We found an enthusiastic digger on the beach.  We caught this hawk-like bird on a wire out by the road--the beak is wrong for a hawk, so maybe it's a nighthawk of some type.

 
Horses also walked along the road.

Our destination was Governor's Beach.

We were interested in their reef restoration program and thought you would be too.

It's always important to know who pays the bills and helps with restoration efforts.  If they can create a nice reef, everyone wins. 

The view back toward the Noordam from our snorkel site.

 
Coral grows very slowly, so even after seven years it doesn't look like it has made much progress.  But still, it's an interesting venture and there were schools of fish swimming around and under the structures.  

 
The photo above shows the pieces of coral attached to wires under the domed structure.  In the areas around this project, there were some spherical cement fish shelters and some coral-covered rocks. It's not the best site we've ever seen, but it is hopeful that people, including the local dive shops, are making the effort.

 
Garden eels, large worms that emerge from their holes to feed, were common.  They retreat into their holes when anything big approaches.

 
We swam toward the wreck on the beach.  Many of the dives we'd done were around wrecks, so we figured that there'd be more fish there--we were right.

We liked the glowing eyes of these minnows swimming around the wreck.

Many of our fellow passengers only walked down the dock to the artificial paradise built in the cruise center where they could lounge by the pool and shop. 

 
We were amused by the Grand Turk conch weather station, though. And after a quick shower, I came back with my computer to check my email at Margaritaville. The wi-fi service was pretty slow and a recording of a live Jimmy Buffet concert blasted the whole area, but it was free and it had been days and days... 

The next stop was Santa Barbará de Samaná in the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispañola. (See the Itinerary.) But the wind was so strong and the waves were too large for safe tender operations that we could not stop. We had signed up for a horseback riding excursion up into the rain forest, so we were disappointed.  The cruise director scrambled to add more shipboard activities for the extra day at sea--not that we care about Bingo or cooking lessons.  Now we are headed toward the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) just north of Venezuela in South America, but we will not be doing them alphabetically. Our sequence is B C A.