk is obviously a poor community. We saw a lot of ruined buildings—including the governor’s mansion!—that we are guessing were destroyed by one of the more recent hurricanes and that the residents couldn’t afford to rebuild. From that viewpoint, it’s kind of sad here, but on the other hand, everyone we encountered—including people who were not trying to sell us anything or manning storefronts—was friendly, and we always felt welcome.
We did eventually make it to the lighthouse, which was interesting and located on a beautiful site. Apparently, the north coast of the island where the lighthouse is located has a long, shallow reef that some say has claimed more than 1,000 ships. The local lore is that before the shipping companies and the American government demanded that a lighthouse be built, the islanders took advantage of the numerous shipwrecks by collecting (i.e. stealing) the goods from the crippled ships. A cottage industry of “rescue boats” also grew up on the island to retrieve shipwrecked sailors. Nice work if you can get it.
We made our way from the lighthouse to the downtown, which was also obviously suffering from economic malaise as much as the residential areas. Tourism seems to be their only industry, and someone commented that the island is only now beginning to reopen to tourists after being pummeled by major hurricanes over the last few years. These buildings (part of their tourism office) were not atypical.
As you can see, though, the setting is stunning.
On the road back, we saw a lot of wild donkeys, which were once employed in the salt industry on the island but had been released into the wild when that industry disappeared. One took a particular liking to Alex and his camera. Every time he tried to take her picture, she’d step closer and mess up his focus.
The shops downtown were disappointing, but not surprising particularly; Alex did buy a T-shirt, though. I think the main reason to visit Grand Turk, really, is for the beaches. There’s not a lot to see or do—at least right now—but the beaches are really beautiful.
We made one more pass through the cruise-line-sponsored market area and reboarded the Nieuw Statendam in time for lunch.
In the afternoon, I took a nap while Mark sat on the balcony. When we started to pull away from the dock, I joined him and just watched the water and the shore for a while. We returned to the Crow’s Nest and relearned backgammon, which I’ve been begging him to play with me for years. Of course he won all three games. James popped up as we were finishing our last game, and then the three of us played a few rounds of Mexican Train. Each of us won once.
We returned to the dining room tonight for a dinner of mostly Italian fare and a lot of laughter. Our waiters, Aloysius and Albert, remembered our preferred beveridge’s without needing to ask, which I find very impressive since they’ve only served us once before. Alex has gone off to see the show at the main stage, and the rest of us have retired for the night. Mark is in bed, and I think I’ll turn in too. Tomorrow: Puerto Rico.