Monday Dec 8, 2025
Hi Folks! The word of the day is WOW! It’s so beautiful here you can’t stop saying WOW when you look around this beautiful island. And being sunny and 82 again, is not too shabby. It’s another day in paradise!Today we are docked in Grand Turk, which is an island in the archipelago of Turks and Caicos. Grand Turk is relatively small at
7 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. It has a population of 5,000 people but there’s only 45,000 people in all the islands within Turks & Caicos. Salt and tourism are the two main industries on the island.
There are two interesting historical tidbits here. John Glenn splashed down near Grand Turk on Feb 20, 1962 in the Mercury Capsule Friendship 7 after circling the earth three times. They have a life size replica of that capsule on display within a traffic circle.
The Grand Turk lighthouse is 60 feet high and stands at the highest point of the island. It was built in 1852 in England and brought here in 1853. The only other lighthouse exactly like this is in Bermuda. And this is the only lighthouse in the Turks & Caicos islands.
While it is a lovely island, since we were here earlier this year and pretty much did the whole island (since it’s small), we decided to get off the boat in the morning, walk around the port and get back on board for lunch. And there was a huge Carnival ship docked next to our little Zuiderdam!
In the afternoon we got some sun and laid by the pool. It was hot! And then before dinner time they had a nice Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. They gave out hot cocoa and cookies and we got to throw some of the “snow flakes” into the Atrium. That got us in the festive spirit! Ho Ho Ho! Happy Monday to all! I’ll do another update tonight after dinner.
PS: We actually started getting into the Christmas spirit last night when after I posted my update, our room steward left us a towel “animal” in the shape of a Christmas tree. I included a pic!
The Wandering Italian 