Before we visited Grand Turk on a 7-Day Eastern Caribbean cruise on Holland America’s ms Zuiderdam, I did some research on the Turks and Caicos Islands. We’d visited Grand Turk several times before on other cruises, but had never left the 18-acre cruise port developed by Carnival Corporation.
After writing this post: 33 Fun Facts About Turks and Caicos Islands, I really wanted to explore Grand Turk Island beyond the cruise port.
Not that staying in the Grand Turk Cruise Port is a bad thing. The port has a beautiful beach, a lagoon-style swimming pool, duty-free shopping, a NASA exhibit, and the largest Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville in the Caribbean.
We headed to the port’s taxi station. Taxis are all shared vans, delivering passengers on a set per person fare, depending on where you are traveling to on Grand Turk Island. We wanted to head to Cockburn Town, the historic downtown and capital of the Turks & Caicos Islands. This was a $5 per person fare. Although there were plenty of waiting taxis, the dispatcher made us wait about 15 minutes until the van was fairly full of customers.
One of the destinations of interest was the Turks & Caicos National Museum, along the waterfront in Cockburn Town. It is open every day there is a cruise ship in port and admission is $5 U.S. per person.
While the building appears small, the museum is filled with interesting exhibits. The most notable is the collection of artifacts from the oldest excavated European shipwreck in the Northern Hemisphere (circa about 1513) was found off West Caicos on Molasses Reef. Shortly after you enter the museum, you are shown a video that details the discovery, made in the late seventies.
In addition to artifacts from oldest shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere, the Turks & Caicos National Museum contains self-guided exhibits on the islands original Lucayan residents and Grand Turk’s famous lighthouse built to protect its salt trade which was threatened by shipwrecks on the surrounding reefs.
The Turks and Caicos Islands have the third largest barrier reef system in the world and several of the world’s top dive sites. Divers explored the area for sunken treasures much earlier than the 1970’s, which is explained in the helmet or “hard hat” dive exhibit.
On the museum’s second floor, in a back room, you learn why this flag with an igloo represented the Turks & Caicos Islands for 99 years.
From 1952 to 1984, the United States maintained a missile tracking station on Grand Turk, used by NASA during the early days of the American space program. On February 20, 1962, after orbiting the earth three times in his Mercury “Friendship 7” spacecraft, American astronaut John Glenn splashed down in the ocean near Grand Turk Island. This history is covered in the museum’s displays.
While all of the exhibits are interesting, the best thing about the museum is Nikki, who not only runs the small gift shop, but can answer all of your questions about what it’s like to live on Grand Turk.
After the museum, we headed down the street and found John’s Ocean View Bar. Edith (in the photo above at the far right) runs the bar and restaurant, but keeps her father’s name on the establishment. The conch fritters were sizzling and the Wi-Fi was free for customers.
It was the perfect spot for me and Mr. Jones to try the local Turk’s Head beer, and check our email while enjoying the blue ocean view. Across the street, we heard the slamming of dominoes during an intense game among a group of local residents.
Cooled off, with our thirsts quenched, we flagged on of the passing taxi vans for a ride back to the cruise ship terminal. We joined a taxi that a group had hired to travel around the entire island, with a very personable and talkative driver. Our ride back was the same $5 per person fare.
We didn’t see was the lighthouse at the far end of the Grand Turk Island, but we were glad that we ventured outside of the cruise port.
Have you visited Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos Islands? What did you most enjoy while there? Please share in comments below.
Other posts related to our Eastern Caribbean cruise on Holland America:
- 18 Fun Facts About Half Moon Cay, Bahamas
- All of the “Fine Print” Details of Holland America’s Signature Beverage Package
- The New Pinnacle Grill Lunch Menu on Holland America
- 5 Steps to Faster Disembarkation from a Holland America Cruise Ship
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