The Admiral’s Aquarium South Caicos

On the morning of Thursday 24 January we decided that we needed to move BV to a more sheltered anchorage.  In her current position, just off the town quays, BV was already being pushed around too much by the wind and waves and, knowing that the wind was going to start blowing directly in through the entrance to the harbour, we decided to investigate a much shallower area on the southern side of Cockburn Harbour.  We did the tidal calculations and felt that at 0900hrs we could make it in on a rising tide so that, should we run aground, we should be able to get off again and retreat back to the main harbour area without any further dramas.  It would have been nice to have left our move until the sun was a little bit higher in the sky for better visibility of shallows and coral heads but, as King Canute knew, the tide waits for no man.  A 0900hrs move it was.

Our new anchorage in Bermudian harbour. Top: to the right of the picture is Long Cay, in the centre (barely visible) is the entrance to Cockburn Harbour and to the left is the town.  Bottom: Cockburn Harbour town is clearly visible ¾nm away

The clouds had cleared and so we had beautiful weather to pick our way past the coral to get into Bermudian Harbour. Here we anchored in a slightly deeper pool (2½ metres) in a large sandy area.  The sandy bottom meant quiet nights without the anchor chain graunching on rocks as it had done off the town (where the bottom is mostly rock with some sand patches) and, of course, it made for beautiful sea colours.

The sort of sea colour you think of when you imagine the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas

Aside from avoiding the swell working its way into the main part of Cockburn Harbour, our new anchorage put us right beside an area marked on our chart as the ‘Admiral’s Aquarium’.  We were sure that there was good snorkelling to be had there and, after a couple of days of admin and maintenance tasks, we were ready to take advantage of the sunny weather, even if the winds had not yet abated.

Top left: Blue tang and Sergeant major. Top right: Parrotfish and Blue chromis. Bottom left:  Spider crab hiding under a rocky outcrop.  Bottom right: Black durgon and French grunt

We saw huge schools of small reef fish. Here Blue chromis and Frencg grunts predominate with a larger Bluestriped grunt (centre above the foreground coral head) and a Bluehead wrasse (left, with white stripe just behind its head)

The Admiral’s Aquarium lived up to its name and was teeming with fish.

Sergeant majors and a Black durgon

And the water was beautifully clear; we could see at least 50 metres.

Octopus!!

As well as seeing more different varieties of reef fish than we could count, we were also lucky enough to see an octopus out in the open.  They normally hide in rocky crevices but this one didn’t seem too bothered by us snorkelling past.  We stayed far enough away to not disturb him but close enough to get some great pictures.

We saw lots of conch shells on the seabed.  Nicky picked one up to see if the conch were still alive or if the shell had just been discarded here by an enthusiastic conch fisherman.  This one is still alive (see the tip of the animal in the centre of the shell) so, presumably, the other shells still housed their conchs

Conch fishing is one of the key local industries now and we saw lots of them on the sandy seabed.  They are pretty drab from above but lifting one carefully revealed the lovely pink colours on the inside of the shell.

Despite the shallow entrance, the move across to anchor in Bermudian Harbour for a bit of snorkelling was a sound decision. The Admiral’s Aquarium was just excellent….

The entrance to Cockburn Harbour (above) looking from our position in Bermudian Harbour (below)

… and, as the wind continued to blow throughout Thursday, we appreciated the significantly better shelter in Bermudian Harbour.  The anchorage is situated just to the north of Long Cay and angle of the cay gave us protection from the wind and seemed to stop the swell that was making Cockburn Harbour uncomfortable getting to us.   A glance across to the motor yacht still anchored off the town, rolling about all over the place, further confirmed that we were in the right place.

But, as beautiful as Bermudian Harbour is, we had already used up 4 of our 7 days’ clearance to visit the islands so we wanted to be moving on as soon as we could.  A study of the weather charts showed that Friday 25 January offered that option.  The wind would still be coming from the east but was forecast to be significantly less. So, if we were up for a long beat directly into wind, we could make it across to Grand Turk, 30 miles to the east, before our 7 day limit was up.

The Admiral’s Aquarium, Bermudian Harbour, South Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands