They call themselves “The Belongers.” As in they belong in the
Turks & Caicos Islands because they were born and bred there, or have lived
there long enough so that nowhere else is home. And they call the “they comin’” people “points of light.” As in tourists coming in on planes seen in
the distant sky as points of light approaching the “T&C” island chain that
is a British territory in the British West Indies just beyond the
southernmost Bahamas.
But to begin at the beginning, or close to it: Time was when very few people
had ever heard of the British Crown Colony that is T&C. And the local
tourist board’s advertising slogan was: “Where on earth are the Turks &
Caicos?!”
That was then – and that then was around 25 years ago. When few people knew
T&C sits at the southeastern end of the Bahamas archipelago.
In those days a quarter of a century ago, there were only a handful of
simple inns dotting the island’s unspoiled shoreline, along with several
dozen private vacation homes and a few apartments available for rental. And
no commercial airlines flew to T&C, the most common form of transport being
a charter plane from Miami.
But slowly, ever so slowly, the cognoscenti began discovering T&C, as did
the major airlines, as Columbus did over 400 years ago when he first set
foot in the New World on what many believe is modern day Grand Turk.
Gradually the true cognoscenti discovered that T&C may well have the most
beautiful beaches in the world.
T&C may also arguably have the loveliest aquamarine seawater this side of a
watercolor or oil painting. It also has the most extensive National Parks
system in the Caribbean, with 33 protected areas covering 325 square miles.
And it is just slightly more than three hours from New York, and around
one-and-a-half hours from Miami with major airlines now offering non-stop
flights to Provo, which is what the real cognoscenti call Providenciales,
the main port of entry
All of which helps explain why T&C looms as the emerging “in” destination
because of its proximity to the East Coast of the U.S., a perk many other
Caribbean Islands cannot offer.
That “string” first attracted seagoing Europowers who wiped out the
Amerindian population by the mid-16th century but never settled there
because there wasn’t much there to settle. Pirates plied T&C waters until
the 1800s while Bermudian salt rakers prospered and were joined by Loyalist
exiles fleeing the U.S. colonies. When the exiles tried and failed to grown
cotton, they left their slaves behind to live off the sea.
Today T&C is a British crown colony of more than 40 islands and cays, only
six of which are inhabited. But they offer a wide variety of accommodations
for tourists, including world-class
vacation villas such as those offered by
WIMCO.
