Times of the Islands Summer 2021

CAL’s second plane was a Twin Bonanza. This photo was taken on Providenciales when the airstrip was only 700 feet long.
Provident Limited. With two pilots available, Fritz, Embry
and Lew sat down to figure out how Caicos Airways Ltd.
was going to operate.
There were two airplanes available. The Cessna 180
that belonged to Kris Ludington carried one pilot and three
passengers. There was also a Beechcraft Twin Bonanza
with room for one pilot plus five passengers. Embry lived
This is a 1969 aerial photo of the airstrip on North Caicos. It was
located on a tidal flat just south of Kew. Heavy rain or high tides
made it unusable.
in South Caicos where there was a very good runway.
Grand Turk had the downtown strip, Providenciales had
the 1,200-foot strip, but there was nowhere to land on
North nor Middle Caicos.
Embry and Lew went to work and found some locations
that could be used as airstrips. On North Caicos
they picked a spot on the tidal flats just south of Kew.
Most of the time this strip had a smooth and hard surface,
but heavy rain or extremely high tides would make
it unusable. On Middle Caicos they picked two places.
One was just east of Conch Bar. In those days there was
a footpath between Conch Bar and Bambarra named
Anderson Road. They arranged to have some bush cut
and made one section of the path wider. The second strip
was between Bambarra and the beach just north of the
settlement. This strip was truly unique because it had a
dogleg. As the pilot was gaining speed on takeoff, he had
to slightly change direction!
As soon as CAL was up and running it also became
the mail carrier for the government. Earlier, the mail
on Providenciales arrived from Grand Turk via the boat
Donna Casilda captained by Algernon Dean, who had the
contract with the government. According to Algernon
Dean’s son (with the same name), the mail was supposed
to be delivered every two weeks but sometimes
got delayed. The “Post Office” on Providenciales was the
living room of the Brown’s house in Blue Hills. This was
located just east of the government school, rest house
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