Grand Turk offers white beaches and some excellent scuba diving at only three hundred yards offshore.

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Although not as busy and developed as Provo; eight square miles large Grand Turk is the capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Cockburn Town, the main village, is an historic place with many colonial buildings, Bermudan architecture, picturesque streets and several churches. It is quarrelling about the honor of being the first island that Christopher Columbus discovered on its first journey to the new world, but other islands in the Bahamas are strong competitors.

Highlights include a visit to the National Museum, several old canons, a trip to its Lighthouse and visiting Fire Hill or the Hawks Nest Anchorage. Today, you will still find ruins of windmills, transport carts, donkeys and cattle in the streets which were used during its salt industry. Lakes such as Hawkes Nest Salina, Hawkes Pond Salina and Towns Pond remember at this once so economic favorable time. Front Street and Duke Street are the main boulevards offering all from luxury waterfront resorts to excellent seafood dining restaurants. In the north you can find North Creek which is the only suitable shelter for cruise ships during hurricanes or bad weather. A large pier is suitable for docking huge Panamax class cruise ships, often coming from the United States.

To the east of Grand Turk you will find Gibbs Cay, a beautiful white sanded cay very popular for picnics and snorkeling. Whale watching trips are popular from January to March as many humpback whales migrate through the islands of Grand Turk and Salt Cay. Most scuba diving is done in the Columbus Landfall Marine National Park, a well protected coral reef on the west side of Grand Turk. Its blue warm waters, steep drop-offs only a few hundred yards from shore and rich marine life create a world class scuba and snorkeling destination. While diving the wall, you are often accompanied by eagle rays, mantas, turtles, groupers and many pelagic species. Popular dive sites are the Amphitheatre which is extremely rich in soft and hard corals or McDonald, named after a graceful arch situated right on top of the wall.

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