Cockburn Harbor, South
Caicos … Thursday 25th – Friday 26th April 2018
We’ve spent the last couple of days catching up on sleep,
doing some boat jobs and exploring the area. The area is interesting with the
sea taking on colors you wouldn’t believe. But it’s also pretty run down. There
are a few derelict boats either alongside the docks or hard aground on the sand
banks. The orange brown colors of their rusting hulls are a spectacular
contrast to the turquoise blue of the water. On land there are a couple of
paved roads and many dirt roads. It’s hot and arid. The only way people survive
here is by generating fresh water by reverse osmosis. It just doesn’t rain
enough here to make rain-water collection enough. The original “prosperity” of
the area was based on the quality of Cockburn Harbor as a port and the ability
to make salt in vast salt flats. Slaves were imported for labor and their
descendants are defined as British overseas territory citizens. They
describe themselves as the “belongers”,
with a recognized status above and beyond the other “residents”. The salt
business is no longer operational, although you can still see the areas where
the work was carried out. It’s hard to tell how important tourism is to the
area. There appear to be some hotel complexes on the Atlantic shore, but we
read that other projects have fallen through as seems to be so often the case
in this part of the world. The whole area took an incredible beating from last
year’s hurricanes, Irma in particular. The majority of housing seems to have
structural damage to a greater or lesser extent. Closer to the shore many
building look to have been completely destroyed leaving piles of rubble and
beams behind. The strange thing is that it doesn’t look like this devastation
is all as recent as last year which makes us wonder whether the area has been
declining for a much longer period. Having said all that, I don’t think I have
been anywhere where the people are as warm and friendly.
Today, after walking around all morning, we returned to the
“Sunset Café” for lunch.
Mike had spicy jerk chicken breast with peas and rice and
coleslaw – it was excellent. Gloria had a fish burger, made with local fresh
fish that was also very good. Yesterday we had bought a couple of snappers off
the fishermen at the docks and cooked them up in the evening – pan fried with
sautéed plantains, mushrooms, peppers and broccoli. Sounds like an odd
combination but we had vegetables we needed to use up and it tasted great!
A couple of comments on the boat systems - we were able to
purchase some diesel so we are in good shape there, but couldn’t buy any water.
So we restarted our water-maker (de-salinator) with some trepidation. When we
last shut it down the filters and some pipes were contaminated with black evil-smelling
bacteria. Obviously, we cleaned and sterilized the system but were concerned
that the “membrane” might also be contaminated and need replacing. Thankfully
it all started up fine and it seems that the fresh water has reasonably low
salinity (~400ppm) and no obnoxious odor or taste.
Well that’s about it for now. Tomorrow we will head out
early and over the next two days make our way across the banks to Providenciales.
Laughing gulls at Government Dock, Cockburn Harbor
Grounded and rusting - I took the dinghy over and scrambled aboard for some colorful photos
The orange brown of the rust is such a contrast to the turquoise blue of the water
Sometimes the clouds in the Turks and Caicos have a strong blue green tint - colored bu the reflections of the water below
Cotinga anchored in ~10feet of water. She desperately needs some scrubbing on the undersides but it hasn't been calm enough in any of the recent anchorages
The pier adjacent to "deep cut" - an easily navigated entry on and off the banks to Cockburn harbor. Although Cockburn Harbor is completely open to the west and north, in practice it's a dead end because the water is too shallow for most boats. he pier and buildings along teh waterfront were devastated by recent hurricanes, Irma in particular
The pier
Waterside building destroyed by the hurricanes
Waterside building destroyed by the hurricanes
Another view of Government Dock at Cockburn Harbor
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