Pirates Hideaway on Salt Cay

There is a secluded oasis on Salt Cay and when the Seas are rough for swimming we feel lucky to be able to go to Pirates Hideaway and enjoy the beautiful pool. Yesterday, I hopped on my bike with towel, water bottle and camera to ride South on Victoria Street to Candy's (aka Pirates Hideaway). The other ladies were already there when I arrived relaxing on the Salt Cay chairs and discussing New Year's Eve plans.

The pool is surrounded by beautiful tropical plants and is a refreshing change from the salt water. Don't get me wrong... the beach is my preference - but on windy, rough days it feels so luxurious to lounge around this beautiful crystal clear water and take a dip when it gets hot!

With butterflies flitting about and birds chirping in the trees, it's easy to lose yourself for a few hours of true relaxation.Pirates Hideaway is the only place on Salt Cay with a papaya tree and look at the fruit... it will be a few more weeks before these are ripe and I'm hoping that I'll get a bite or two!

There is another reason for our visit to Candy's lovely pool oasis... yesterday, December 30th was Debbie (Salt Cay Divers) birthday! Happy Birthday Debbie. :0)

The Osprey of Salt Cay

Salt Cay has been home to many osprey over the years. They have nested in many places on the island... on North Beach using abandoned telephone poles as nesting platforms, on the hurricane damaged communications tower on the West side of the island, on the old windmills in the middle of the Salt Cay main salinas and the latest spot is one of the new platforms built last year on the Southeast side of the island by South Creek.

In March 2009, two new osprey platforms were erected... one toward the North of the Creek and one toward the South of the Creek. And the wait began. The platforms are spread out enough to allow for three families of osprey on Salt Cay.

We took a ride down yesterday and the osprey are there!! As we drove up, the mother was sitting in a bush near the water close to the nest as the father osprey flew in with a fish for the two baby osprey.

The 2010 osprey family has choosen the pole toward the South of the Creek and there are currently two babies in the nest. I was not able to get close enough to take a picture of them, but Mama Osprey obviously loves the spot and feels very relaxed there. She just sat in her bush watching us.

Approaching the pole to try to get a picture of the little ones, the Father Osprey started to screech at us. We took the hint and left without bothering them.

When the osprey nested in the Salinas we loved to watch them fly over the house as they fished and fed their family. But, my lord are the baby osprey loud when they are out of the nest and calling to their parents!

Now we are able to watch as they fly over the island on their way South to feed their growing family and with luck the babies will be screeching a little further away once they start flying.

Another Day in Paradise

It may be a little cloudy on Salt Cay the past few days and we've had a bunch of rain since we arrived last Monday... but that's perfect - nice to come from 20 degrees to overcast and "cool" 70-75 with the trade winds blowing. We spent the first few days cleaning and opening the house, hooking up the solar hot water heater and washing clothes. Darned mice came in the house while we were gone and left little piles of sea grape seeds everywhere! Have not had that problem before!

Mike's taken the boat to Grand Turk today to see if we can get the DSL turned on at our house so that I can actually have internet there! What a treat that will be although I will miss my morning trips to Porter's Island Thyme or Debbie's Coral Reef Bar & Grill, but it will be nice to be able to have more time to sit and work on this blog and other projects.

We took a trip down to South Creek to check out the osprey nest yesterday but I can't upload the pictures until tomorrow... so watch for Salt Cay osprey report coming soon!

Salt Cay... you can get there from anywhere

When we left Salt Cay in May, there were very limited options to get to, or leave the island. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got ahold of a schedule of airlines and flight times!! Since I started this blog, I've had a lot of people contact me about Salt Cay as their next island vacation spot... and I refer them to http://www.saltcay.org/ for lots of info!

Caicos Express: New to the airline business in the Turks and Caicos Islands, residents have been happy with their service and consistent operation. We'll be trying them if the scheduling works out and have good things about them!
Agent: Patrice 649-243-0237.
Mondays: PLS-SLX 6:30AM, SLX-GDT-PLS 7:00 AM
Wednesdays: PLS-SLX 3:15 PM, SLX-GDT-PLS 4:00 PM
Fridays: PLS-SLX 7:30 AM, SLX-GDT-PLS 8:00 AM, PLS-SLX 3:15 PM, SLX-GDT-PLS 4:00 PM

Air Turks and Caicos: This airline is on again, off again... and apparently on again. They have upgraded their internet service to provide for purchase of e-tickets but I have no reports on how well that works yet... (as as of the middle of July I cannot recommend them at all!)
Agent: Debbie Been: 649-241-1009.

Global Airways: Airline charter service from PLS-SLX-PLS whenever you wish to fly. We've used them many times over the years and Lindsey always does a great job! If you want to be sure to get there from anywhere, fly Global.
Agent/Owner: Lindsey Gardner global@tciway.tc.

