TCI - Day Four: Getting off North Caicos

This is where the vacation took a turn for the worse. Or at least for the expensive. We missed our ferry - the last of the night - back to Providenciales. Some people might want to blame a couple girls who were starving and tired of eating PB & J but I blame island time for the delay. I wanted to stop for some cracked conch - a local delicacy - and I wanted to try one of the small restaurants on the other islands and I was starving. Plus we had over an hour. Brady suggested that we use our extra time to catch an earlier ferry home. What a good idea that would have been.

Instead we stopped in a local eatery to get a quick bite. The menu on the wall listed at least a dozen lunch specials with various reasonable prices. The sign outside the door said daily specials $7.99. We weren't offered those specials. They were out of everything on the menu except for blackened snapper and cracked (deep fried) conch. Three of us went for the conch, Ben ordered the snapper, which he would soon regret. All items came with a side of "peas and rice" which is rice and kidney beans and a salad. The food took forever and since none of our cell phones worked we had no way to track time. We asked the waitress/cook/sister of the owner what time it was. She gave us a time that was 20 minutes off in what we thought was our favor. We weren't convinced of this and went to check the car time so we knew we only had 15 minutes left but we were done eating so we went to pay. One of the reasons we stopped here was because they took credit card and after refilling the rental jeep we were out of cash. And we would need it because Ben's snapper ran $22! Our conch was about $10 cheaper but nothing on the menu board indicated anything being over $14. I guess we got the special tourist price. Unfortunately their credit card machine wasn't functioning so she had to do everything manually. And we now had five minutes left to catch our ferry. As we were leaving she ran out with our receipt that we had dashed off without and we made it to the dock just in time to see the ferry speed away. And we were left holding the tickets we had already paid for and no way back to our hotel room that night. Which is a problem if you have contact solution and stuff you need to get back to - not to mention there was a Laker game on that night and our other hotel had DirectTV. Just as we are trying to wrap our mind around the fact that the ferry wasn't coming back for us, Dorothy, the waitress/cook/sister races up in her car and jumps out with Ben's credit card which had been left in the imprinting machine. And even though I mostly blame her for us missing the boat (I even have a bit of a conspiracy theory that she wanted us to miss it so that we would either have to hire a private ferry or hotel owned by her friend but I can't prove anything), she was very nice and helpful in calling around for us. There were two functioning hotels on the island both over $200/night for the basics - one bed and an air conditioner. And no restaurant but a beachfront bar at at least one of them. Our slightly toasted rental car provider who provided us with the above map with every bar/liquor store marked on it recommended this one.

We were told we could have someone pick us up for $300. We conferred and thought we could negotiate it down further. Being that a hotel was going to cost us about $200 plus we would each have to buy a $15 ferry ticket in the morning and we would have to wake up at 6am to catch it AND the guys would miss their Laker game we thought if we could get off for $200 it would be a deal. Ben talked to a guy who would do this for us. Below are pictures of us waiting. Did I mention that the mosquitos also started appearing during this time of grief? Ben and Brady both scratch/rub their heads when stressed which I have seen other brothers in their family do and I think it's funny that there are pictures of both of them doing so in this situation. And the funny soda cans - well I just thought the pictures on the can were funny. Don't ever get that drink though. It's the epitome of sickly sweet.

Dorothy and her sons waited with us until our help came and it was really cool to chat with her about island life and get to know more about the islands we were visiting.

PS - Oh, and our emergency ferry captain, Hugh, was so awesome (he is a fly-fishing guide and Lakers fan himself) and so was the pitch black speed boat ride to the other island. I'm glad he knew where he was going because we couldn't see a thing. He was even spotting giant sea turtles on the way back. And he was cool with the fact that even though he told Ben to have the money ready when he got there that we couldn't get cash until we got back to Provo - no credit card machines in Middle/North Caicos and no ATM's either.

PPS - When we got back to our hotel the DirectTV was out so there was no basketball watched last night. But I could take my contacts out and none of us had to get up to catch a 6am ferry. $200 well spent.