Providenciales - Turks & Caicos

The Beach at Taylor Bay

The bay itself is close to a mile long and is extraordinarily shallow for hundreds of yards out allowing young children to a great place to play and splash in the water with our risk of deep water or waves. As well there are some good shells and starfish there to be found. However, getting to Taylor Bay can be very hard if you don’t know how to get there- there are no signs and it is not marked.

Taylor Bay Location

Click here for Directions to Taylor Bay

The last time I visited I visited the Turks and Cacios was in 2005 .    I was too busy taking in the sun and sand on the beach and never made it the Conch Farm… Next time!

Read more about the Conch Farm here

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands – November 30, 2009

The Sixth Annual Turks and Caicos Conch Festival attracted record crowds of conch lovers and fun seekers to its scenic Blue Hills venue Saturday November 28. The event featured a variety of music, live entertainment, a celebrity appearance by world heavyweight boxing champ Michael Moorer, conch knocking and blowing contests and the showcase event – the restaurant conch-e-tition, which saw 25 restaurants compete and some new champions crowned in the competition to come up with the tastiest and most creative conch dishes.

The Saturday afternoon festivities were part of a weekend filled with events, including a special Conch Festival pre-party at The Somerset Friday evening that featured a special Jazz on the Lawn concert. Sunday morning, nearly 100 runners took the streets of Provo in the first annual Wrigthfully Fit Charity Run, with proceeds going to the Provo Children’s Home.

“It was a great Conch Festival and a great weekend. The weather cooperated, people showed up in record numbers, and we had tremendous support from all the restaurants, hotels and local businesses. It’s a true community event that we should all be proud of,” said Conch Festival president Mike Sottak. “The mix of people and the energy were both at an all time high, and it’s great to see the whole weekend really becoming a signature event for the Turks and Caicos for both tourists and residents.”

Entertainment highlights included the Haitian Brass Marching Band kicking of the festivities, followed by The Five Cays Under The Tree Ripsaw Band. An appearance by 3-time world heavyweight boxing champ Michael Moorer thrilled the crowds, and things reached a fever pitch during the conch knocking contest that pitted the island’s best conch fishermen in a head to head battle. Tanker’s Junk-a-Noo then thrilled the on-lookers as they danced merrily in the streets of Blue Hills as the sun set.

Read more about the Conch Festival here at the Conch Festival News site.

A Turks and Caicos tradition continues on November 27-28 with the 6th Annual Conch Festival. This year there is a full line-up of events and activities to celebrate the islands’ most famous delicacy, historical icon, and number one export. The popular beachside event will take place on Saturday afternoon, November 28, in the Blue Hills area of Providenciales. The marquee event of the weekend is the ‘conch-etition’, which pits the island’s best chefs against each other in a hotly-contested tasting competition judged by a panel of experts as well as the Festival attendees. More than 25 restaurants are expected to compete for the cash prizes and bragging rights this year and an entry fee of $20 gives Festival-goers a chance to sample all the dishes entered and cast a vote for Best in Show.

Read more about the Conch Festival here at the Turks and Caicos Official Tourism Blog site.

World-famous for its beaches, Turks and Caicos is one of the Caribbean’s hot new destinations. And one of the most popular vacation rentals in Turks & Caicos is Sunset Point Oceanfront Villa.

Located on the shores of the beautiful Caribbean island of Providenciales just south of The Bahamas, Sunset Point Villa is available for vacation and holiday rental all year-round.

Providenciales is an island in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The island has an area of 98 km² (38 sq mi) and a population of 30,542, making it the largest island in population and the third largest in area. It is served by the Providenciales International Airport.  It is home to the only conch farm in the world.

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 (8 km) 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.

The only town, sprawling, namesake Providenciales, sits in the middle of the island. Most of the island’s services are here, including upscale shopping malls. There are also pockets of makeshift shacks 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.

The western half of Provo is mostly barren wilderness, home to the island’s best natural attraction, Chalk Sound National Park. The park is a three-mile-long (5 km) bay a few miles southwest of Downtown Providenciales. The color of the water is a uniform turquoise and studded with countless mushroom-like tiny islets. Also on the western part of the island is Northwest Point Marine National Park, which extends to nearby reefs and several saline lakes that attract breeding and migrant waterfowl.

More at   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providenciales