Into the Water on Salt Cay

Yesterday was one of the last, lazy days. We are going to be leaving Salt Cay next Wednesday and like to spend a few days just relaxing. I was sitting in my hammock chair reading a book after lunch - well, I was reading and spending time just looking out at all the colors of the Sea and Sky. There was a bit of a breeze, but not bad. I took a break from taking a break...

And I went kayaking!

Just a short paddle down to the Lighthouse Cliff and back. It was wonderful. Just in front of the Salt Cay Harbor a turtle was swimming on the surface. She popped under the water as I came closer. I stopped for a bit to see if she would come back up, but she was off somewhere else so I continued my paddle North.

It was about a 45 minute paddle all together. A little bright in the middle of the day, but well worth the time. I'll be going out again this afternoon. Last year I was able to kayak around the entire island of Salt Cay (in a little over 2-1/2 hours) on a calm day, but we just haven't had any days calm enough to do it this year (and without Mike's boat in the water to check on my progress, I don't want to try it).

Ahhhhh, it was a great afternoon. Mike took pictures from the beach deck as I pulled in after my paddle. Then - into the water for a swim and float about. Wonderful.

Out of the Water on Salt Cay

On Wednesday, the last day of April, it was time to take Mike's boat out of the water. Mike's homemade Salt Cay Dump boat trailer made it's maiden road trip to the harbor. We were a little concerned that with the weight of the boat (approximately 700 pounds) and the weight of the trailer (approximately 400 pounds) our little buggy might not be able to pull the boat out.

A few years ago, Mike watched (and laughed) as Nathan Smith - aka Teddy - tried to pull a boat out of the harbor with his truck and the truck roll into the harbor. It's not a laughing matter - Mike and others jumped to Nathan's rescue that day. But this day, Mike was hoping that he wouldn't have that problem!

Our friend, Paul Corti, helped Mike move the boat around from the dock to load it onto the trailer. All was going smoothly! The seas are calm, the tide is high, the sun is out and there weren't alot of other people around...

Once the boat was pulled onto a little bit onto the trailer, Paul disconnected the rope, connected the wench line and started cranking. It was quick and easy. Mike jumped out of the boat the make the final adjustments to the boat and was ready to haul the boat and trailer out of the water.

Mike hopped into the buggy, I crossed my fingers hoping the boat, trailer and buggy did not go backwards into the harbor (Mike told me later that he wasn't really worried about that and knew it would be okay - hah, thanks!)

He didn't roll backwards into the water, but the buggy just wasn't heavy enough to pull the boat and trailer out. Barber Selver had been sitting by the dock in his white truck watching the whole thing and as Mike spun his wheels, Barber pulled the truck around to the boat launch and got ready to pull.

After hooking the rope on to the back of the truck, it was a breeze! It took about 2 minutes to pull the trailer and boat out of the harbor. What luck that Barber was there or we would have had to go find someone to help. And even though Mike said there was no chance of the buggy rolling backwards into the harbor, I was really relieved!


The buggy towed the boat and trailer home without a problem and Mike got ready to put the boat away. He knew there was a leak somewhere so he took all the floor boards out of the boat, washed the boat, found the leak and will be prepared to fix the leak and put in new floor boards when we return.

It took the rest of the day to get everything out of the boat and ready to "put away" until we return. We leave Salt Cay next week, I'm not ready. But then, I'm never ready to leave the island.

P.S. Did I mention that Mike decided to name the boat "the Tub" as in "rub-a-dub-dub-tub"? He just didn't think the boat felt like SalVage. :0)

Salt Cay Soldier Crabs

I think we may have found the smallest soldier crab (aka hermit crab) on the island of Salt Cay! This little hermie is so small it was not even curling up when Mike picked it up but kept crawling around all over his hands.
And this little guy was quick! The first couple of photos I tried to get were blurred because he just kept scooting around from one hand to the next. Salt Cay's smallest soldier crab is about the size of 1/2 of my baby fingernail! Amazing

From Widipedia -- "There are approximately 15 terrestrial species in the world, and of those, the following are commonly kept as pets: Caribbean hermit crab, Coenobita clypeatus, and the Ecuadorian hermit crab, Coenobita compressus. Other species such as Coenobita brevamanus, Coenobita rugosus, Coenobita perlatus or Coenobita cavipes are less common but growing in availability and popularity as pets. In certain regions of the Caribbean, such as Jamaica and the Florida Keys, hermit crabs are commonly used in a sport known as crab racing, where they are placed in the center of a ring and whichever crab reaches the outside of the ring first wins."

Salt Cay has some great hermit crab races! None this year, but with luck next year we'll be able to do a few races. The hermit crab races were used as fund raisers for the Balfour Town Public Library on Salt Cay about five years ago and for other community projects too. Lots of fun!!

If you're ever on Salt Cay when we have hermit crab races, be sure to ask for Soldier Crabs from Mike & Ann! This is a picture over our north fence of just a few of the hundreds of soldier crabs in our "stables"!