The Turks and Caicos Islands are situated in the Atlantic Ocean. The two island groups are separated by a deep ocean trench, the Turks Islands Passage. The trench is 30 miles wide and over 7,000 feet deep. In the springtime, whales migrate through the Turks Islands Passage. The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI, pronounced /ˈtɝːks əŋ ˈkeɪkəs/) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of two groups of tropical islands in the West Indies, the larger Caicos Islands and the smaller Turks Islands, known for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The Turks and Caicos Islands are situated about 600 miles (970 km) southeast of Miami in the United States, and 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas, and have a total land area of 166 square miles (430 km2). The islands are geographically contiguous to the Bahamas, but are politically a separate entity. The islands have a total population of about 30,000, of whom approximately 22,500 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands. Cockburn Town, the capital, is situated on Grand Turk Island. South Caicos, one of the smallest islands in the Turks and Caicos archipelago, is known for excellent scuba diving, deep sea fishing and bone fishing. South Caicos, located south of the Bahamas, north of Dominican Republic, east of Cuba consists of eight square miles of coral rock. Found in South Caicos are the processing plants, the former Coast Guard Station and The School For Field Studies which is located in the old Admiral’s Arm Inn. Students from abroad come here to study marine and reef ecology. Visitors find South Caicos to be a quiet community of approximately 1200 friendly people with an interesting history and intriguing scenery worth exploring. As recently as 1964, Providenciales (usually called Provo) did not have a single wheeled vehicle. Following in the footsteps of Club Med, the island's first large hotel and casino complex opened in 1990 and touched off a development boom. Provo is now the most tourist-oriented and developed of the Turks and Caicos Islands, boasting many resort hotels and an 18-hole golf course. The island has recently become popular with retirees from around the world, kindling a boom of residential development. Given its recent evolution, the atmosphere is more reminiscent of the Florida Keys than Nassau, with little of the character of other Caribbean isles. The resorts on Providenciales are centered on five mile-long (8km) Grace Bay, with its brilliant white sand and shimmering turquoise waters. Apart from the beaches, Provo's charm lies in its rugged hills and ridges, which are carpeted with prickly pear cactus and scrub. The trump card, however, remains the diving: miles and miles of coral reefs are temptingly close to shore. Provo is also surrounded by uninhabited cays that are easily reached by chartered boat or excursion.
South Caicos waters are pristine and full of sea life including dolphins, manta rays, eagle rays, giant grouper, turtles, a wide variety of sharks and the infamous migrating humpback whales during the winter months January through April each year. Exploring town, Cockburn Harbour is a photographers delight with an abundance of old buildings, walls and gates, old salt warehouses and many colourful boats of many types docked in the harbour. Stop to enjoy local cuisine in any of the little restaurants including Dora's who is famous for her lobster sandwich and Love's for a refreshing but intoxicating coconut rum with a splash of pineapple juice. Nature walks will take you past the old salinas and the boiling hole, miles of non-populated beaches where beachcombing excels, through herds of wild horses and cows and flocks of flamingos, osprey and pelicans. Hike along the ridgeway of the Sail Rock hills ( elevation of 150 feet ) and you will have a spectacular panoramic view Belle Sound, fringing reefs, the Turks Island Passage and the bonefish flats of the Caicos Bank. South Caicos also known as , "East Habour" , "The Rock" and "Big South" has the most protected and finest natural harbour of all the islands, Cockburn Harbour, once a hideout for the infamous Caribbean pirates and bustling port for a thriving salt industry. At the turn of the Century, South Caicos shipped the most salt of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Divers can see the granite ballast that was thrown overboard to lighten the ships as they approached the harbour to pick up their loads. Today the once famous port and township of Cockburn Harbour makes it's living from fishing, conch and lobster. The Turks and Caicos Islands have been documented by H.E. Sadler who spent years of research writing this delightful, easily read history book filled with colorful pictures and fascinating history capsules. For students of history, residents and visitors to the Islands, this work is a revealing and authoritative account of the Turks and Caicos Islands from the earliest times to the present and and indispensable tool for further study or research on these Islands. Grand Turk is a treeless, brush-covered, bean-shaped dot of an isle, just 6.5 miles (10.5km) long and 1.5 miles (2.4km) wide. Grand Turks is dominated in the middle by several salinas, or salt ponds, often odoriferous reminders that `white gold' was the island's most important industry until its collapse in 1962. There are nice beaches on Grand Turk at Cockburn Town, Waterloo and White Sands Beach. Cockburn Town, the sole settlement on Grand Turk, has been the administrative and political capital of the archipelago for more than 400 years. Today it also claims to be the business and financial center, yet it remains as sleepy a Caribbean capital as they come. There are only two main streets, smothered in sand, trod by an occasional donkey and lined with pastel-painted colonial buildings. Downtown Grand Turk has many Bermuda-style wooden houses erected by the wealthy Bermudian expatriate society that once dominated the salt trade. The waterfront on Grand Turk has the best sights in Cockburn Town, including historic Turks and Caicos Islands government buildings surrounding a small plaza where a Columbus Monument claims cheekily that the explorer landed here in 1492. Nearby, four large cannons point to sea, where a nearby coral reef is protected within the Columbus Landfall National Park. It's worth nipping into the General Post Office to admire the Turks and Caicos Islands Philatelic Bureau's beautiful stamps, for which the Turks & Caicos are justly famous. The Turks and Caicos Islands National Museum displays eclectic miscellany such as exhumed shell tools, beads, stamps, locks, and greenstone celts. The museum's central exhibit is the remains of the Molasses Reef, the oldest authenticated shipwreck in the Americas.
The easternmost and smallest Caicos island, South Caicos, 22 miles (35km) west of Grand Turk, is an arid wasteland of scrub and sand-blasted streets roamed by wild horses and donkeys. The big attraction is scuba diving: a reef with a plummeting wall runs the length of the eastern coast. Cockburn Harbour, the only town, is a rough-edged place with a somewhat sullen population and a rakishly appealing down-in-the-dumps shantytown feel. Corrugated-tin-and-driftwood shacks are interspersed amid modern bungalows and handsome, albeit weathered, colonial-era wooden structures left from the salt-trade era. Most historic buildings are at the southeastern end of town, centered on the old Wesleyan Church. The harbor is the perfect spot to launch across the 40-mile-wide (64km) Caicos bank in search of bonefish. Birders should check out the flamingos which inhabit the vast salinas on the northeastern edge of town. Much of the island is within the Admiral Cockburn Land & Sea Park, north and east of Cockburn Harbour. It encompasses the Sail Rock Hills, a ridge extending along the panhandle and rising to a giddy 178 feet (54m). The hills offer spectacular views east over the Turks Island Passage and west over Belle Sound, a vast turquoise bay opening to the flats of the Caicos Bank. The reserve extends west for about 4 miles (6.5km) , protecting the mangroves, bonefish flats and coral reefs. The only town, sprawling, soulless namesake Providenciales, sits in the middle of the island. Most of the island's services are here, including snazzy shopping malls. There are also pockets of makeshift shacks - the homes of Haitians - interspersed among the more upscale residences. Opportunities for sightseeing are slim, though history buffs might check out the ruins of Cheshire Hall, a 1790s plantation house constructed by British loyalists.
