Cockburn Harbour, South Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands

South Caicos is a very flat island with highest ground at just 125ft.  All of the Turks and Caicos Islands were badly damaged when the 2017 hurricanes hit and South Caicos is clearly still struggling with the after-effects.  It meant that the Customs and Immigration officers were in very different places to that shown on our map; presumably moved to new premises because the original ones were uninhabitable.  It So, it was a bit of a mystery trek for us with regular stops to ask for help and directions.  But everyone we spoke to was very friendly and helpful and eventually we found the Customs office having seen quite a lot of the town on the way.

The standard entry fee is US$50 to arrive, and when you clear out you pay a further US$50, For that, Customs allows temporary importation of your yacht for up to 7 days (your arrival day counts as one of those and you have to leave on the 7^thday ie no 24hrs window to depart).  If you want to stay longer you can extend your stay up to 90 days but this costs a total of US$300.  The strong winds were not going to to help us see much of the islands in 7 days but we decided that paying US$300 was just not economic for us for an extra couple of days.  So, we paid the arrival fee for a 7 day stay and then set off on another trek to find the Immigration office.

The Immigration office was even harder to find but we got there in the end, filled out the forms and got our passports stamped; Immigration were happy for us to stay for 90 days so it was the Customs office regulations (and costs!) that restricted us.  Leaving Immigration, we walked past the highest point of land and so diverted a short distance to see the views.  All around was evidence of damage from the 2017 hurricanes.  We had already seen that the harbour had been bashed about and the small marina there destroyed.  Here, on the high ground, we could see lots of buildings still with tarpaulins for roofs and lying close by the telecoms mast were 3 or 4 communication dishes mangled by the winds.  That part of the infrastructure had been repaired and the communications tower had had replacements fitted; we found the mobile phone signal voice and data signals to be excellent.

The salt pans – now disused

From our elevated vantage point [Ed: all of about 100ft above sea level!] we could also see across the saltpans area.  In the past, South Caicos was very well placed from an economic viewpoint.  The salt pans produced a lot of salt and the island also had (and still has) the best natural harbour in the area.  Today the salinas and salt pans are disused but are home to lots of large wading birds such as herons, egrets and at times flamingos.

View out onto the Caicos Bank, with a wrecked vessel in the mid-ground

Walking back down from the high ground towards the harbour area we had great views out across the shallow ‘Bank’. The Turks and Caicos Islands are shaped like a huge atoll with a bank of beautiful turquoise shallow water in the centre.  There are marked transit routes across the bank where the water is deepest and there are fewest coral heads.  Even so, you still need to navigate with care and keep a sharp lookout for the coral. The routes are deep enough for us to use to cross the bank to get to the northern island of Providenciales.  It’s about 50nm from S Caicos to ‘Provo’ so to avoid travelling with the sun too low in the sky most yachts make it a 2-day passage with a night spent at anchor in the middle of the Bank.  We had hoped to do just that but the passage really needs good sunlight to help pick out the shallows and coral heads.  Unfortunately, we were just not going to have the right conditions for that sort of eyeball piloting and the strong winds would also pick up enough waves to make seeing through the water very difficult (even if the light were good enough).  We were also concerned that the waves might be so big that they would bounce us up and down enough to bump on the seabed.  So, a trip across the beautifully clear turquoise waters of the Bank will have to wait until our next visit.

The storm clouds started to roll in just as we finished our short trip ashore

Back at the port we bought a loaf of bread and 3 green peppers and found our wallet was US$11 lighter; food is expensive over here!  We returned to BV just before the storm clouds really started to roll in, heralding the arrival of the weather front that would trap us here for several days. We had completed our passage to get here just in time!  In anticipation of the poor weather and winds from a different direction to those we had had on arrival, Nicky dived on the anchor to check it was fully dug in; the holding is reported to be patchy here. The anchor was reasonably well set in sand, so we let out some more chain and braced ourselves for a windy night.

The red arrow shows our location.  The wind arrows show 20-25 knots from the ENE but you usually need to add 5 knots to GriB file forecasts to get an accurate wind prediction

We spent 3 nights in Cockburn Harbour with the wind blowing at 25-30 knots, initially from the ENE but then veering around to the east.

We shared the harbour with one other visiting yacht and for most of the time we had surprisingly good shelter.  When the wind was from the ENE the island provided an excellent wave-break and our first night at anchor was very relaxed, even though the wind was howling in the rigging.  As the wind became more easterly, the waves started to creep into the harbour through the gap between S Caicos and Dove Cay, despite the reef just outside the gap.  BV nodded up and down and, since there is a fairly strong tidal flow, for quite a lot of the time we sat at an angle to the wind with a bit of roll.  It wasn’t bad but we would have been uncomfortable leaving BV unattended at anchor [Ed: and, besides, getting the engine onto the dinghy would have been a significant challenge] so we spent the time tackling our list of admin jobs and getting the blog up to date.

On Thursday 24 January the forecast was for the wind to veer further to the southeast.  This really wasn’t good for us because it would be blowing directly through the mouth of the harbour, generating an uncomfortably large sea; it was time to consider moving to a more sheltered location.

Cockburn Harbour, South Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands