Times of the Islands Fall 2021

TIMES
OF THE
SAMPLING THE SOUL OF THE TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS FALL 2021 NO. 136
ISLANDS
PIRATE ATTACK
Epic battle off West Caicos
NOT A POT TO COOK IN
Meal prep Taíno-style
GOING FOR GOLD
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contents
Departments
6 From the Editor
17 Looking Back to Look Ahead
The Natural World
By Diane Taylor
22 Talking Taíno
Not a Pot to “Cook” In
By Bill Keegan, Betsy Carlson, Michael Pateman
and Lindsay Bloch
47 Poetry
Summer in the Turks & Caicos Islands
By David P. Carroll ~ Photo By Marta Morton
64 Business
Striving for Gold
By Kathy Borsuk
77 About the Islands/TCI Map
80 Subscription Form
82 Classified Ads
Features
30 Pearls of the Sea
Story & Photos By Kelly Currington
48 Pirate Attack!
By Ben Stubenberg
Green Pages
37 Here with a Roar!
By Ben Farmer, SFS
42 If Rocks Could Talk . . .
By Carmen Hoyt, SFS
Astrolabe
70 Small Island, Big History
By Dr. Carlton Mills & Debby-Lee Mills
TIMES
OF THE
ISLANDS
SAMPLING THE SOUL OF THE TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS FALL 2021 NO. 136
On the Cover
Agile LeVin—photographer, explorer and chronicler of
everything TCI on his website www.visittci.com—took
this drone photo of the multi-textured wetlands of West
Caicos. He was part of the expedition that investigated
the site of the historic pirate attack in the area. For more
information and photos, go to page 48.
Below
Ben Stubenberg and Captain Ernesto Von Der Esch measure
the cannon they found off the coast of West Caicos.
Could it have been the one used in Thomas Brown’s battle
against the pirates?
48
AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM
4 www.timespub.tc

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from the editor
MELISSA HERES
This view of Mudjin Harbour on Middle Caicos is from a small hidden cave accessed from the top of the cliffs. These caves were formed
millions of years ago.
6 www.timespub.tc
Digging Deep
This magazine’s intended audience has always been people who want to learn more about the Turks & Caicos Islands,
those who enjoy peering well beneath the surface of the turquoise sea and ivory beaches. In this issue, readers will
be digging deep into the Islands’ history—in fact, all the way back to when the land was formed. Skip forward millions
of years and you will learn about the Taínos’ meal preparation—a long way from UberEats but quite similar to
home-cooking techniques today.
Then we jump ahead by centuries to author Ben Stubenberg’s article on a pirate attack off West Caicos, where
Loyalist cotton planter Thomas Brown enlisted his enslaved Africans to fight alongside him! Ben spent much time
and effort researching this unusual event, and even went so far as to boat to the possible site of the battle with a
group of interested residents. I am so appreciative that he shares these articles with us; they greatly contribute to
the quality and depth of the magazine.
Local historian and author Carlton Mills ushers us into modern times with his fascinating review of the history
of Grand Turk, while Diane Taylor presents the story behind a natural history book from the 1980s that has been
revised for childen today.
Finally, we land in the 21st century, to learn about the ongoing saga of the lionfish and local efforts to eradicate
this intrusive predator. On the flip side, Kelly Currington shares her emotional connection with an endearing jawfish.
Layered on top of this all are the Turks & Caicos Islands present. Currently, the country is a strong draw for
visitors seeking a healthy, peaceful place to vacation and escape the troubles of the world. The real estate market is
soaring for the same reason—reflecting an urge to make “paradise” a permanent or part-time home.
Every day, I thank God for the opportunity and His help in putting out another issue of our magazine. And I thank
the advertisers and contributors who so steadfastly support this rather non-commercial compilation of material that
is designed to tap into the heart and soul of these “Beautiful by Nature” Turks & Caicos Islands.
Kathy Borsuk, Editor • timespub@tciway.tc • (649) 431-4788

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TIMES
OF THE
ISLANDS
MANAGING EDITOR
Kathy Borsuk
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Claire Parrish
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Dr. Lindsay Bloch, Kathy Borsuk, Dr. Betsy Carlson,
David P. Carroll, Kelly Currington, Ben Farmer,
Carmen Hoyt, Dr. Bill Keegan, Dr. Carlton Mills,
Debby-Lee Mills, Dr. Michael P. Pateman, Ben Stubenberg,
Lisa Turnbow-Talbot, Diane Taylor.
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Kelly Currington, Ben Farmer, Anna Handte-Reinecker,
Melissa Heres, Carmen Hoyt, Sara Kaufman–Middle Caicos
Co-Op, Agile LeVin–VisitTCI.com, Dr. Bill Keegan,
Marta Morton, Mark Parrish, Lynn Pelowski, Ted Philippona,
Provo Picture, Shutterstock, Diane Taylor, Turks & Caicos
National Museum, Lisa Turnbow-Talbot, World Nomads.
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Alejandra Baiz, Augusto Brunias, Richard McGhie,
Theodore Morris, Wavey Line Publishing.
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looking back to look ahead
This is the new cover of The Natural World of the Turks and Caicos Islands, originally written by Katherine Orr in 1983. It has been revised
and updated for today’s times and may be used in TCI primary schools this fall.
The Natural World
New edition breathes fresh life into a timely subject.
By Diane Taylor
In a very real scientific sense, the Earth breathes us and we breathe the Earth. This has to do with the
exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide. Now, however, excess carbon in the atmosphere puts
all life at risk. One way to reinstate balance is to ignite in children a love for the wonders of the natural
world. Yes, hook the kids.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 17

Author/illustrator Katherine Orr has had a passion for
nature since she was young. This passion to understand
the natural world led her to become a marine biologist.
While on South Caicos researching the life history of the
queen conch, she realized the importance of educating
children about the natural world so they would grow up
to respect nature and become wise stewards.
With that idea in mind, she wrote and illustrated a
68-page book called The Natural World of the Turks and
DIANE TAYLOR
Caicos Islands. It came out in 1983 with the help of Jane
Halaby who undertook the publishing. After living on
South Caicos for two years studying the queen conch for
her Master’s degree, then four years working on Pine Cay
as a marine biologist, Katherine felt the book was a good
way to pass on her love for the Islands and the people.
Katherine Orr (known at the time as Kathy Hesse) left
Pine Cay during the planning stages of the book, just
days before I arrived on the island in the spring of 1980.
We corresponded over the months and at one point she
asked me to fly to as many of the islands as I could, as
soon as I could (to meet publishing deadlines), to take
photos of local children that would be inserted into the
story. Great!
And so, a young Clifford Gardiner (now deceased),
first Belonger pilot in the Turks & Caicos, wearing his dazzling
white pilot’s uniform and an equally dazzling smile,
picked me up at the small Pine Cay airstrip. Here, someone
with a sense of humour had installed a sign post that
read: Greater Pine Cay International Airport. He flew me in
his red and white Cesna into the limitless blues of a clear
sky and dropped me off on Salt Cay, Grand Turk, North
Caicos and South Caicos where I approached elementary
schools to borrow children for photos. The students were
only too eager to pose for the shots, which we organized
with much chatting and laughter, and teachers happily
let them out of school for an adventure. They climbed
This 1982 photo of the young Clifford Gardiner, TCI’s first Belonger
pilot, shows his dazzling pilot’s uniform and equally dazzling smile.
This 1982 photo shows a young Holly Bassett on South Caicos, posing
for a shot that appeared in the 1983 edition of The Natural World.
casuarina trees (click), displayed baskets and hats woven
by women on Middle Caicos (click), gathered a variety of
sea beans they found on a beach (click) and more. I sent
the rolls of film off to Jane Halaby to incorporate into the
book.
Some months later, a package arrived in the mail. The
book! The Natural World of the Turks and Caicos Islands
was in print. The topics cover everything that comprises
the land and sea environments in which island children
play and learn, and all are introduced with inviting colours
and action drawings of children, plants, land and sea animals—fish,
crabs, turtles, birds, butterflies—and more.
Every page is fun and engaging and makes us want to
read on.
The book is captivating, from both academic and artistic
points of view. It proceeds in a friendly manner as
if talking directly to young readers, every now and then
asking a relevant question. For example: “There are more
ways plants are important to us. Can you think of them?”
And “More animals live in sand which is always underwater.
We can find their empty shells washed up on the
beach. Can you find some clam shells? A sand dollar?”
Now, over 40 years later, Katherine and I, with input
from Dr. Bill Keegan, Marsha Pardee, Alizee Zimmerman
and Dr. Della Higgs, have revised The Natural World of
the Turks and Caicos Islands. This new edition opens with
a tribute to the indigenous Lucayans, the first people who
lived in these Islands, and outlines conservation lessons
we can learn from them. It ends with action strategies
children can take to protect species at risk such as the
rock iguana, the queen conch and coral reefs.
Katherine Orr captures the beauty and ecological connections
of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Her book would
make a good addition to primary schools across the
Caribbean. The material is relevant; it honours Caribbean
DIANE TAYLOR
18 www.timespub.tc

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SHUTTERSTOCK
Live and in the flesh . . . the Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana (Cyclura carinata), found only in the TCI, is the star attraction of a visit to Little
Water Cay.
students’ world and connects them to it. The Natural
World of the Turks and Caicos Islands is appealing to children
because of the imaginative and whimsical full-page
illustrations and also because there are real photos of
real children smiling out at us—25 children whose names
are all included at the end. Holly Bassett, Neville Missick
and Karen Forbes are a few of them.
Katherine Orr dedicated this book of natural history
“to the now and future children of these Islands” because
today’s children are tomorrow’s fishermen and women,
lawyers, scientists and citizens—the partners who will
lead us into a sustainable future.
I believe The Natural World of the Turks and Caicos
Islands is as relevant today, if not more so, than it was 40
years ago. Fast forward to 2021, where the most critical
issue facing the world is global warming, which is largely
caused by overconsumption of gas and oil, as well as vast
livestock industries. It’s no secret that habitats of animals
and humans are being destroyed around the world and
that this is contributing to the rising temperature. For
instance, the sand in which female turtles lay their eggs is
becoming too hot. Eggs are reaching lethal temperatures
and some do not hatch at all. (Naomi Klein, This Changes
Everything, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2014, p. 434.)
20 www.timespub.tc

Walkin May2017_Layout 1 5/28/17 5:45 PM Page 1
Notable naturalist Rachel Carson said, “I believe
that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the
wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less
taste we shall have for destruction.” The Natural World
of the Turks and Caicos Islands is in tune with this philosophy.
It’s impossible not to be filled with wonder
when exploring Katherine Orr’s delightful drawings and
understanding her messages of conservation and interdependency
of all life forms.
As global awareness of the environmental crisis grows,
this revised edition is a significant addition to the readings
of children (and people of all ages) at home and
in schools. Indeed, copies of the book may be used in
schools across the TCI in the near future. Stay tuned! Our
grip on ego is tenacious, but it is loosening to embrace
the eco era—and none too soon. a
For more information and to see more children’s nature
books by Katherine Orr, visit katherineshelleyorr.com.
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Times of the Islands Fall 2021 21

SHUTTERSTOCK

talking taíno
Opposite page: Zamia is a toxic, indigenous Caribbean cycad whose “stem” is only edible with proper preparation.
Above: This Theodore Morris painting depicts a Taíno sitting at the entrance of a cave grilling fish over the fire. To see more of this talented
artist’s paintings, visit tainopaintings.weebly.com.
THEODORE MORRIS
Not a Pot to “Cook” In
The TCI’s Indigenous people were quite creative in food preparation.
By Bill Keegan, Betsy Carlson, Michael Pateman and Lindsay Bloch
Irving Rouse, the doyen of Caribbean archaeology, once estimated that pottery comprised 90% of all artifacts
found in the region. It should come as no surprise then that the precontact history of the Islands is
written as if broken pieces of pottery (called sherds 1 )—not people—were the main actors. Pottery vessels,
like the one recovered underwater from a TCI cave, still contain a wealth of information. And though potsherds
may be the most abundant product of human manufacture, far greater quantities of things that
people used are preserved in archaeological sites.
1
Lexical note—sherd versus shard: sherd refers only to broken pieces of pottery, while shard may be used for any broken bits of
glass, metal, rock and pottery.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 23

People were living in the Caribbean for about 5,000
years before pottery became widely available. So how
did they cook their meals? Unfortunately, we don’t really
know the answer because food preparation has not
been investigated for these first inhabitants. After pottery
came to dominate archaeological assemblages, we
tended to assume that its superior qualities as cooking
vessels made other cooking techniques unnecessary. We
have recently learned that clay pots did not completely
replace other cooking methods. Because the Lucayan
Islands were settled last, and their settlements moved
frequently, preparing meals without having to carry heavy
and fragile clay pots facilitated the exploration of new
islands and the short-term exploitation of resources away
from settlements.
Even today, different meals require different cooking
methods. Some foods are roasted, broiled or grilled, and
others baked, boiled, blanched or even eaten “raw” (like
conch salad, “cooked” with lime juice). Pottery vessels are
best suited for slow cooking stews. Diversity in cooking
methods can be seen archaeologically as grilling, stone
boiling, earth ovens and the use of sea turtle shells and
baskets. Let’s look at the evidence.
The most widely recognized technique is the use of
a green-wood lattice raised above a fire to grill meats. In
fact, our word barbecue comes from the Taíno word barbacoa.
When Columbus went ashore at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, he observed an untended barbecue on which fish
and iguana were roasting. His men helped themselves to
the fish, but they left the iguana whose appearance they
found too disgusting-looking to eat. Grilling on an open
flame or roasting in the hot coals have passed the test
of time and remain popular, practically a national pastime,
today. But not all foods lend themselves to cooking
directly on the heat source, especially liquids.
Several aboriginal cooking methods involve the use
of “hot rocks,” with these distinguished by differences in
the types of rocks used and their placement in relation
to the heating source. Hearths are an example of rocks
arranged in a pit below the fire. When the fire burns down
to coals, the stones lining the hearth radiate heat and
facilitate cooking on the coals. At the Coralie site (GT-3)
on Grand Turk we found hearths constructed from limestone
and conch shells on which the shell (carapace) of
a sea turtle was used as a cooking vessel. Some of the
turtle bones were still in place on top of hearths and they
showed charring from having been burned on one side.
GT-3 is the only site in all of the Caribbean where this
cooking method has been reported.
A second type of hot rock cooking involves the place-
MARK PARRISH
This complete pottery bowl from Hispaniola was recovered underwater in a cave in the Caicos Islands.
24 www.timespub.tc

Above: Artist Alejandra Baïz shares this digital drawing of a Taíno
family surveying the “catch of the day.” To see more of her images,
visit alejandra-baiz.weebly.com.
At right: This photo compares burned corals from modern-day “coral
boiling” experiments (at top) with corals from archaeological deposits
on Middle Caicos (at bottom).
ALEJANDRA BAÏZ
ment of stones on top of the coals. Called “earth ovens,”
they may be the most common form of baking found
around the world. These ovens are comprised of seven
parts: prepared basin, fire, layer of hot rocks, lower packing
layer, food, upper packing layer (composed of green
vegetation, the packing layers protect the food from contaminants)
and an earthen cap. Some will recognize this
description as a New England clam bake or southern pig
roast. Earth ovens are reported for “preceramic” (Archaic
Age sites) but their first discovery in a context where people
made ample use of pottery vessels occurred recently
on Long Island (The Bahamas).
The Long Island ovens were found at three sites on
top of sand dunes along the Atlantic coast. The sites
appear to have been of short duration, perhaps fishing
camps or seasonal farmsteads, where it was inconvenient
to carry heavy and fragile cooking pots from the settlement.
Indeed, very little pottery has been found at any
BILL KEEGAN
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 25

BILL KEEGAN
Discovered at this site were remnants of an earth oven on Long Island, The Bahamas
of these sites. These pit features are about three feet in diameter and about two feet deep. The rocks are clearly
positioned on top of the dark earth and charcoal from the fire that was built in the pit first. Fish bones and lobster
and clam shells found at the sites suggest ancient clambakes.
26 www.timespub.tc

In order to determine what vegetable foods may have
been cooked in these ovens we sent several shell and
stone tools for starch grain analysis. Over the past decade
archaeologists have refined techniques for extracting
starch grains from plants from a variety of tools. Every
plant has its own unique grain shape, much like pollen
(or fingerprints). The analysis identified corn, manioc and
zamia on clamshell scrapers and a limestone grater board
chip.
We can’t let mention of zamia pass without taking a
brief side trip. Zamia, also known as coontie, is a tropical
cycad that is native to the Lucayan Islands and grows
along the Atlantic dunes. In a strange twist of botanical
trickery, it is the stem that develops into a thick tuberlike
growth below ground. Zamia was an important food
source in the precontact Caribbean, especially in the arid
eastern Dominican Republic.
Like bitter varieties of manioc, zamia contains toxins
and cannot be eaten raw. It is processed in a manner very
similar to making cassava bread. The stem is grated on
a wooden board into which small sharp pieces of stone
have been set. Liquid is squeezed from the pulp, and then
balls of the mash are set in a cool dry place to ferment.
While fermenting, the balls become infested with beetle
larvae. The balls are then flattened and baked, larvae and
all (extra protein)!
BILL KEEGAN
Excavations at the GT-2 site exposed an earth oven and circular
cement platforms. Note the wide distribution of darkened fire-cracked
limestone.
The discovery of earth ovens on Long Island led us to
reconsider the archaeological evidence at the Governor’s
Beach site (GT-2) on Grand Turk. GT-2 reflects seasonal
visits to Grand Turk from Haiti that are dated to the end
of the 13th century. The main activity was the manufacture
of shell disc beads from the cherry jewel box shell
(Chama sarda). The shallow deposits indicate that these
were temporary visits. The site contained very small quantities
of pottery sherds, including several sherds from
Taino Paintings
by Theodore Morris
tainopaintings.weebly.com
mail:morristheodore@hotmail.com
3910 Longhorn Dr - Sarasota, Fl34233
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 27

small effigy bowls brought from Hispaniola. The pottery
at the site was inadequate for cooking meals. Instead, the
main deposit was a dense layer of fire-cracked limestone
with interspersed circular compact-sand features of about
10 inches in diameter. The features formed a compact
surface about three centimeters thick that produced a
ringing sound when struck with a trowel, and were clearly
different from the surrounding sand matrix. X-ray diffraction
analysis identified these hard-packed features
as a form of cement. The original thought was that they
were constructed for use as bead-polishing surfaces.
However, none of these features exhibited any evidence
of use-wear from polishing beads, most were surrounded
by large quantities of fire-cracked limestone, and their
arrangement appears too haphazard to facilitate simultaneous
use as polishing stations. It now seems likely that
these are places where baskets, or other porous containers,
were set in an earth oven.
The hot rocks often are rearranged prior to the addition
of plant materials and foodstuffs. We propose that
spaces were cleared among the rocks for the placement
of baskets containing mollusks and that they left their
mark as circular features caused by “clam juice” (liquid
calcium carbonate and minerals) mixing with the sand to
create a cement-like pad.
Cooking in baskets would allow for a substantial
number of small mollusks and crustaceans to be heated
at one time without them being scattered in the fire. For
example, tiger lucine clams (Codakia orbicularis) are very
common in Lucayan sites, and a ten-inch wide by five-inch
tall basket could hold about 100 clams. Similarly, nerites
are marble-size snails that occur in large numbers along
rocky shorelines. In archaeological sites, the lip (with its
“bleeding tooth”) is usually separated from the rest of
the shell. We found that striking the fresh snail on a hard
surface, like cracking a nut, produces a mass of flesh and
smashed shell. But when the snails were parboiled for a
few minutes, the lip easily separated with a light tap.
We know that the Lucayans made basketry because
their impressions are found on pottery vessels. The
majority of basket impressions are observed on flat clay
griddles as if the clay was pressed out on a clean, dry
mat. However, basket impressions are also found on
hemispherical bowls. A diversity of weaving styles has
been identified which may represent the work of particular
individuals. In other words, leaving something akin
to a maker’s mark. In addition, the Spanish chronicler
Bartolomé de las Casas reported seeing Indigenous watertight
baskets in Cuba in the early 1500s.
Water-tight baskets made from “fanner” grass are still woven by
craftswomen from the Caicos Islands. The Middle Caicos Co-op has
created a vibrant market for TCI handcrafts.
Water-tight baskets opened a new line of investigation.
Prior to the adoption of pottery vessels, “stone
boiling” was among the most common preparation methods
for cooking food in a liquid. It involves the transfer
of rocks heated in the coals of a fire to an impermeable
container of liquid and food items. The red-hot rocks substantially
raise the temperature of the contents, but not
to the boiling point of water. The process is more similar
to near-boiling or rapid steaming, although when hot
rocks are added to the liquid the water does appear to
boil.
Boiling cobbles typically are spheroid shapes measuring
four to six inches. They are smooth-surfaced, hard,
resistant to thermal stress and minimally soluble. Stone
boiling experiments show that a significant percentage of
the rocks crack and fracture during the cooking process,
especially when heated multiple times. Different types
of rock fracture at different rates and in different ways,
sometimes in the fire, but more often from the thermal
shock that occurs when they are dropped into cool liquid.
COURTESY SARA KAUFMAN–MIDDLE CAICOS CO-OP
28 www.timespub.tc

There are no typical boiling stones available in the
Lucayan Islands because they are composed entirely of
soft and soluble limestone. In contrast, coral cobbles of
appropriate sizes are readily available and easily collected
along Atlantic coast beaches. And we find lots and lots of
burned coral at Lucayan sites, despite no ready explanation
for why corals were being burned. With this in mind
we conducted a series of experiments. Coral cobbles
were collected from a beach, heated in an open fire, and
transferred with tongs into a container of water. The cobbles
quickly raised the temperature of the water to just
below the boiling point. Success! But best of all, the cobble
were discolored and fractured into shapes that match
those observed in archaeological deposits. Although our
experiments do not prove that the Lucayans used “coral
boiling” to cook particular foods, our results are consistent
with the archaeological evidence.
It is perhaps unfortunate that archaeologists often
describe ancient foodways as subsistence, as if people
only eat from necessity. The modern diversity of regional
“cuisines” highlights the rich cultural heritage of cooking
found around the world. There is no reason to assume
that the Lucayans were any less creative when it came to
cooking and eating. Moreover, we tend to assume that
when something new comes along it will replace what
came before. The evidence of traditional methods of food
preparation we now see in the Lucayan Islands offers a
window into Indigenous Caribbean cooking before and
after pots. Even with a pot to cook in, some foods are
better prepared without. a
Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at
the Florida Museum of Natural History (University of
Florida); Dr. Betsy Carlson is Senior Archaeologist at
Southeastern Archaeological Research (SEARCH, Inc.) in
Jonesville, FL; Dr. Michael Pateman is former Director
of the Turks & Caicos National Museum and currently
Curator/Lab Director of the AEX Maritime Museum on
Grand Bahama; and Dr. Lindsay Bloch is Collections
Manager of the Ceramic Technology Laboratory, Florida
Museum of Natural History (University of Florida).
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 29

feature
Author Kelly Currington fell in love with a family of Mottled jawfish in the waters of the Turks & Caicos Islands, most especially a fiesty little
fellow she named “Ollie” (at left and above). The jawfish allowed Kelly to get quite close without retreating into their burrows, and she was
able to study their behavior over the course of many months.
Pearls of the Sea
The story of “Ollie.”
Story & Photos By Kelly Currington
Anyone who takes a moment to gaze out over the stunning turquoise waters of the Turks & Caicos Islands
must wonder about all the amazing creatures that are out there. What lies beneath those beautiful hues
of blue?
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 31

The Turks & Caicos Islands are home to a true treasure
trove of amazing creatures. All the regular residents
that are expected and sought out are here, including
Caribbean reef sharks; green, hawksbill and the occasional
loggerhead turtles; spotted eagle rays; southern
stingrays; dolphins; numerous types of moray eels; beautiful
reef fish; crabs; lobster; shrimps; and some weird
and wonderful odd little critters.
One of my favorite little fishes is the Yellowhead jawfish.
This peculiar creature is a bottom burrowing fish,
and one of only a handful of mouth brooding fish—meaning
the male incubates the eggs in his mouth until they
hatch. I’ve had the privilege of filming these tiny treasures
hundreds of times, including the aeration of the
eggs. They are always a huge draw for divers who travel
to these Islands to dive our famous reefs.
Every once in a blue moon we are fortunate enough
to discover a creature we’ve never seen before. This is
the story of one such discovery. While guiding a dive,
we covered an area of a dive site that we wouldn’t normally
see, but we were hanging in the opposite direction
due to wind and waves. As we headed toward the wall,
one of our crew looked down and saw an unusual creature.
It was sticking out of the sand from a burrow, like
a Yellowhead jawfish, but it was not. It was a new type
of jawfish—a Mottled jawfish. This little beauty is much
larger than the Yellowhead jawfish and didn’t hover above
its burrow, but just stuck its head up and peered around.
“Ollie” carefully holds a mouthful of fertilized eggs for the six to eight
days it takes them to mature.
As we looked closer, there were five of these gems. This
caused quite the buzz of excitement amongst the crew
and guests.
Being an avid lover of Yellowhead jawfish, I starting
spending a lot of time studying these new treasures.
After a few encounters with them, I felt a very strong con-
This Mottled jawfish Kelly named “Sapphire,” for her beautiful blue eyes.
32 www.timespub.tc

nection with the largest one of the family. Its face and jaw
were strong and its eyes were striking. I started talking to
him or her, expressing my adoration and how honored I
was to share space with them. Unlike their smaller cousins,
this species allowed me to get very close and did not
retreat into their burrows. Each one was full of personality,
and each one was different.
One day I went to visit them and got another amazing
surprise—the largest Mottled jawfish had a mouthful of
eggs! The sight of this handsome boy with eggs moved
me to tears. To see him very carefully holding them
securely in his mouth, but not too tight, and the precision
he took in aerating them is something only Mother
Nature could orchestrate.
I made sure to visit this family of Mottled jawfish every
single week to study their behavior and how they differ
from yellowheads. They seemed less weary, or as I like
to see it, more brave than the smaller species. I could
get much closer to them with and without my camera.
They interacted with each other and wouldn’t retreat into
their burrows unless something startled them. They kept
their heads fully out of their burrows and looked around,
watching the divers, watching fish go by and always
keeping an eye out for predators. After many weeks,
they seemed to get comfortable with my presence and I
started noticing new characteristics and behavior.
One day I looked at the large male as I approached
and said, “Hi Oliver.” From that moment he was known
as Ollie. I wish I could explain it, but he just looked like
an Ollie! His ladies were so full of personality and character
that they inspired names as well. The female that
was always closest to Ollie was dubbed Sapphire because
her eyes were so blue and she was very sassy. The more
shy of the larger females was dubbed Emerald because
her eyes always reflected a deep emerald green color as
she watched us from her den. The smallest and shyest of
the family was dubbed Peep, simply because she barely
peeped her little head out to watch us. There they were—
Ollie and his Lovely Ladies!
At the beginning of every charter I would be eager to
get to Ollie and see how he and his family were doing.
I had become extremely attached to him and I worried
about him. My excitement as we pulled up to the mooring
where he lived was visible to anyone near me—I just
couldn’t contain it! I was lucky that my fellow crew understood
my love for this little family group and agreed that I
always dived this site, whether with guests or in between
dives on my own where I could document, study and talk
to Ollie. On some days I did both dives.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 33

“Sapphire” would typically line the outside of her burrow with shells and broken coral the week before the full moon each month.
Geared up, I stepped into the turquoise water,
descended to the sea floor and slowly made my way to
Ollie’s home. There was always a lump in my throat until
I could see his head sticking up from his burrow, then
that lump turned to relief and I would squeal out his
name! I would tell him how happy I was to see him and
his ladies. I would go to each one and check on them
and note if they had changed burrows, eggs or no eggs,
the arrangement of shells around their burrows, and any
other intricacies I could see.
At least once a month, right after the full moon, Ollie
had eggs, and most months he had a second clutch
immediately following the release of the first one, and
sometimes a third clutch. His ladies were definitely keeping
him busy! I would look at those tiny babies in his
mouth and know they were the next generation of this
species and were going to continue to populate our reefs.
The week before the full moon each month, I would
notice Sapphire tidying up her burrow and bringing in new
shells and broken coral to line the outside. Ollie would
make the outside of his burrow very tight with shells and
coral, a reinforcement of debris. When I witnessed this, I
always knew that the next week he would have eggs, and
he always did. He would move burrows on occasion and
I had surmised that he had moved to the burrow of the
female he was incubating eggs for—but this was only a
guess based on the behavior I had witnessed over months
of observation.
One of the amazing facts about jawfish is that the mating
pair have burrows very close to each other, and there
is a “honeymoon” burrow not visible from the surface that
they share during mating. This burrow is usually between
their two individual burrows and all are connected by tunnels.
One day as I approached, I was met with an unexpected
surprise. Emerald had eggs too! This meant that
“she” was a “he.” There was a definite and noticeable
shift in the entire dynamic of the family group on this
day. I witnessed a completely new behavior from Ollie.
He would come all the way out of his burrow and posture
at Emerald, arching his back high and hovering over
him. I could only assume that this was a sign of territory
dominance since the behavior only began once Emerald
became a viable rival. This was something I had not seen
34 www.timespub.tc

in all the months I’d been monitoring them. I had witnessed
Sapphire come out of her den to grab shells and
broken coral or snatch a morsel from the sand, but I had
never seen Ollie come all the way out. It appeared he was
not happy about having another man near his ladies. His
displays were quite impressive and undeniable in their
intent. With this new revelation, we knew there were at
least two males, and we assumed, two females.
The very next week, I followed my normal routine. With
my heart pounding and excitement in my heart, I slipped
below the surface and headed to see “my boy” and his
family. I saw him from 50 feet away because the visibility
was so clear on this day. As I got closer, I could see
that there was something different. Emerald was gone,
his burrow filled in with sand and shells. I searched the
area for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Had Ollie
run him off? Had he decided to leave on his own? Had the
girls rejected him? What was obvious was that Ollie was
now back to his usual calm and humorous behavior. He
had a very new clutch of eggs and was quite comfortable
showing them to me. I knew the eggs were only a day or
two old by their color.
The process begins with the female laying her eggs in
one of the burrows (most likely the shared burrow), then
the male fertilizes them and scoops them up in his mouth
where he will protect them for the entire six to eight days
it takes them to mature. Brand-new eggs are a translucent
milky color, in a couple of days they turn a mango color,
then they start turning silver and right before they are
ready to be released they are very silver and you can see
the individual eyes of each baby—a beautiful sight!
On this day, Ollie did his usual thing with me—coming
partially out and looking at himself in my camera dome,
turning his back to me to check for dangers behind him
(this demonstrates a complete trust that I would not harm
him), and then rolling his eyes up and around and directly
back at me. I set my camera to the side, making sure the
sand was clear of any visible life before setting it down. I
talked to him as if I were talking to a human. I extended
my hand, palm up, to see if he would respond, and to my
surprise he did. He would come out and rest his chin on
my hand, never losing control of his clutch. I would offer
him pieces of broken shell or coral for his den and he
would take them from me—and then usually spit them
out to the side as if they were not suitable for his home.
I apparently needed more work on my design skills! Just
the fact that he would interact with me of his own choice
was a special gift and treasured bond that always left me
humbled and in tears.
The aptly-named “Peep” preferred to stay low and watch.
Peep continued to stay low and watch, and would
not accept interaction, most likely due to still being too
young to have confidence. Sapphire would come all the
way out of her burrow and take shells from me. She was a
strong-willed and brave girl who showed me her grit each
week. She and Ollie made a beautiful pair and I could only
imagine how perfect all the little Mottled jawfish they had
created would be.
Then, on what would end up being my last encounter,
our time together was different. It started out the
same way with me approaching with hope and anticipation,
and being rewarded with their presence. But Ollie
was much more communicative with me. After capturing
some video of him and his girls, I set my camera to the
side and talked to him about how much he had enriched
my life. I had my arms crossed under my chin and got as
close as he was comfortable with.
I watched this little creature that had changed me,
taught me so much and most importantly, shared his
home and family with me. He came out of his burrow,
straight up to my mask, and held onto my rash guard with
his mouth and tugged on it. He would come up out of
his burrow showing me his entire perfect body and then
lower himself back in. He affected me more this day than
any other, and I couldn’t put my finger on why, but it was
extremely intense. I went over to see Sapphire and she
also behaved differently. She came out and approached
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 35

my mask and nuzzled
it with her head and
then went back to her
den and watched me.
I could not explain
the
overwhelming
emotion that rushed
through me; I was leveled
to tears. In the
eight months I had
been visiting this family
this was the first
time they had shown
this intimate form of
communication. Had
I actually earned so
much trust that they
would visibly show
me affection? Was it
possible? I went and
checked on Peep, but
she was still in her burrow
with only her face peeking out as usual, but she did
not retreat and this was a subtle, but notable, difference.
As I swam away from this encounter, I could not
explain the full effect of the experience I had just had.
I surfaced and told my captain and fellow crewmate that
I wanted them to come with me to see my babies. They
geared up, we stepped in, and off we went. Once we were
there I demonstrated that I wanted them to extend their
hand or a shell to Ollie, and one at a time they did. Ollie
came out and shared a moment with each of them—now
the feeling was more overwhelming. Did he trust me
enough to understand that I would never bring danger to
him? Is this why he demonstrated the behavior with them?
Had I inadvertently made him trust all humans or was he
simply communicating some sort of message to us?
The next week I was going to go see Ollie and his girls
between dives so I could get some video of them without
distractions, so my crewmate led divers to see them. It
was always a stressful time for me waiting for them to
come back and assure me that Ollie was fine, so I waited,
pacing the deck. My crewmate barely had her face clear
of the water when her eyes told me what I did not want to
hear. She told me she could not find them.
The months Kelly Currington spent with “Ollie” and his family of jawfish inspired
powerful emotions and this underwater tribute.
As I’m typing this, that lump in my throat is huge, my
chest tightens, and the tears flow as if it were that day
again. I quickly climbed into my gear, grabbed my camera
and swam as fast as I could to his burrow. I knew from
organize my thoughts.
quite a distance that
my heart was about
to be broken, and
my mask filled with
tears. Peering out of
Ollie’s burrow was little
Peep, with no sign
of Ollie. So I went and
looked for Sapphire;
she was gone as well. I
swam all over the area
looking for them—
nothing. They were
gone. It took more
than 20 minutes for
me to gather myself. I
hovered above his burrow
crying. What had
happened? How had
something gotten both
of them and not Peep?
How? Why? I could not
Then I saw something, and it gave me some hope.
Sapphire’s burrow was filled in with sand and rubble,
the same as Emerald’s had been when he left. This told
me that most likely they were not taken by a predator,
but probably left of their own accord. As a mating pair it
made sense that they would go together and this would
also explain why Peep was still there. It was the only
explanation that made any sense, or at least the only one
my mind and heart would accept.
Had their behavior with me on my last visit been
their way of saying good-bye? Did they know? My heart
believes that this special little soul and his beautiful lady
were somehow communicating that we had a connection.
I spent the next half hour gathering all the broken
coral and shells from their burrows and creating a tribute
to the most amazing little creature who had taught me so
much, who had allowed me to share a small piece of his
world, and who showed me exactly how much one’s heart
could connect to another species.
Remember to slow down and look at all the creatures
we encounter, because they are all living beings and they
can touch your soul in ways you can’t even imagine. You
never know, you might come across one of Ollie and
Sapphire’s offspring—they are definitely out there! a
36 www.timespub.tc

green pages
Newsletter of the Department of Environment & Coastal Resources
Head office: Church Folly, Grand Turk, tel 649 946 2801 • fax 649 946 1895
• Astwood Street, South Caicos, tel 649 946 3306 • fax 946 3710
• National Environmental Centre, Lower Bight Road, Providenciales
Parks Division, tel 649 941 5122 • fax 649 946 4793
Fisheries Division, tel 649 946 4017 • fax 649 946 4793
email environment@gov.tc or dema.tci@gmail.com • web https://www.gov.tc/decr/
Although lionfish are visually stunning creatures, they are unfortunately hurting the coral reefs of the Turks & Caicos Islands.
CARMEN HOYT
Here with a Roar!
A tenacious invader that now calls the Turks & Caicos home.
By Ben Farmer, Waterfront Assistant, The School for Field Studies
I was on a drift-dive in southern Florida when I speared my first lionfish. There, I began to understand
the difficulty of controlling this species which is invasive to the tropical Atlantic and devastates reef fish
populations. Drift dives are perfect for seeing a lot of the reef without having to expend much energy. By
the end of the dive, I was able to spear two lionfish after several attempts and a bit of determination. As
exhilarating as the experience was, it became clear to me how many resources—be they dive gear, boat
time or trained volunteers—are required to keep lionfish populations in check.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 37

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
But why do we spear and kill lionfish? After all, they
are a beautiful species, coveted by aquarists the world
over. The answer lies in the destruction they cause in the
areas where they are invasive. Moreover, spearing has
been shown as one of the most effective measures of
catching lionfish.
A biological invasion happens when a species that
is native to one region finds its way into another region
and establishes itself. This can be a natural process, but
in modern times is frequently caused by human introduction.
Often, an introduced species poses no significant
ecological problems in its native range but becomes a
problem elsewhere.
For example, consider the cane toad (Bufo marinus),
which produces toxins that can be fatal to predators
when eaten. In the cane toad’s native regions of South
and Central America, many predators have adapted over
time to be able to tolerate these toxins, and thus there is
a natural control on cane toad populations. In Australia
and other regions where cane toads are invasive, however,
not all predators have these adaptations. This, as
well as factors like available habitat, prey populations
and means of sexual reproduction, has contributed to
the cane toad population in Australia exploding from 120
to 1.5 billion.
Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) invaded North
America in 1986 from Eurasia and spread extensively,
starting in the Great Lakes where humans introduced
them. Now zebra mussels are so entrenched in the
ecosystem that they clog water pipes and engulf underwater
portions of bridges and docks across the United
States.
One of the most prolific invasions is that of the
European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), which has cascaded
outward to all seven continents, as well as many
Caribbean islands. Since its introduction by Spanish colonizers
in the 1500s, the European rabbit has devastated
ecosystems due to its ability to breed quickly and consume
an excess of resources. Invasions such as these
cost governments extraordinary amounts of money every
year, due to the ongoing toll on both native wildlife and
human infrastructure, as well as the effort of controlling
invasive populations.
Lionfish are one of the more recent invaders—they
were the first marine fish to invade the western North
Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, and came from their native
range of the Pacific or Indian Oceans. First documented
by a lobster fisherman in 1985 south of Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, the invasion likely was a result of aquarists
releasing their lionfish into Florida waters.
There are two species found in the Caribbean, Pterois
volitans and P. miles, collectively known as the “red lionfish.”
Both invasive species have an apparent ability to
tolerate a wider array of habitats and temperatures than
their native counterparts. However, genetic testing shows
that P. volitans is the dominant species in the Caribbean
and is perhaps a hybrid species. It is possible that this
hybridization provided P. volitans certain traits which
improved the invasion success.
High tolerance to an array of habitats and temperatures
was just one factor contributing to the establishment
of lionfish across the Caribbean. Another was the lack of
natural predators. In the lionfishes’ native range of the
Indo-Pacific, there are 12 recognized species as of 2015.
All of these 12 lionfish species are eaten by predators
which are able to cope with the venomous spines (lionfish
have dorsal, anal and pelvic spines which release a toxin).
In the Caribbean, studies have documented lionfish being
eaten by sharks, groupers and moray eels. However, this
predation requires human intervention (training of the
predators to eat lionfish) that is difficult to maintain on a
scale large enough to keep lionfish populations in check.
Lionfish also produce an enormous amount of eggs
and reproduce year-round. This, coupled with the fact that
their larvae can disperse hundreds of miles in the ocean,
means that lionfish have taken over entire swaths of the
Caribbean very quickly. Once lionfish have established
in an area, their voracious eating causes sharp declines
in native fish populations. Coral reefs often become less
healthy as a result, because reef-associated fish are very
important to the maintenance of the ecosystem.
Researchers at The School for Field Studies Center
for Marine Resource Studies (SFS CMRS) first sighted and
documented lionfish in December 2007. This sighting
was on a shallow, sheltered coral reef called Jerry Camp
on South Caicos. By June 2008, lionfish had been spotted
in seagrass beds and deep coral reefs on South Caicos.
As part of a concerted monitoring effort, SFS documented
the swift spread of lionfish populations to the mangroves
by 2009, and to exposed shallow reefs by 2010. The
research continued, and SFS now has a dataset of lionfish
catches from 2009 to 2020.
38 www.timespub.tc

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
Lionfish possess venomous dorsal, anal and pelvic spines. The pelvic spines are visible here as the lionfish splays them outward.
ANNA HANDTE-REINECKER
The invasion was not limited to South Caicos,
either—lionfish in fact were first sighted in the Turks
& Caicos Islands in an unknown location in 2006, then
documented off West Caicos in 2007. I reached out
to Dr. John Claydon, who was a previous center director
at SFS in the 2000s and then went on to direct the
Department of Environment & Coastal Resources (DECR)
in Providenciales. Dr. Claydon provides some insight:
Q: You have been involved as a researcher and director in
various capacities throughout the Turks & Caicos Islands,
and in this time, lionfish have unfortunately become
established. How did this invasion affect the livelihood
of those in the TCI?
JC: It is hard to tell, but it is likely that lionfish have
reduced the abundance of native species and this may
affect fishers directly. It is also possible that lionfish contribute
to the degradation of coral reefs, and everyone
in the Islands is affected if they lose this vital natural
defense against storms, and if its value as a source of
food and as a tourist attraction is reduced. Not to mention
the broader value of reefs for biodiversity.
Dr. Claydon brings up important points about the ecological
and economic relevance of lionfish. Degradation
of the reef system due to lionfish is a big potential problem
for the TCI, however we have tools at our disposal.
Culling, or consistent spearfishing of lionfish in an area,
is the best answer currently available to controlling the
lionfish population in the absence of a natural predator.
When a lionfish is brought onto shore and dissected, we
call it a “catch.”
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 39

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
CARMEN HOYT
BENJAMIN FARMER
Clockwise from top left: The author, Ben Farmer, prepares to spear a
lionfish using a pole spear.
Dr. Ewa Krzyszczyk walks the students through a lionfish dissection,
as part of their field exercise on invasive species.
Dr. Ewa Krzyszczyk and Anna Handte-Reinecker, an SFS program
assistant, are on a lionfish hunt when a turtle happened to swim
into view. Dr. Krzyszczyk is carrying a lionfish Zookeeper with a pole
spear stored inside.
CARMEN HOYT
I joined SFS as a waterfront assistant in Fall 2019, and
soon afterwards the other assistants and I began helping
Dr. Ewa Krzyszczyk with logging these lionfish catches.
Dr. Krzyszczyk is professor of the Principles of Resource
Management course at SFS and gets the students involved
with lionfish hunts and dissections every semester. As
part of field exercises, done via snorkeling or scuba diving,
students help staff locate lionfish on the reefs of
South Caicos. After staff spear the lionfish, students log
the time and depth at which the fish are caught, as well as
the fishes’ behavior. Finally, all the fish are safely brought
back to the center with a cylinder called a Zookeeper.
Several things are recorded there, including gut contents
(what the lionfish had recently been eating), sex of the
fish and body length.
As early as 2009, the DECR began lionfish “derbies” in
which fishermen competed to bring in the highest number
of lionfish. Hundreds of specimens were dissected,
with information entered in the database. More recently
in 2016, a nation-wide derby called the Lionfish Festival
was hosted by the DECR and the Turks & Caicos Reef
Fund, in which competitions were held in Providenciales,
Grand Turk and South Caicos. Fishermen on South Caicos
brought in nearly 40 fish, and SFS students assisted with
measuring them. All of these fish were filleted and served
at the Heritage Day Festival. Lionfish are quite tasty, after
all!
Our current SFS Center Director Dr. Heidi Hertler,
discusses the event here: (https://fieldstudies.
org/2016/11/lionfish-derby-on-south-caicos/).
In terms of what you can do personally, some TCI
dive shops will allow guests to bring speared lionfish
back to their hotel restaurant for preparation. This is a
great way to reduce the population of an invasive species
while enjoying a great dinner—talk to a local dive shop to
find out more.
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green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
BEN FARMER
Lionfish are one of many human-caused introductions of invasive
species. The new reality for many Caribbean reefs is that lionfish are
there to stay.
Long-term research by SFS suggests that lionfish
populations are decreasing on some South Caicos sites,
which is likely due to culling efforts. However, these sites
do not represent the lionfish population throughout the
entirety of the TCI, and it is important to stay vigilant and
continue monitoring. Dr. Claydon has a few thoughts on
this as well:
Q: The new reality for many Caribbean reefs is that lionfish
are there to stay, even accounting for culling efforts.
What would you recommend as a long-term response to
the issue?
JC: Localised areas of reef will benefit from regular culling,
and this will be important for particularly vulnerable
sites, but we are not going to get rid of lionfish completely.
The lionfish invasion has helped to promote a
better understanding of the value of coral reefs to people
of the wider Caribbean region. We can keep using the
lionfish issue to raise awareness and help protect coral
reefs in other ways.
You can help support the Turks & Caicos Reef Fund
lionfish project by submitting any lionfish sightings here:
(https://www.tcreef.org/projects). a
For additional information about The School for Field
Studies, visit www.fieldstudies.org or contact us on
South Caicos at hhertler@fieldstudies.org.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 41

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
If Rocks Could Talk . . .
Their story would be fascinating.
By Carmen Hoyt, Waterfront Assistant, The School for Field Studies
After how many birthdays do you stop keeping track? If it’s any consolation, the Earth is 4.54 billion years
old and still going strong.
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green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
This huge cave on the beach at Mudjin Harbor in Middle Caicos is
known as a flank margin cave, originally a dry cave formed when
the ocean level was higher.
4.54 billion years . . . think about it. A billion is difficult
to grasp, not to mention four times over. If every
second of our day counted for a year of Earth’s life, it
would take about 144 years, far beyond the current
capacity for a human lifespan.
The history of our planet is so incredibly long that
it’s easier to conceptualize as a calendar year. If our planet’s
first day on the job was January 1, modern humans
didn’t evolve until December 31 at 11:38 PM. Twenty-one
minutes later, at 11:59 PM, began the Holocene Epoch,
the equivalent of 12,000 years ago when the most recent
ice age—the Paleolithic Ice Age—came to an end and the
Earth as we know it began.
So, what happened in that metaphorical year before
humans existed? If the planet could talk, what stories
would it tell us? Unfortunately, our Earth is vocally inhibited,
but it tells us stories in different ways. Geology, the
study of rocks and the processes that impacted them, is
an excellent method of communication, especially if you
are interested in a little history lesson. I decided to listen
to a chapter about the Turks & Caicos Islands, and here’s
what I learned.
BEN FARMER
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 43

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
In the context of the calendar year analogy, the Turks
& Caicos have their origin somewhere around December
15, after the fourth mass extinction marked the end of
the Triassic period, the beginning of the Jurassic period,
and the slow break-up of the supercontinent Pangea. It
was during this time that dinosaurs ruled and the climate
across the planet didn’t stray far from hot and dry. The
fourth mass extinction failed to wipe out the dinosaurs,
but their luck would be tried again all too soon.
Pangea’s demise began when Gondwana (the agglomeration
of the African, South American, Antarctic, Indian
and Australian continents) drifted away from Laurasia
(Eurasia and North America). The foundation for the
Turks & Caicos, along with the Bahamas, grew from the
continental crust that North America pulled away from
Africa during the split of Gondwana and Laurasia 200 million
years ago. The crust on most of the planet, including
the Turks & Caicos, is composed of basalt, a dark, dense
rock that results from the cooling of lava or magma.
The basaltic crust was buried deep under layers of
limestone that formed during the Jurassic, Cretaceous
and the Tertiary periods (a time span of nearly 197 mil-
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green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
Conch Bar Caves in Middle Caicos are one of the largest cave systems
in the Caribbean.
lion years) from biological sources in warm, shallow seas
typical of the Caribbean we know and love. Less typical,
however, was the marine life responsible for such limestone
deposition. Limestone is made from the mineral
calcite, which is derived from the calcium carbonate
structures found in reef-building species of prehistoric
hard corals or the boxy shells of conical, clam-like organisms
called rudists. Calcite can also be deposited from
the ocean water itself, though this process is not quite as
common.
During this time, reefs were growing and thriving,
and about 3 million years ago, the closure of the
Central American Seaway with the surfacing of Panama
definitively sealed off the Caribbean from the Pacific, separating
species indefinitely. The Tertiary period lasted up
until the ice ages of the Pleistocene, a three-and-a-halfhour
time period on December 31 in our grand analogy
just prior to the start of the modern Holocene at 11:59
PM. It was during these chilly hours that reef development
(and limestone deposition) in the Caribbean and
elsewhere came to a halt with cooler temperatures and
falling sea levels.
BEN FARMER
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 45

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
Two interesting features of the limestone-dominated
geology of both the Turks & Caicos and the Bahamas are
an intricate cave system and blue holes, both products
of what is called a Karst landscape. The Turks & Caicos
Islands boast one of the largest cave systems in the
Caribbean: the Conch Bar Caves located in Middle Caicos.
Caves like these form when rainwater (which is slightly
acidic through interactions with carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere) percolates through depressions and cracks
of the limestone, collecting in cavities that grow in volume
as weaker parts of the limestone dissolve, eventually
connecting as underground caves.
In South Caicos, students studying at The School for
Field Studies’ Center for Marine Resource Studies are
always oriented to their new home at the beginning of
every session with a town tour. One feature we always
point out is the “Boiling Hole” at the center of the decommissioned
salinas, where valuable salt was produced
during the 1700s. The Boiling Hole is an entrance to an
underground cave system that is connected to the ocean,
and it was used to control the saltwater entering the salinas.
Blue holes, in my humble opinion, are even more
mysterious and alluring. They are appropriately named;
even if you’ve never seen one, you can imagine what it
would be like. They’re spectacular geological features
with an unrivaled appreciation for geometry. Like deep,
circular, underwater sinkholes with sheer walls, they look
more like a relic of plugs taken by extraterrestrial life
than a story of Earthly geology.
One of the world’s most famous blue holes is in
Belize, but the Bahamas’ best kept secret is that there are
quite a few around the archipelago, with guest appearances
in the Turks & Caicos Islands. I once noticed one on
a flight from Providenciales to South Caicos. Turns out, if
you look at a satellite map of Middle Caicos, its deep blue
color stands out among the light sand of the Caicos Bank
just off the coast of the land.
So, what is responsible? Limestone is the necessary
ingredient, but a few key steps must take place. First,
the stone must be exposed to the atmosphere to start
the weathering process. It is during cooler periods in the
Earth’s climate that ice is created, absorbing some of the
ocean water and lowering sea levels. On limestone-based
islands, the less-dense freshwater source floats atop the
more-dense marine ground water.
This is massive Ocean Hole off the south coast of Middle Caicos.
The initial forms of blue holes resemble small freshwater
ponds. Similar to the way rain water dissolves rock
by intruding along cracks and seams to form caves, the
freshwater source exposed to the atmosphere dissolves
carbon dioxide and forms a weak acid. However, there is
an additional acidic solution created from the interaction
of the fresh water with the salt water at the mixing zone
below. Picture a liquid plunger of sorts, drilling deep into
the Earth over millions of years. These two processes
carve the vertical walls of the blue hole as sea level rises
and falls with changes in the climate.
Such changes were characteristic of the Quaternary
period, starting with the ice ages of the Pleistocene. It
was during this three-and-a-half-hour time period that the
sea level was 300–400 feet lower than it is today, exposing
the Caicos Bank as a cliff-fringed plateau where these
caves and holes started forming.
It’s hard to imagine the Turks & Caicos as anything
other than the warm, tropical islands they are today, but
they have endured quite the journey through time. What
started off as dense, volcanic rock deep below the surface
of the sea became a thriving coral reef, built up by many
layers until exposed to the atmosphere and intricately
carved by rainwater. Of course this is a vast oversimplification
of many hundreds of millions of years of change,
but it’s a lesson in patience and metamorphosis. Any
exposed rock formation can give you a clue as to how it
ended up the way it is if you’re willing to look and listen,
carefully. a
For additional information about The School for Field
Studies, visit www.fieldstudies.org or contact us on
South Caicos at hhertler@fieldstudies.org.
WORLD NOMADS
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poetry
Summer in the Turks & Caicos Islands
By David P. Carroll ~ Photo By Marta Morton
Summer by the sea and
It’s so beautiful to stop
And see watching the
Children smiling so bright
Having fun in the warm
Summer sunlight feeling the warmth
On my face and Turks & Caicos Islands is just
A beautiful sunny place and
Taste the sweetest fruits and I’m
Watching the butterflies flow
Oh how I love the summer days
Smiling so bright kissing my beautiful wife
And all of the songs we sung were so
Beautiful and bright in the warm
Summer sunlight and it’s truly
Beautiful to see the little birds singing
To me it’s summer time and I’ll remember this summer’s day
And all of my memories will never fade away
Oh how I love summer time in beautiful Turks & Caicos Islands every day.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 47

AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM

feature
Opposite page: This photo of West Caicos’ windward coast is where Thomas Brown and his crew would have drifted ashore following the
battle with pirates.
Above: This is a typical six-pounder cannon such as might have been used in the West Caicos pirate attack of 1798. It is currently displayed
at Cheshire Hall Plantation in Providenciales.
AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM
Pirate Attack!
Rediscovering the epic battle off West Caicos.
By Ben Stubenberg
On an early summer morning in 1798, a balmy breeze filled the luffing sails of five sturdy sloops setting
off in search of a ship that had run aground. From Ft. George Cay, the boats glided south along the white
sand beaches of Pine Cay, their long booms reaching far over the turquoise water to catch the following
wind and speed them along. The leader of the small flotilla, Loyalist planter Col. Thomas Brown of North
Caicos, must have anticipated trouble for he loaded the boats with cannons and muskets. Then he did
something seemingly counter to common sense, and not for the first time; he put those weapons in the
hands of an all-Black crew of enslaved men. Brown’s hunch proved right, as pirates showed up in the
afternoon off West Caicos, guns blazing and spoiling for a fight.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 49

Launching a journey of rediscovery
Now, 223 years later on a summer afternoon in 2021,
local Captain Ernesto Von Der Esch, Agile LeVin, Lynn
Pelowski and I set out to find the spot of the long-ago
battle. We admit to a juvenile thrill, once again imagining
ourselves as pirates back in the day. Didn’t we all want to
hoist the Jolly Roger and raid ships with cutlass in hand
while living free on the high seas? Reality is somewhat
different, we know. But on this day, we recaptured a bit
of our childhood on our way to rediscovering the baddest
pirate attack in Turks & Caicos history.
But Brown’s encounter with pirates was no ordinary
swashbuckling adventure. The showdown off West Caicos
brought to the fore a confluence of slavery, trust, bravado,
foolhardiness and courage under fire, all against
a backdrop of French and British forces clashing on the
edge of empire for dominance of the Caribbean and the
world.
Some 15 years before us, Providenciales veterinarian
Mark Woodring came across a cannon and the remnants
of a wreck off the eastern shore of West Caicos. He contacted
a historian friend who recognized the spot as
the possible scene of Brown and crew’s encounter with
pirates. After reading my article, “Hidden Legacy: Slavery
and Loyalists in ‘Grand Caicos’” (Times of the Islands,
Spring 2020), which included Brown’s skirmish with
pirates, Mark contacted me and generously provided the
coordinates for follow-up.
The COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on plans for
an expedition in 2020. Even after restrictions eased, we
waited for the normally choppy seas on the windward
eastern shore of West Caicos to abate to have the best
shot of finding the cannon. Then we could place the battle
with some confidence and game out the story of what
probably happened. The summer winds blowing from the
southeast didn’t let up, however, so on July 31, 2021 we
decided to just go for it.
Heading to West Caicos
At Little Water Cay, the sloops cut through the Leeward
Channel that led to the Caicos Banks while the tide was still
high enough for the keels to clear the shallow bottom. The
boats continued sailing downwind along Providenciales’
south coast past Long Bay, Gussy Cove, (now South Dock)
and Five Cays Bay. From here they took a straight shot to
Southwest Reef just off the south end of West Caicos and
the wreck they hoped to find. The enslaved crew relished
the chance to be on the water and away from field work
on the plantations. But they also knew that pirates lurked
off the coast and so steeled themselves to the prospect of
an attack.
Just before noon, Brown and the crew ate pieces of
johnnycake and knocked back a slug of rum, as was the
custom then. Just ahead, they caught their first glimpse
50 www.timespub.tc

RICHARD MCGHIE
of the masts from the stranded merchant ship protruding
above the reef. The name of the ship is lost to history, but
it had sailed from the state of Rhode Island loaded with
supplies the planters had ordered and badly wanted to
recover.
Local artist Richard McGhie painted this depiction of the battle
between Thomas Brown and his crew and the pirates off West Caicos.
He has been avidly drawing and painting since moving to Turks &
Caicos in 2014. Captivated by his surroundings, he tries to capture
the beauty and rich history of the Islands in his art. You can see more
of his work on Instagram at richmcghie_art or contact him directly at
richardmcghie@outlook.com.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 51

I sat down with local mariner David Douglas who
has sailed these waters for more than 35 years in his
locally built schooner, the Atabeyra, (suncharters.tc)
and asked him if this route made sense. “Yes, from Ft.
George Cay, Brown most likely would have sailed south of
Providenciales to get to Southwest Reef. The other alternative
would be to sail across Grace Bay to Northwest
Point. And from there cross the channel to West Caicos.
That would have taken quite a bit longer and leave them
much more exposed to pirates. So the southern route
makes much more sense.”
Casting off from South Side Marina on Providenciales
in Captain Ernesto’s boat MV Bonita (OceanFrontiersTCI.
com), we followed Brown’s probable route heading to
West Caicos. No doubt Brown and his crew would have
stared in disbelief at the superbly comfortable and fast
37-foot fiberglass Axopar with two huge 300 hp outboard
motors. As we closed in on Southwest Reef using
the coordinates Mark had provided, Captain Ernesto cut
the engines. Somewhere below lay the cannon. Agile,
co-founder of visittci.com and a font of TCI historical
knowledge, prepped his underwater camera while Lynn
began filming.
We took in the scene as our boat rocked in a sea
awash with endless hues of blue and streaked with
golden brown Sargassum seaweed reflecting off the midday
sun. To the south, rows of cresting waves splashed
over the shallow reefs that had claimed so many ships
passing through. And further off lay the shore of West
Caicos, a line of scrubby white bluffs mixed with sand
and limestone stretching for miles without a trace of
human presence. Unchanged over years, we could see
what they saw and slipped for a moment back in time.
“Burntfoot” Brown’s defiance
Just who was Thomas Brown and what plight in his vastly
different world brought him here? The man is no stranger
to the pages of this magazine. Dr. Charlene Kozy’s four
articles—“Hidden History” (Winter 2007/2008), “Revealing
Thomas Brown” (Fall 2009), “All the King’s Men” (Fall
2010) and “The Rest of the Story” (Spring 2012)—provide
illuminating portraits of the Loyalists in the Turks
& Caicos and Brown in particular. As one of the most
resilient, headstrong and paradoxical characters in TCI
history, he warrants continued examination.
In 1775, just shy of his 25th birthday, Brown sailed
from the bleak but prosperous North Sea town of Whitby,
England to Georgia in the American Colonies. Thanks to
MAP COURTESY WAVEY LINE PUBLISHING/ BOB GASCOINE • ROUTE BY AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM
This map of the Caicos Banks shows the route that Thomas Brown likely took to the pirate attack area off West Caicos.
52 www.timespub.tc

financial help from his prominent father and contacts
made in Savannah, he bought land to establish a cotton
plantation in the back country near Augusta. But this was
also the year that calls for independence from Britain
reached a fever pitch that sharply divided the Colonists
between Loyalists and Patriots. Brown had not been shy
about declaring his Loyalist support for King George III.
In his book, The King’s Ranger, Edward J. Cashin
describes a definitive moment in Brown’s life. One
evening, a mob of 100 or so members of the fervent proindependence
group Sons of Liberty gathered in front of
his house and demanded that he swear allegiance to the
revolutionary cause. Brown tried to steer a noncommittal
path, saying that he did not want to oppose the country
of his birth, but nor did he want to offend those in his
new home. But Sons of Liberty boys would hear none of
it and closed in on him. Brown fired a pistol and fended
them off with a saber until one of the mob smashed him
over the head with the butt of a musket.
The Patriots then tied him to a tree, tarred and feathered
him, partially scalped him and lit his feet on fire.
Somehow, he survived, even after losing consciousness
for two days. A doctor performed what passed for brain
surgery in the 18th century to repair his fractured skull,
but he would suffer severe headaches for the rest of his
life. He also lost two toes in the fire, earning him the lifelong
nickname “Burntfoot” Brown.
The bitterness from the attack, as well as Brown’s
commitment to king and country, led him to join the
King’s Rangers, a Loyalist unit of the British Army fighting
George Washington’s men in the American South. He
displayed remarkable courage and leadership in battle,
often forging alliances with native Indian tribes and fighting
alongside them. He may also have sought revenge.
Legend has it that Brown hanged 13 captured American
Patriots so he could gloat while watching them die.
Second chance in North Caicos
After the war, the victorious Patriots forced Brown and
tens of thousands of other Loyalists out of the new
American republic and confiscated the property they
left behind. Most Loyalists from the American South fled
to eastern Florida before taking refuge in the Bahamas.
Some, like Brown, made their way to North Caicos where
Britain compensated Loyalists for the loss of their plantations
with land grants and money.
Brown soon became a successful cotton planter on
North Caicos—made possible, of course, by the forced
labor of men, women and children he had enslaved and
This image of a Loyalist being tarred and feathered is similar to what
was done to Thomas Brown by members of the Sons of Liberty.
brought with him. In what was then called “Grand Caicos,”
Brown is said to have permitted slaves to cultivate small
plots of land for themselves. On occasion, if one of those
he had enslaved wanted to marry someone held in bondage
at another plantation, he “bought” that person so
they could be together.
Loyalist slaveholders, like their counterparts throughout
the Caribbean and American South, portrayed their
relations with the enslaved as paternalistic or benevolent
to justify keeping them in oppressive bondage. Their
narrative also served as an effort to offset growing abolitionist
agitation to end slavery that Brown would be quite
aware of.
We have no written accounts of what the enslaved on
North Caicos thought about Brown’s “generosity.” We do,
however, have a first hand account by formerly enslaved
Mary Prince that details the horrific treatment meted out
by Bermudian enslavers on Grand Turk. Though conditions
differed for the enslaved on North Caicos who
toiled in fields rather than salt ponds, shards of oral history
handed down from generation to generation from
the 1800s present a different version of Brown, who is
remembered as a cruel slave holder. These two contradictory
versions of Brown are not necessarily mutually
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 53

exclusive, however, as he may have alternated between
affection and abuse that characterized many slaveholders
of the time.
Arming slaves
The story gets complicated because Brown did in fact
develop a trust for many of those he had enslaved, contrary
to the mindset of most plantation owners who had a
well-founded fear of slave uprisings. Indeed, slave rebellions
flared up throughout the Americas, but they were
almost always quashed by colonial armies and local militias.
In the 1790s, the prospect of a successful revolt
became terrifyingly real when slaves in the French colony
of St. Domingue, now Haiti, rose up and beat back
French forces and took control of wide swaths of territory.
Stories of rebellion in Haiti also circulated widely
among the slave population in TCI, just 90 miles (150 km)
to the north, that would later inspire several successful
slave escapes by boat. (See “Sailing to Freedom” in the
Times of the Islands Winter 2018/2019 issue.)
For slaveholders living with these anxieties, proposals
to arm slaves would be an anathema to their way of
life. Nonetheless, exigencies arose that from time to time
necessitated taking the risk of giving the enslaved weapons
to fight a foreign enemy and protect the interests of
the enslaver.
In the book Arming Slaves, historians Philip D.
Morgan and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy write, “The
arming of slaves in the Americas was never part of a deliberate
or concerted policy but rather was warily adopted as
an urgent measure in response to a crisis.” They go on to
write, “An inherent ambiguity therefore existed in colonial
society between keeping firearms out of the hands
of slaves and arming them whenever it seemed necessary
or useful. Arming slaves was a dangerous expedient, but
one resorted to frequently.”
A driving force for arming Blacks in the Caribbean
was the high mortality rates of troops arriving from
Europe compared to enslaved Africans. For example, the
British lost more than 5,000 troops to disease during their
occupation of Havana in 1762–63. During the American
Revolutionary War, 11% of European soldiers bound for
the Caribbean died on the troop transport ships. And
once in the region, the annual mortality rate of soldiers
was 15% compared to just 6% of those stationed in New
York. Of the 1,008 men of the Seventy-Ninth Regiment
stationed in Kingston, Jamaica in 1778, “Scarcely a man
remained of the original number” 12 months later.
During the American Revolution, British military officers
experimented with forming units drawn from slaves
who escaped Patriot slaveholders. Loyalist slaveholders
sharply disapproved, but British commanders held more
sway. By 1782, near the end of the war, the British had
more than 700 enslaved Blacks in uniform and under
arms, along with thousands more in auxiliary positions,
with the promise of freedom after the war.
Patriot slaveholders opposed the arming of the
enslaved as fervently as their Loyalist counterparts. But
the Patriots largely succeeded in preventing the recruitment
of fighting units made up of slaves to serve the
American Revolution. Nonetheless, many Blacks, some
enslaved but most free, did serve honorably and proudly
on the side of the Revolutionaries. Indeed, some of the
enslaved on both sides had been warriors in Africa before
being captured and sold into slavery and so adapted well
to warfare.
At the end of the war, the British evacuated the slaves
who had given them loyal service from the American colonies
and deployed them to Jamaica and other Caribbean
colonies as part of a larger West India Regiment. However,
Britain reneged on the promise to free many of the slaves
they had recruited, underscoring the continuing disagreement
within British colonial society over slavery.
Brown almost certainly would have been familiar with
the British arming slaves for military action during the
American Revolution and may have seen first-hand their
capabilities in combat. That may have imbued him with
confidence that he could rely on enslaved men to defend
TCI and serve him, as the need arose.
Defending the Caicos Cays
Simultaneously in the 1790s, tensions between the
British and French escalated into what became known
as the “French Revolutionary Wars” for who would reign
supreme. France in particular supplemented its navy in
the Caribbean by recruiting private vessels and outright
pirates as “force multipliers” to raid British ships and disrupt
trade. The French “Commissions,” also known as
“Letters of Marque,” gave the private and pirate vessels
the status of “privateers,” a tacit pass to rampage, as long
as they left French ships alone. All European powers and
the United States played the same game. Using their thin
veneer of legitimacy, many of these French pirates now
sailing as privateers called on French-controlled ports
along the north coast of Haiti to resupply before heading
back out for raids.
With more enemy French ships now searching for
54 www.timespub.tc

British ships to sink or capture (as well as American
merchant vessels that had resumed supplying British colonies),
TCI became dangerously exposed. The Loyalists
had good reason to believe the privateer pirates or even
the French Navy might attack them at their most vulnerable
spot—the deep water basin near what is now Fort
George Cay. This was the only place where merchant ships
could sail through a cut in the reef and anchor securely to
offoad supplies for the North Caicos Loyalists. 1
To protect this choke point, the Loyalists, with Brown
taking a lead, built a small fort in 1795 (possibly earlier),
naming it Fort Saint George. When finished, Brown probably
made the case for arming TCI slaves as a defense
force, most likely in response to a shortage of white soldiers.
It is plausible that many of the Black soldiers may
have been recruited from the North Caicos plantations.
Thus the Loyalists apparently relied on the very people
they had enslaved to protect them, their families and
their property from an enemy attack. And they did this
despite the ongoing slave revolt in Haiti.
Hierarchies of enslavement
Brown appears not to have been troubled by the contradictions
of his actions. Instead, he seems to have
possessed an unwavering confidence that he could inspire
fealty among the enslaved he had armed. This begs the
question, of course, of why armed slaves would stay loyal
instead of using the weapons against the enslavers, especially
if there was no promise of freedom.
In the Introduction to Arming Slaves, history professor
David Brion Davis states, “For slaves, military duty
offered a welcome escape from the misery of plantation
labor. The allure of a promise of freedom also entailed
upward mobility, dignity, prestige and a chance to prove
one’s manhood and to receive awards that would impress
one’s peers as well as white authorities.”
In the brutal, unforgiving world during Brown’s time,
the enslaved leveraged and took advantage of cracks
in the system of oppression to improve their lot. While
a full-on slave revolt was at times a possibility, it also
entailed a risk of failure, followed by more oppressive
servitude or death. That risk had to be weighed against
sporadic opportunities to gain privileges, status and
capital, even if short of freedom. In fact, many enslavers
dolled out concessions to split slave societies into hierarchies
as a way to divide and conquer.
1
Merchant vessels could also sail through the shallower Caicos
Bank to the south and unload cargo onto smaller skiffs in Five
Cays or near Bellefield Landing in North Caicos. But the Loyalists
did not deem these locations as worth defending with a fort.
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Times of the Islands Fall 2021 55

Brown, perhaps in part due to his experience in
forming alliances with Indians on the American frontier,
more capably straddled the gray space of bondage and
“bondage with benefits” without having to actually free
the people he had enslaved (with a few exceptions). He
undoubtably calculated that by elevating the enslaved
to the stature of armed soldiers he could create incentives
for loyalty and discourage the impulse to revolt or
escape. 2
When Brown sailed in search of the ship that had run
aground off West Caicos, he could easily have tapped a
reservoir of enslaved men he may have trained and drilled
at Fort Saint George and whom he could count on.
Pirates on the horizon
Brown’s sloops reached the wreck around noon. He and
the men were excited to see the goods still on board and
largely undamaged. But they noticed the absence of crew
members from the ship, even though the vessel appeared
intact. Their fate, too, is lost to history. Brown and the
men did not dwell on the mystery, for they had work to
do.
Sometime in the early afternoon as the men unloaded
the cargo onto the sloops, they spotted a single ship under
full sail larger than their sloops rounding the southern
shoulder of West Caicos. The ship may have flown a
British or American flag to signal a friendly vessel, in an
effort to lull the Loyalists into complacency. As the ship
drew closer, however, they struck a French enemy flag
flying atop the mast, forcing an urgent decision: Sail
away with the supplies recovered or take on the pirates
and maybe keep salvaging what was left on the wreck.
Brown implored the Loyalists in the other boats to
stick together and fight, arguing that their five boats
could take on one pirate ship. The Loyalists shouted
back that they had no chance and called for Brown to
make haste and leave with what he had. Brown staunchly
refused. Revealing the limits of Brown’s clout, the other
Loyalists trimmed the sails of their four sloops and tacked
back toward Providenciales. That left Brown, ever the
fighter, to face the pirates alone with his crew.
The enslaved men in Brown’s boat, seeing the odds
stacked against them, also tried to persuade him to
flee with the others. Brown wouldn’t budge, though,
and ordered them to ready for battle. At this point the
enslaved may have considered the option of commandeering
the sloop and escaping, which would have been easy
enough. But they understood too that there was really no
place to go where they didn’t risk death by exposure or
capture and far harsher re-enslavement. So the enslaved
unlucky enough to be in Brown’s sloop had little choice
but to put their confidence in Brown’s blustery bravado in
hopes they could survive as the pirates closed in on them.
Though fatigued from sailing most of the day and
moving heavy cargo in the heat of summer, Brown and
the men rallied. Adrenaline pumped through their veins
as they rammed gunpowder and ball tight into their
cannon. They loaded their muskets, careful to keep the
powder dry. In the excitement, Brown called for his men
to stay steady, just as he had with his troops back in
Georgia two decades earlier when fighting the American
Patriots. Hearts pounding and fortified with another slug
of rum, they faced down the French pirates together.
As the pirate ship drew closer, Brown and the crew
could see it had as many as 10 cannons, all bigger than
theirs. The pirate ship fired the first cannon volley.
Artillery back then had little accuracy, especially when
fired from a ship, so the cannon ball splashed harmlessly
away from the boat. Brown fired back to let them know he
wasn’t about to retreat. But his cannon ball fell well short
of the pirate ship, making plainly clear the pirate ship’s
greater range.
Brown hoped that his more maneuverable sloop
would have a chance of getting close enough to the pirate
ship to kill or maim at least enough of the crew with his
smaller cannon and muskets, even if he could not actually
sink the ship. Brown surely attempted, but the pirate
ship kept just out of range. Each time Brown approached
closer to the pirate ship, he only increased the accuracy
of the pirate cannons. Tacking back and forth over the
choppy sea, the two ships dueled with cannons and muskets,
trying to get in the one shot that would count.
In the late afternoon, a pirate cannon ball finally
smashed into Brown’s sloop, injuring two of the men,
though not mortally. Water rushed in and the game was
up. Brown and the men strived to stay afloat in the choppy
sea as they made their way toward the West Caicos shore
they could see in the distance.
2
Brown and the other Loyalists experienced few if any slave escapes largely because there was no place for them to safely flee. Only
after 1804 when the Haitian Revolution succeeded and welcomed escaped slaves did the enslaved of TCI have a nearby sanctuary
to which they could sail to freedom. In fact, there were so many TCI slaves escaping that enslavers eventually formed a local coast
guard to discourage and capture them. But this possibility for escape was only available well after Brown’s 1802 departure from
North Caicos.
56 www.timespub.tc

Finding the cannon
We only have two contemporary accounts of the battle.
The first is a letter from Brown to his father in Whitby
dated August 8, 1798 in which he cites the clash and says
that he was so proud of his men that he did not mind the
loss of his goods.
The second is a publication in the Bahamas Gazette
on August 21, 1798 that Professor Cashin summarizes in
The King’s Ranger:
“A ship bound for Grand Caicos was wrecked on
nearby West Caicos. Brown and other planters sent
their boats to retrieve goods belonging to them. As
the supplies were being transferred into the small
boats, a French privateer came up under full sail. Four
vessels made a run for it, but Brown’s men decided
to fight for possession of the wrecked ship. The
all-Black crew was armed with only a two-pounder
cannon and muskets, but they drove off the French
repeatedly. The heavier armed privateer stayed out of
range of Brown’s defenders and used its cannon to
sink Brown’s boat. The valiant crew swam to shore. 3 ”
Based on these contemporary accounts, the fluid
nature of slavery, and descriptions of boats, pirates and
cannons of the time—all seasoned with a dash of imagination—a
narrative can be created, as I have done. But
more concrete evidence could help confirm the setting.
For that we had to jump in and see the cannon for ourselves.
In the rolling sea just a few yards from the Bonita
anchor line, we noticed a dark patch surrounded by sand.
Agile and I put on our dive masks and fins to get a better
look. Within minutes Agile cried out, “I found it!” And sure
enough, 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface in water
as clear as a window pane, the rough shape of a cannon
appeared covered in sponges and sea plants. Mark’s
coordinates were spot-on.
Captain Ernesto leaped in as well, and the three of
us took turns free diving down to take pictures and measure
the cannon’s length and muzzle width to determine
what we had. Lynn rolled the video and took photos from
the boat as we barely contained our excitement. A tape
measure showed the cannon to be about 5 feet (1.5 m)
in length (adjusted for marine vegetation) with a 3.5
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3
Professor Cashin’s quoted summary differs a bit from the actual
article in the Gazette that relies on an unsourced “Letter from
Grand Caicos.” The Gazette recounts the pirate attack on the
Loyalist sloops near West Caicos, but the battle descriptions are
questionable and the story is incomplete. I’m using Professor
Cashin’s summary that gives a clearer picture.
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tel.: 9464440 cell: 2314569 email: redmond@tciway.tc
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 57

AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM

This summer, a crew of residents in the MV Bonita followed Thomas
Brown’s possible route to West Caicos and searched for the cannon
that may have been used in Brown’s skirmish with pirates.

AGILE LEVIN–VISITTCI.COM
Article author Ben Stubenberg freedives to the cannon found by following Mark Woodring’s coordinates off West Caicos. Note the large field
of ballast stones appearing in the shape of a boat at the top of the photo.
inch (9 cm) muzzle, which would be consistent with a
six-pounder. But just whose cannon did we find? The sixpounder
(based on the weight of the projectile it fired)
could have fit on Brown’s sloop, but the Gazette letter
and Professor Cashin’s summary noted a much smaller
two-pounder.
Right next to the cannon, a large field of ballast
stones appeared in the shape of a boat that looked to be
about 40 feet long and at least 15 feet wide. That would
have been just big enough to be a small ocean-going vessel,
but could also have been a large local sloop. The
stones themselves, however, were granite, which would
probably not have been used in local TCI sloops since this
type of rock is not found here. Could the cannon and remnants
be from the Rhode Island vessel with the supplies
Brown and his men wanted to recover?
It’s not clear what sank this boat. The cannon and
remnants of the wreck were about 1/2 mile (800 m) from
the reef, well past the narrow channel off the southern
end of West Caicos that ships used for transit. It might
have hit a coral head that ripped a gash in the hull, causing
it to take in water. Or the ship may simply have gotten
stuck in the sand on a shallow bank. In either case, the
deck could have been above the waterline, thus preserving
the cargo for salvage. The waters around TCI are
replete with ships wrecking on the reef or a sandbar,
some visible above the surface today.
A more intriguing possibility is that the vessel was
sunk by pirates who left the boat half submerged as bait
for the salvage sloops sure to come looking for it, as in
fact happened. If the pirates anchored their boat on the
calmer lee (west) side of West Caicos, they could remain
hidden. Then from the hills on West Caicos, the pirates
would have a good vantage point to see any boats heading
from the Caicos Bank south of Providenciales and
prepare to attack them.
60 www.timespub.tc

Professor Cashin’s summary and the original Gazette
report stated that the men swam to shore after the boat
sank, but it’s not clear where they ended up. As an open
water swimmer in TCI, I am familiar with the currents
around the Islands and the challenges they present. From
where we found the cannon, the shore of West Caicos
is about 2 miles (3.2 km) away. Swimming that distance
requires some training, something we can be fairly sure
Brown and his men didn’t have, even if they knew how
to swim. Moreover, they would have been fatigued from
unloading supplies followed by an afternoon gun battle.
However, from our spot, a strong southeast to northwest
current pushed the water towards the eastern shore
of West Caicos. So assuming the pirates sank Brown’s
sloop in the vicinity of the wreck we found, it is quite
possible the men made it to the beach this far out without
actually having to swim the whole way. If they clung to
something floatable, they could have just drifted to the
shore. Had Brown’s boat been sunk in any other location
off West Caicos close to a reef, such as off the north tip of
the island, he and the crew would have likely been swept
out to sea.
To be sure, the assessments made are far from conclusive.
The contemporary accounts of the attack, even
with questionable descriptions and crucial omissions, at
least confirm a battle with pirates off West Caicos. We
don’t know if the cannon and remnants of the wreck we
found were from the Rhode Island vessel the Loyalists salvaged.
However, the location and size of the ship based
on ballast stones suggest that possibility. When taken
together with the prevailing current that Brown and his
men would have relied on to get to shore after their sloop
was sunk, a plausible case can be made that the windward
side of West Caicos was the scene of the battle.
We need to go back to collect additional evidence
from this cannon and wreck, as well as do a larger search
of the area for other cannons and wreckages. If we are
lucky enough to find Brown’s sloop and cannon, we could
make the case with a high level of confidence.
Questions for Brown from the 21st century
Let’s start by asking what in the world propelled Brown
to risk his life to take on the pirates just to secure a few
more supplies from the Rhode Island wreck? If he only
carried a couple of two-pounder cannons, he had almost
no chance of succeeding against a ship with bigger guns
with more range. Even if he had a larger six-pounder
cannon (which seems more likely if he truly believed he
might encounter pirates), he still would have been at a
From left: Ben Stubenberg, Agile LeVin and Captain Ernesto Von Der
Esch review the nautical chart to try to determine if the wreck they
found could have been Brown’s sloop.
significant disadvantage. Perhaps he wanted to relive the
thrill of battle again, a hero who refuses to turn and run,
even though he had nothing to prove. Or maybe he really
did think he could get off the crucial shot that would
cause the pirates to cut and run—though foolhardy, as
the outcome shows. He could have escaped with honor
and most supplies to fight another day.
What happened after Brown and the enslaved men
were stranded on West Caicos, and how were they rescued?
That is itself a compelling story. How long did they
go without food or water? Did the other Loyalists return
to get them even though it could have entailed another
confrontation with pirates? If so, was Brown grateful or
did he chastise his Loyalist rescuers with sharp words for
fleeing when he stayed to fight?
What of the ship from Rhode Island? How did the
Loyalists get word that it had wrecked? If the ship’s
supplies were intended for the North Caicos Loyalists,
why was it attempting to negotiate the narrow passage
between Southwest Reef and the southeast coast of West
Caicos instead of sailing to Fort Saint George? Perhaps it
was trying to reach the Caicos Banks and Gussy’s Cove on
Providenciales, but clearly something went terribly wrong.
Perhaps it was a navigation error, perhaps a storm, perhaps
a cannon ball from pirates. But if the ship was in fact
intending to deliver supplies in Providenciales, that would
call into question who really owned the supplies on the
ship.
Finally, what happened to the pirate ship that had
sunk Brown’s sloop? Did the pirate ship launch smaller
tenders armed with cannons to chase down Brown along
LYNN PELOWSKI
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 61

the reef over shallow water? Did it try to recover the supplies
still on the wreck? After a lengthy battle and taking
some risk, the pirates would probably want to recover
some booty for their efforts rather than just sail away.
Brown’s choice
Most noteworthy is the undaunted courage of the men in
battle, as indicated in Brown’s prideful letter to his father
and the Gazette account. The crew may even have saved
Brown after his imprudent brawl with the better armed
pirates, though they surely fought to survive and save
themselves first.
In an astonishing twist of irony, the pirate ship they
encountered may well have included escaped slaves.
Indeed, former slaves sometimes made up as much as
1/4 of a pirate ship’s crew. On board, these men instantly
went from bondage to liberation with the same claim to
a share of the booty and a vote in the election of the
ship’s captain as the rest of the crew. Many pirate ships
practiced this early form of democracy decades before
citizens of imperial regimes acquired anything resembling
equal rights.
It is entirely possible that Brown’s crew, caught up in
his reckless showdown, were in fact battling free men who
were recently enslaved like them. On occasion, pirates
of the Caribbean would deliberately put Black pirates
prominently on deck brandishing weapons to intimidate
merchant vessels they intended to attack. If the pirates
attacking Brown’s sloops did this, they they could have
been quite visible to Brown’s Black crew in the course of
battle. We’ll never know if they actually saw each other or
if they reflected on their respective fates in the moment.
But it is fascinating to speculate, as it adds another layer
to the tangled, intriguing history of our Islands.
Though Brown clearly admired his men’s performance,
he still could not muster the courage to see them
as fellow human beings deserving of freedom. Standing
shoulder to shoulder as cannon and musket balls and
grape shot whizzed past their heads was not enough to
crack Brown’s conviction that the men risking their lives
for him were still his property. And that is the saddest
part of this tale.
Thanks to influential contacts in England, Brown
would be granted a large tract of fertile land on St. Vincent
to cultivate sugar cane. In 1802 he began moving those
he had enslaved (he says 623, but I believe that number
to be vastly overstated) from North Caicos to St. Vincent.
“Black Caribs,” a cultural and racial mix of Carib Indians
and shipwrecked slaves from Africa, already inhabited the
This oil painting depicts the “Black Caribs” who lived on St. Vincent
when Thomas Brown was granted land there to cultivate sugar cane.
land Brown had been granted. But that is another story
for another time. Suffice to say that the Black Carib values
of acceptance and integration were lost on the planters
who took over. Brown died there in 1825 at the age of
75 without freeing any of those he had enslaved, except
maybe for one or two who may have been his offspring,
which itself is telling.
History passes judgment on how we handle the
challenges handed us by fate. But the light glares more
harshly on those with means and privilege because they
have the power to change the lives of those who have
none. In the end, Brown is both hero and anti-hero of
his own story. His audacious bravery, force of character
and defiance of convention remain undisputed. But on
that searing summer afternoon off West Caicos, when the
enslaved men in the stout sloop stood tall for Brown, he
chose to keep them captive. And for that he must be held
to account, even centuries later. a
Ben Stubenberg (bluewaterben@gmail.com) is a contributing
writer to Times of the Islands and a popular story
teller about pirates in TCI. He is the co-founder of the TCI
swim and tour adventure company, Caicu Naniki, and the
annual “Race for the Conch” Eco-SeaSwim.
AGOSTINO BRUNIAS
62 www.timespub.tc

SHUTTERSTOCK

usiness
Opposite page: Another lovely sunset off Grace Bay Beach in Providenciales reflects the “gold standard” of beauty found throughout the
Islands.
Above: The view over Long Bay from this three bedroom/four bathroom penthouse at The Shore Club encompasses 70 linear feet of oceanfront,
and exemplifies the luxury and expansive living to be found in properties available throughout the Turks & Caicos.
PROVO PICTURES—COURTESY TURKS & CAICOS SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
Striving for Gold
The TCI’s “gold standard” continues to attract investors.
By Kathy Borsuk
Although the Turks & Caicos Islands are not able to participate in the Olympics, the country has earned
a gold medal for its superb handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also broken records in real estate
sales since the border’s reopening a little over a year ago. Both efforts go hand in hand—because the TCI
is seen as a beautiful, healthy, peaceful place to live, it is attracting people from around the world who
are looking for a safe haven in which to retire or have a second home.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 65

Response to COVID is gold standard
Following a four-month shutdown on March 23, 2020,
the Turks & Caicos Islands reopened the border on July
22, 2020. Many herald the country’s COVID-19 mitigation
plan as among the best in the Caribbean. Initial lockdown
restrictions for residents were strict. Over time, local
businesses were cautiously reopened with capacity limitations
and enforcement of masks and hand-sanitizing.
When it came time to re-welcome visitors, the TCI
Government thoughtfully established entry protocols
designed to strike a balance between mitigating risk
while not discouraging travellers. The TCI Assured portal,
available on (www.turksandcaicostourism.com), handles
the issuance of travel authorization certificates with
speed and agility. Initial requirements included a negative
COVID-19 PCR test result taken within five days of travel
along with medical/travel insurance that covers medevac.
As visitor arrivals increased, COVID-19 cases surged
at times. The government responded by increasing restrictions
internally as needed to help curb local transmission
while still allowing tourists to come to the country.
By the end of March 2021, over 47,000 doses of
the Pfizer-BioNTech and 300 doses of the AstraZeneca
vaccines had been shipped to the Islands and disseminated.
At press time (late August 2021), it’s estimated
that approximately 67% of the adult TCI population is
vaccinated, with the goal of vaccinating 75%.
On July 4, 2021, the Turks & Caicos celebrated the
milestone of being able to report zero active COVID cases
for the first time in about one year. Shortly afterwards,
a third wave of cases billowed, with most coming into
the territory from international guests. After careful consideration,
the TCI Government determined that as of
September 1, 2021, all visitors ages 16 and above must
be fully vaccinated and provide a negative PCR or antigen
COVID-19 test taken within three days of travel. In
explaining the rationale behind this decision, Minister of
Health Hon. Jamell Robinson states, “90 of the 133 persons
tested positive from early July to date (August 12)
were tourists, so we know we have to put measures in
place to deal with that . . . we can market TCI as a vaccination-only
destination, which is a safer choice for holiday
makers.”
At the same time, the Royal Turks & Caicos Islands
Police Force is operating a special COVID enforcement
Task Force team. Its focus is on social events and large
gatherings of liquor-licensed premises and other businesses.
They also strongly enforce the current curfew
period between 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM as well as social
distancing and masking rules, issuing tickets for breaches
of the regulations.
Real estate sales are breaking all records
Turquoise waters, ivory-toned beaches and sparkling
sunlight all make the Turks & Caicos Islands among the
most “Beautiful by Nature” places in the world. At the
same time, the country is not as developed as most in
the Caribbean, still affording purchasers of real estate
the space, privacy and ability to realize their own dream.
The Turks & Caicos Real Estate Association (TCREA) is
a group of 15 independent real estate agencies who work
together under a managed Multiple Listing System (MLS)
accessed at www.tcrea.com. The industry compiles and
reports detailed statistics and the most recent continue
to break all records.
The second quarter of 2021 again soared to never-before-seen
levels. In fact, the first half of 2021 closed out
with a staggering $328 million in sales volume, a figure
that is typically the annual sales volume in a very strong
year! Compounding this is an average price increase of
26%, with all segments of the market contributing to this
incredible spike in sales.
According to The Agency Turks & Caicos, the single
biggest driver in recorded sales in the second quarter
of 2021 is land—with beachfront at a premium. TCREA
reports for the first half of 2021, 105 parcels sold at an
average price of $540,000, a 46% rise in sales volume.
The single-family homes market is hot, as well. Rental
revenues are strong and the number of homes coming
to market is not close to meeting demand. According to
The Agency, “Purchasers retain a strong demand for preconstruction
development properties where the certainty
of cost and quality are set.” To date in 2021, single-family
homes sales volume increased 127%, with 82 sold at
an average price of $2.3 million. Among the top sales
in this market were Turtle Tail Estate at $20.25 million,
Villa Salacia at $16 million and Casa Tremer at nearly $8
million.
The condominium market re-established itself in the
second quarter of 2021, driven by the luxury sector. For
2021, a total of 69 condominiums sold at an average
price of $1.023 million, a 153% rise in sales volume.
Among the top sales was The Estate at Grace Bay Club
unit G504 at $5 million.
As 2021 moves forward, the performance is expected
to continue as new projects enter the marketplace. The
long-anticipated Grand Opening of the Ritz-Carlton
Residences—located in the heart of Grace Bay—took place
66 www.timespub.tc

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on June 22. Amenities include a Club Lounge, casino,
adults-only pool with private cabanas and access to the
resort’s private catamaran. There’s also a signature Ritz-
Carlton spa and kids program. Dining concepts include
Coralli, a locally-inspired eatery and BLT Steak, part of the
world-renowned steakhouse chain.
Rock House Resort is on target to open in December
2021. Buyers at the luxurious cliffside development
receive an added perk—becoming members of the exclusive
Beach Club at Rock House. It will offer owners access
to a private beach and its fully serviced jetty, complete
with luxurious daybeds and chic parasols; world-class
dining at the club’s oceanfront restaurant; private excursions
including diving, fishing and snorkeling trips; and
access to the white sand beaches at sister properties
Grace Bay Club and West Bay Club.
South Bank is a new residential resort and marina
community on the south side of Providenciales. Each
neighborhood and lot offers a unique relationship with
the water, designed for boating enthusiasts and watersports
lovers. South Bank has so many villas and the
Boathouses foundation work under construction, and
so many sales forthcoming, that it has actually halted
new sales for a time to “catch up.” In fact, 60% of the
Boathouses are now sold, the Lagoon neighborhood is
fully sold out and over 60% of the Ocean Estate villas are
sold out, with only one or two of each design remaining.
The Strand is TCI’s newest residential resort community
overlooking the sapphire waters of Cooper Jack Bay.
This property features dramatic vistas with an array of
custom oceanfront residences, all with access to shared
community amenities. The project is completing its first
sales and getting closer to construction start.
Just launched is The Sanctuary, a private collection
of estate residences combining a sensitive lakefront
architecture with progressive building technology. Its
location on the peninsula overlooking Providenciales’
Flamingo Lake is a natural habitat where flamingos can
occasionally be found. Community amenities include a
pickleball court, yoga pavilion, outdoor workspace, firepit
amphitheater, electric vehicle charging station and
non-motorized watersports.
Frontier Airlines anticipates the launch of weekly
Friday service from Orlando to Providenciales. This opens
up an important gateway to major US cities and more
competitive pricing. Looking to the future, the Turks &
Caicos Islands continue to maintain their “gold standard”
as a global luxury and tourism brand. a
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astrolabe
newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
Front Street, PO Box 188, Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos Islands, BWI TKCA 1ZZ
tel 649 247 2160/US incoming 786 220 1159 • email info@tcmuseum.org • web www.tcmuseum.org
TURKS & CAICOS NATIONAL MUSEUM
Thank You!
The departure of our former director, Dr. Michael Pateman, and the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic
have left me as the sole employee of the Turks & Caicos National Museum. I have the responsibility of
running many aspects of both locations—Grand Turk and Providenciales. The only way I am able to do
this is with the assistance of a dedicated group of enthusiastic volunteers who are committed to the
museum’s future success. They lend their time and ideas to assist us in remaining open and continuing
with progress.
Starting in 2019, Grand Turk volunteers were assisting with updating our collection database. This
software allows us to catalog all items in our collections including photographs, artifacts, and library and
archived material. While the database, PastPerfect, had information about various objects, photographs
were not attached. Volunteers’ efforts before and during the pandemic have made major progress and
more than 90% of our photograph records are now complete.
Now that some of the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, the museum and gift shop on Grand Turk have
reopened; the Providenciales location is open with volunteers operating the museum, Heritage House
and Heritage Garden. Several of them have a special interest in the garden and their efforts are apparent.
Without these volunteers—who often go over and above what is expected of them—we would not have
been able to re-open the Providenciales location at this time.
The Turks & Caicos National Museum Board is also all volunteers, including President Seamus Day,
who assists me often. We have board members and directors with experience in a wide range of businesses
and specialty areas of knowledge. Many of them have been involved since the museum’s inception.
Thank you to everyone who has continued to support us over the years and especially during these
difficult times. We cannot say it often enough that our supporters and volunteers are the reason for our
success and ability to carry on. If you are interested in volunteering or have an artistic, historic or cultural
research question or article you would like to submit to Astrolabe, contact us at info@tcmuseum.org.a
Lisa Turnbow-Talbot, Museum Manager
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
SHUTTERSTOCK
Two Turks & Caicos historians have gone to great lengths to promote the theory that Christopher Columbus’ first landfall in the “New World”
was on Grand Turk.
Small Island, Big History
Grand Turk is an island of historical importance.
By Dr. Carlton Mills and Debby-Lee Mills
It has been commonly taught that Christopher Columbus’ first landfall in the “New World” was San
Salvador in the Bahamas. In recent years, this theory has been challenged by two Turks & Caicos Islands
historians, the late H.E. Sadler and Josiah Marvel. These historians promoted the theory that Columbus’
first landfall was Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos Islands.
The late Josiah Marvel started his research in this area in the mid-1980s. Bolstered by his dear friend
Tim Ainley, who accompanied him on his expedition, they took their 43 foot catamaran and proceeded
to retrace the first landfall made by Christopher Columbus on Grand Turk. According to Dave Calvert,
the author of the article, “Sailing the Caribbean in the Wake of Christopher Columbus,” the purpose of
the expedition was to retrace Marvel’s purported route on a sailing vessel to confirm distances, courses
and descriptions of the various islands as recorded by the famed admiral in the Diario of Christopher
Columbus.
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
Columbus also recorded in his diary that when he
made landfall, he encountered Indians on the island. Over
the years, an argument arose as to whether or not there
is evidence to substantiate that there were Indians in the
Turks & Caicos Islands at the time.
In short, the following details tend to suggest that
there is strong evidence of Taíno/Lucayan presence in
the Islands. It commenced with Theodore De Booy (1912)
when he obtained exquisite examples of Taíno art. Later
on, archaeologist Dr. Shaun Sullivan devoted two years of
dedicated work to surveys and excavations in the Caicos
Islands in an effort to track the Taíno colonization. He
re-discovered forty Taíno sites; all but five were on Middle
Caicos.
In 1989, while attending a conference at which
Robert Power and Josiah Marvel presented their case for
Grand Turk as the first landfall of Columbus, Dr. Donald
Keith found two Taíno sites on Grand Turk. This was the
beginning of the Taíno story on that island as an article in
the Summer 1995 issue of Times of the Islands, “History
begins on Grand Turk,” suggests. Further evidence also
revealed that within a half century of the European colonization
efforts through conquest, degradation and
extermination, this group of people were decimated
through the imposition of the Spanish Encomienda
System (their forced labour policy), inhumane treatment
and the ingress of diseases by the Europeans which the
Taíno people were not immune to.
Following the demise of the Taíno population, the
next main settlement attempt in Grand Turk was by the
Bermudians in 1678. The Bermudians first came to the
Islands on a temporary basis to harvest salt. While they
waited on the process to take place, they used their time
to salvage wrecked ships and fish for turtles. In time,
salt became a very lucrative business which encouraged
them to establish a permanent settlement on the
island. Remnants of the old salt ponds on Grand Turk
tell this story. The island still retains aspects of the old
colonial British-Bermudian heritage through its buildings,
street designs and family names—in particular Astwood,
Butterfield, Dean, Durham, Frith, Seymour and Taylor.
Salt made Grand Turk a vitally important artery
linking this small island (whether directly or indirectly)
with several global partners including the USA, Canada,
England and neighboring Caribbean countries, in particular
Jamaica and Barbados. It was the salt from Grand Turk
that was shipped to Newfoundland in Canada to make
“salt cod” that was then sold to the slave plantation owners
in these Caribbean countries as the main food for
their slaves. As the salt trade expanded, it resulted in
Grand Turk being declared the first port of entry in the
Turks & Caicos, with custom officials present to collect
the revenue that was being generated from its sales.
By 1681, salt was not only a thriving business but
because of demand, it acquired the popular name “White
Gold.” This flourishing business also saw the Bermudians
establish Cockburn Town in Grand Turk as the capital
of the island. It was named after Sir Francis Cockburn,
the then-governor of the Bahamas. Cockburn Town was a
small Bermudian coastal settlement on the western side
of Grand Turk, now the oldest permanent settlement on
the island. Its boundaries extended from Duke Street on
the southern end heading north along Front Street to
where Duke Street merges into Queen Street overlooking
These iconic images of the Grand Turk salt industry feature the windmills that pumped sea water through the vast salinas and the laborers
who toiled to rake the salt that dried in the hot sun.
TED PHILIPPONA–TURKS AND CAICOS NATIONAL MUSEUM COLLECTION
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
the ocean. As the town developed into an important commercial
center, several government buildings and offices
were created in the vicinity, particularly on Front Street.
Salt was the lifeblood of Grand Turk. It single-handedly
transformed the island into an economic hub.
From as early as the 18th century, the French showed
interest in the Turks & Caicos Islands because of the profitable
salt trade. At the end of the Seven Years War in
1764, the French Admiral Comte d’ Estainy briefly occupied
Grand Turk. The British did not take kindly to this
aggressive move. They were reluctant to see another
European power amassing wealth from the proceeds of
salt. In order to stamp their dominance on the island, the
British made Grand Turk the capital in 1766 and introduced
the position of King’s Agent, with Andrew Symmer
being the first to hold this new-found office. It was also
an attempt by the British to maintain a strong physical
governmental presence on the island to safeguard all proceeds
from the salt trade for the British Crown.
The British presence, however, did not deter the
French. They returned in 1783. This return trip was historical
as it made Grand Turk more famously known for
the Battle of Grand Turk which transpired on March 9,
1783 during the American Revolutionary War. The French
captured the Bermudians along with their salt workers
before proceeding to exercise their political and military
might over residents in the Caicos Islands. In response to
the actions by the French, the British deployed a 28-gun
frigate HMS Albermarle with a force of 100 men under
the command of Captain Horatio Nelson. Their mission
was to rescue the Islands from the French. Unfortunately,
this military mission ended in total failure.
In the end, it took diplomatic action by both parties
through the Treaty of Paris to formally conclude the war
after six months. This raid by the French caused the
British to exercise closer oversight of the island and its
important role in the international salt trade.
Another important historical feature of Grand Turk is
Waterloo, constructed in 1815. It was later purchased by
the British Government in 1857, eventually becoming the
home for the British resident governors in the territory.
In 1898, the first cable was landed on Grand Turk
by Halifax Cable Company, later called Direct West India
Cable Company Limited of Canada. This investment made
Grand Turk an important cable station linking the island
with the rest of the world.
These 1965 aerial views of Grand Turk show (at top) its capital
Cockburn Town, which includes many of the structures that are standing
today and (at bottom) the vast salinas that made the salt industry
a thriving business for many years.
Built in 1815, Waterloo served for many years as the residence for
British governors in the territory. Ironically, in 1975 members of the
Junkanoo Club marched on Waterloo to demand social, economic and
political reform. Their protest secured a new constitution and the
start of TCI ministerial government in 1976.
In 1921, the first high school was opened in Grand
Turk providing secondary education for students on all
of the Turks & Caicos Islands. This was in addition to the
TED PHILIPPONA–TURKS AND CAICOS NATIONAL MUSEUM COLLECTION
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
two government primary schools that were already operational
in the island.
An inter-island radio service was inaugurated in
1923. This operated until 1941, following the takeover
of the Grand Turk station by Cable and Wireless.
A major historical development for the island took
place in the 1950s when the US bases and radar tracking
station were set up. The US NAVFAC 104 (known as North
Base) was commissioned on October 23, 1954. This base
was a part of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) and
underwater listening system that was designed to track
Soviet submarines. It was eventually decommissioned on
March 31, 1980.
The Grand Turk Air Force Base, a missile tracking station,
was built by a joint agreement between the UK and
the US. It came into service in 1953. The purpose of this
facility was to track long-range missiles launched from
the US and also monitor satellites and manned flights
launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The third facility that was constructed by the US on
Grand Turk was on Colonel Murray’s Hill (known colloquially
as “Nookie Hill.”) When John Glenn splashed down
in the waters of the TCI in his space capsule Friendship
7 in 1962 after orbiting the earth, NASA never knew
that Glenn was still alive. It was from Colonel Murray’s
Hill that the heart rates and positions of the astronauts
John Glenn in Friendship 7 and later in the year, Scott
Carpenter in Aurora 7, were monitored. US Vice President
Lyndon Johnson came to Grand Turk to take Astronaut
John Glenn back to the United States. These bases further
augmented Grand Turk’s strategic position in the US
Global Surveillance Operations programme.
The first hotel, Turks Head Inn, was opened on Grand
Turk by the government in 1965 but sold three years later
to a private individual. In 1966, the government opened
a savings bank on Grand Turk and Barclays Bank (now
CIBC/First Caribbean International Bank) was opened
on April 12, 1966. As a means of boosting the tourism
sector following the opening of the Turks Head Inn, the
government in 1969 constructed new air terminal buildings
on both Grand Turk and South Caicos.
An attempt at implementing the A Level programme
in education was made in the early 1970s but this was
short-lived. This failed effort did not impede plans of
developing post-secondary education however, as the
Turks & Caicos Islands Community College opened its
This historic photo of Grand Turk’s “North Base” is an aerial view
looking southwest. The large white area was used for catching and
storing rainwater.
Grand Turk residents greet US Vice President Lyndon Johnson in 1962
when he came to accompany Astronaut John Glenn back to the United
States following his splashdown in the ocean off Grand Turk.
This is the original Barclays Bank building which opened on Grand
Turk in 1966.
doors in Grand Turk on September 18, 1994 with assistance
from the Caribbean Development Bank. The old
Navy Base buildings were eventually refurbished to facilitate
the transfer of the community college to a permanent
home.
TURKS AND CAICOS NATIONAL MUSEUM COLLECTION
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
Grand Turk is also the home to the $40 million cruise
port, constructed in 2006. This facility is erected on 13
acres of land and includes a 3,000-foot pier, welcome
center, recreational center including a swimming pool,
1,000 feet of beachfront, cabanas and shops and the
largest Margaritaville in the Caribbean. In 2019, Grand
Turk captured the accolade for the Best Caribbean Beach
Port by Porthole Magazine.
Grand Turk is usually described as a “floating
museum” and rightly so. It is the home to the lighthouse
which was constructed in 1852 as an important landmark
to guide sailing ships. In addition, there is the old
prison, the militia building, Victoria Public Library, post
office, Odd Fellows Building and the St. Thomas Anglican
Church. Built in 1823, it was the first church constructed
on the island, followed by its sister church, St. Mary’s
Anglican Church, built in 1899.
Grand Turk was also home to several plantations,
including Hawkes Nest Plantation which was developed in
the 1900s to produce sisal, and Eve’s Family Plantation,
used to produce cotton. Grand Turk is where the Junkanoo
Club was founded, a social organization that was transformational
and progressive in its actions. This group
was instrumental in bringing about a new sense of consciousness
in the 1970s which facilitated the ushering in
of constitutional changes with wide implications for the
TCI. The People’s Democratic Movement (PDM), one of
the country’s major political parties, eventually emerged
from this group of social advocates.
To the present-day visitor, the National Museum on
Grand Turk provides a wealth of fascinating displays
including a historical Lucayan carved wood duho (ceremonial
chair) and artifacts from the Molasses Reef Wreck
which is believed to be the oldest European shipwreck
excavated in the Western Hemisphere. The island is also
known for excellent scuba diving and offshore snorkeling
with pristine and sheer wall sites defining the underwater
experience. This wall has attracted many divers, as
in certain places it can drop from 30 feet to well over
7,000 feet. Along the Cockburn Town waterfront are
many beautiful beaches, small hotels and resorts. The
west side of Grand Turk is home to Governor’s Beach,
Pillory Beach, English Point Beach, Cockburn Town Beach
and White Sands Beach.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly halted
most of the tourism activity on the island. As the main
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grand Turk Cruise Port was one
of the most popular stops in the Caribbean.
contributor of visitors, at press time the Carnival Cruise
Lines have continued to cease operations. It is believed
that once cruise ships again call on Grand Turk, it will
regain its glory as being one of the leading tourism destinations
in the TCI. a
SHUTTERSTOCK
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
Museum Matters
Providenciales garden progress
The Heritage Garden at the museum’s Village at Grace
Bay location was in dire condition after the location was
closed for over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The site reopened in May 2021 and work on restoring
the garden began. Thanks to our enthusiastic volunteers
and private donors, the garden has been cleaned
up, new plants have been added and regular watering
is bringing the vegetation back to life.
The garden includes edible vegetables such as sweet
potato, okra, pigeon peas, spinach, kale, pumpkin,
watermelon and corn. Various trees, cacti and native
plants are also present. The original intent of the garden
was to grow the indigenous plants that represented
the Turks & Caicos Islands and to explain how Islanders
cultivated, harvested, stored and prepared them as a
food source. The restoration and progress made so far
is revitalizing that idea.
indigenous vegetation. This initiative works with the
developers to allow us to remove the plants and re-plant
in the Heritage Garden before they are ruined during
ground-breaking. a
Evening with a local historian
Grand Turk residents were pleased to have Dr. Carlton
Mills speak at the Grand Turk museum location on June
22. The presentation subject, “The Road to TCI’s First
Constitution,” was vastly informative and generated
many questions from the audience.
Sugar apples are an especially tasty island fruit that are being cultivated
in the museum’s Heritage Garden.
We are working in collaboration with the TCI
Government Department of Environment and Coastal
Resources (DECR), Ocean Club Resort and various
developers to replant displaced indigenous plants
in the Heritage Garden. Development often destroys
Dr. Mills is originally from South Caicos. He has been
an educator in Turks & Caicos throughout his professional
life. He is committed to raising the quality of
educational facilities and resources in the country and
to increasing educational opportunities for the Islands’
people. He is also a frequent contributor of articles to
the Astrolabe and Times of the Islands.
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astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
As the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted we will once
again be hosting these types of events. Check our
Facebook page and website for upcoming presentations,
movies and other events. a
Bricks on their way!
Pre-pandemic, the museum launched a fund-raising
campaign which involved selling engraved bricks that
will be used on the various walkways.
Finally . . . the bricks have been ordered! They should
be ready to ship to the Islands by early September.
The fundraiser for the engraved bricks will continue.
Once people see them and are inspired by the ideas that
others came up with for dedications and memorials, we
hope that additional orders will be placed.
The Grand Turk bricks will be installed shortly after
arriving. The bricks for Providenciales are for the new
building when it is finished, but we will have some on
display at that location.
• Providenciales—All proceeds from the brick purchases
will go towards the new building for the museum here.
• Grand Turk—All proceeds from the brick purchases
will be used for the operations, projects and exhibits for
the Grand Turk museum.
Bricks can be purchased in three different sizes for
a cost of $100, $250 or $500. You choose the wording,
and for an additional $25 have the option to include artwork.
Replica bricks are also available for an additional
$25 if you would like a duplicate of your purchase. For
more information, contact us at info@tcmuseum.org
or visit our website www.tcmuseum.org. a
Current operating hours
Grand Turk—Tuesday and Thursday, 10 AM to 3 PM
Located in historic Guinep House on Front Street, this
location includes exhibits on the Salt Industry, Molasses
Reef Wreck, the Lucayans, John Glenn landing and more.
The bricks can be purchased for either the
Providenciales or Grand Turk museum locations. This
is a great way to support the museum and leave an
everlasting tribute for a loved one or show support from
your family or business.
Providenciales—Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,
10 AM to 2 PM
Located in the Village at Grace Bay, this location includes
a Historical Timeline that gives an overview of the most
important dates in the history of the TCI. Additional
exhibits include the slave ship Trouvadore, Molasses
Reef Wreck artifacts and Sapodilla Hill Rock Carvings.
Tour the Heritage House (shown above), a historically
correct re-creation of a typical 1800s Caicos Islands
dwelling, and the Heritage Garden. Days and times of
operation are subject to change, so please check our
website or Facebook page for updated information.
www.tcmuseum.org• info@tcmuseum.org
(649) 247-2160
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about the Islands
Map provided courtesy Wavey Line Publishing. Their navigation charts and decorative and historic maps of the Turks & Caicos Islands, The
Bahamas, and Hispaniola are available in shops throughout the Islands. Visit www.amnautical.com.
Where we are
The Turks & Caicos Islands lie some 575 miles southeast
of Miami — approximately 1 1/2 hours flying time —
with The Bahamas about 30 miles to the northwest and
the Dominican Republic some 100 miles to the southeast.
The country consists of two island groups separated
by the 22-mile wide Columbus Passage. To the west are
the Caicos Islands: West Caicos, Providenciales, North
Caicos, Middle Caicos, East Caicos and South Caicos. To
the east are the Turks Islands: Grand Turk and Salt Cay.
The Turks & Caicos total 166 square miles of land
area on eight islands and 40 small cays. The country’s
population is approximately 43,000.
Getting here
There are international airports on Grand Turk,
Providenciales, and South Caicos, with domestic airports
on all of the islands except East Caicos.
As of September 1, 2021, all visitors ages 16 and
above must be fully vaccinated and provide a negative
PCR or antigen COVID-19 test taken within three days
of travel. (Children under the age of 10 are not required
to be tested.) Additionally, travellers must have medical/
travel insurance that covers medevac, a completed health
screening questionnaire and certification that they have
read and agreed to the privacy policy document. These
requirements must be uploaded to the TCI Assured portal,
which is available at www.turksandcaicostourism.
com, in advance of their arrival.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 77

The TCI has expanded COVID-19 testing capacity in
response to testing requirements implemented for travellers
entering the United States and Canada. Many resorts
offer on-site testing, along with numerous local health
practitioners.
Language
English.
Time zone
Eastern Standard Time (EST)/Daylight Savings Time
observed.
Currency
The United States dollar. The Treasury also issues a Turks
& Caicos crown and quarter. Travellers cheques in U.S.
dollars are widely accepted and other currency can be
changed at local banks. American Express, VISA and
MasterCard are welcomed at many locations.
Climate
The average year-round temperature is 83ºF (28ºC). The
hottest months are September and October, when the
temperature can reach 90 to 95ºF (33 to 35ºC). However,
the consistent easterly trade winds temper the heat and
keep life comfortable.
Casual resort and leisure wear is accepted attire for
daytime; light sweaters or jackets may be necessary on
some breezy evenings. It’s wise to wear protective clothing
and a sunhat and use waterproof sunscreen when out
in the tropical sun.
Entry requirements
Passport. A valid onward or return ticket is also required.
Customs formalities
Visitors may bring in duty free for their own use one carton
of cigarettes or cigars, one bottle of liquor or wine,
and some perfume. The importation of all firearms including
those charged with compressed air without prior
approval in writing from the Commissioner of Police is
strictly forbidden. Spear guns, Hawaiian slings, controlled
drugs and pornography are also illegal.
Returning residents may bring in $400 worth of
merchandise per person duty free. A duty of 10% to
60% is charged on most imported goods along with a
7% customs processing fee and forms a major source of
government revenue.
Transportation
A valid driver’s license from home is suitable when renting
vehicles. A government tax of 12% is levied on all
rental contracts. (Insurance is extra.) Driving is on the
left-hand side of the road, with traffic flow controlled by
round-abouts at major junctions. Please don’t drink and
drive! Taxis and community cabs are abundant throughout
the Islands and many resorts offer shuttle service
between popular visitor areas. Scooter, motorcycle and
bicycle rentals are also available.
Telecommunications
FLOW Ltd. provides land lines and superfast broadband
Internet service. Mobile service is on a LTE 4G network,
including pre- and post-paid cellular phones. Most resorts
and some stores and restaurants offer wireless Internet
connections. Digicel operates mobile networks, with
a full suite of LTE 4G service. FLOW is the local carrier
for CDMA roaming on US networks such as Verizon and
Sprint. North American visitors with GSM cellular hand-
78 www.timespub.tc

sets and wireless accounts with AT&T or Cingular can
arrange international roaming.
Electricity
FortisTCI supplies electricity at a frequency of 60HZ,
and either single phase or three phase at one of three
standard voltages for residential or commercial service.
FortisTCI continues to invest in a robust and resilient grid
to ensure the highest level of reliability to customers. The
company is integrating renewable energy into its grid and
provides options for customers to participate in two solar
energy programs.
Departure tax
US $60. It is typically included in your airline ticket cost.
Courier service
Delivery service is provided by FedEx, with offices on
Providenciales and Grand Turk, and DHL. UPS service is
limited to incoming delivery.
Postal service
The Post Office and Philatelic Bureau in Providenciales are
located downtown on Airport Road. In Grand Turk, the
Post Office and Philatelic Bureau are on Church Folly. The
Islands are known for their colorful stamp issues.
Media
Multi-channel satellite television is received from the U.S.
and Canada and transmitted via cable or over the air.
Local station WIV-TV broadcasts on Channel 4 and Island
EyeTV on Channel 5. People’s Television offers 75 digitally
transmitted television stations, along with local news
and talk shows on Channel 8. There are also a number of
local radio stations, magazines and newspapers.
Medical services
There are no endemic tropical diseases in TCI. There are
large, modern hospitals on Grand Turk and Providenciales.
Both hospitals offer a full range of services including:
24/7 emergency room, operating theaters, diagnostic
imaging, maternity suites, dialysis suites, blood bank,
physiotherapy and dentistry.
In addition, several general practitioners operate in
the country, and there is a recompression chamber, along
with a number of private pharmacies.
Immigration
A resident’s permit is required to live in the Islands. A
work permit and business license are also required to
work and/or establish a business. These are generally
granted to those offering skills, experience and qualifications
not widely available on the Islands. Priority is given
to enterprises that will provide employment and training
for T&C Islanders.
Government/Legal system
TCI is a British Crown colony. There is a Queen-appointed
Governor, HE Nigel John Dakin. He presides over an executive
council formed by the elected local government.
Hon. Charles Washington Misick is the country’s premier,
leading a majority Progressive National Party (PNP) House
of Assembly.
The legal system is based upon English Common
Law and administered by a resident Chief Justice, Chief
Magistrate,and Deputy Magistrates. Judges of the Court
of Appeal visit the Islands twice a year and there is a final
Right of Appeal to Her Majesty’s Privy Council in London.
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 79

Taxes
There are currently no direct taxes on either income
or capital for individuals or companies. There are no
exchange controls. Indirect taxation comprises customs
duties and fees, stamp duty, taxes on accommodations,
restaurants, vehicle rentals, other services and gasoline,
as well as business license fees and departure taxes.
Economy
Historically, TCI’s economy relied on the export of salt.
Currently, tourism, the offshore finance industry and fishing
generate the most private sector income. The Islands’
main exports are lobster and conch. Practically all consumer
goods and foodstuffs are imported.
The Turks & Caicos Islands are recognised as an
important offshore financial centre, offering services
such as company formation, offshore insurance, banking,
trusts, limited partnerships and limited life companies.
The Financial Services Commission regulates the industry
and spearheads the development of offshore legislation.
People
Citizens of the Turks & Caicos Islands are termed
“Belongers” and are primarily descendants of African
slaves who were brought to the Islands to work in the
salt ponds and cotton plantations. The country’s large
expatriate population includes Canadians, Americans,
Brits and Europeans, along with Haitians, Jamaicans,
Dominicans, Bahamians, Indians and Filipinos.
Churches
Churches are the center of community life and there
are many faiths represented in the Islands including:
Adventist, Anglican, Assembly of God, Baha’i, Baptist,
Catholic, Church of God, Episcopal, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Methodist and Pentecostal. Visitors are always welcome.
Pets
Incoming pets must have an import permit, veterinary
health certificate, vaccination certificate and lab test
results to be submitted at the port of entry to obtain
clearance from the TCI Department of Agriculture, Animal
Health Services.
National symbols
The National Bird is the Brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis).
The National Plant is Island heather (Limonium
bahamense) found nowhere else in the world. The
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National Tree is the Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea var.
bahamensis). The National Costume consists of white cotton
dresses tied at the waist for women and simple shirts
and loose pants for men, with straw hats. Colors representing
the various islands are displayed on the sleeves,
sashes and hat bands. The National Song is “This Land
of Ours” by the late Rev. E.C. Howell. Peas and Hominy
(Grits) with Dry Conch is revered as symbolic island fare.
Going green
TCI Waste Disposal Services currently offers recycling
services through weekly collection of recyclable aluminum,
glass and plastic. Single-use plastic bags have been
banned country-wide as of May 1, 2019.
Recreation
Sporting activities are centered around the water. Visitors
can choose from deep-sea, reef or bonefishing, sailing,
glass-bottom boat and semi-sub excursions, windsurfing,
waterskiing, parasailing, sea kayaking, snorkelling,
scuba diving, kiteboarding, stand up paddleboarding and
beachcombing. Pristine reefs, abundant marine life and
excellent visibility make TCI a world-class diving destination.
Tennis and golf—there is an 18 hole championship
course on Providenciales—are also popular.
The Islands are an ecotourist’s paradise. Visitors can
enjoy unspoilt wilderness and native flora and fauna in 33
national parks, nature reserves, sanctuaries and areas of
historical interest. The National Trust provides trail guides
to several hiking trails, as well as guided tours of major
historical sites. There is an excellent national museum on
Grand Turk, with an auxillary branch on Providenciales. A
scheduled ferry and a selection of tour operators make it
easy to take day trips to the outer islands.
Other land-based activities include bicycling, horseback
riding and football (soccer). Personal trainers are
available to motivate you, working out of several fitness
centres. You will also find a variety of spa and body treatment
services.
Nightlife includes local bands playing island music
at bars and restaurants and some nightclubs. There are
two casinos on Providenciales, along with many electronic
gaming parlours. Stargazing is extraordinary!
Shoppers will find Caribbean paintings, T-shirts,
sports and beachwear and locally made handicrafts,
including straw work and conch crafts. Duty free outlets
sell liquor, jewellery, watches, perfume, leather goods,
crystal, china, cameras, electronics, brand-name clothing
and accessories, along with Cuban cigars. a
Times of the Islands Fall 2021 81

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WE ARE LEADING THE CHANGE
FOR A NEW ENERGY FUTURE
Our executive team: (L-r) Senior Vice President of Operations Devon Cox; Vice President of Corporate
Services and CFO Aisha Laporte; President and CEO Ruth Forbes; Vice President of Grand Turk and
Sister Island Operations Allan Robinson; Vice President of Innovation, Technology and Strategic Planning
Rachell Roullet and Vice President of Engineering and Energy Production and Delivery Don Forsyth
The energy landscape is changing.
And at FortisTCI, we are leading the transition to cleaner energy with
innovative solutions, and the highest level of service to customers.
With sustainability as a guiding principle, we are strategically investing
in new technologies, people and processes to deliver least-cost, reliable,
resilient and sustainable energy to keep the Turks and Caicos Islands
economy moving forward.
At FortisTCI, we are powered by a team of energy experts, who are proud
to serve as your energy partners.
www.fortistci.com | 649-946-4313 |

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