Story by Suzanne Gerber ~ Photos by Barbara Shively

You can’t dip below the water’s surface in any tropical paradise without noticing the amazing Technicolor world that exists there—“the inner planet,” as it’s been called. It truly is another world, teeming with more life and color, shapes and textures than most places of comparable size on land. Over the past two years, this column has looked at fish and, in the last issue, hard corals, but what would the underwater world be without its delicate, gracefully undulating soft corals that turn it into the planet’s largest and lushest garden? Most dive destinations have a site called Coral Gardens and invariably they rank as divers’ and snorkelers’ favorites. That’s because to attract great fish, you’ve got to have great corals.

A precarious situation

They make up a mere 0.25% of Earth’s entire aquatic environment, but our precious coral reefs house more than 25% of the world’s fish species. In terms of biological diversity, their closest competitor is their terra-firma cousin, the tropical rain forest. Like rain forests, reefs support life on a fundamental level, and like rain forests, they are so severely threatened by natural and manmade activities that our grandkids, should they stumble upon this article, might not have a clue what we are talking about. And that’s pretty sad, considering that corals have been around for 200 million to 400 million years and reached their current level of diversity some 50 million years ago.

But coral reefs aren’t merely a thing of extraordinary beauty; as hard-working colonies that support the fish that feed 75% of the world, they provide food. They also contribute greatly to the $375 billion tourism industry that indirectly keeps people fed, sheltered and clothed. On top of that, some of them, like barrier reefs, directly protect us landlubber bipeds and our shorelines from erosion and storm damage. Reef research is constantly offering clues to new healing modalities and medicines, like antibiotics. In short, we owe our collective existence to them.

Yet most of us take corals for granted: Not only do we ignore their beauty but we minimize their contribution to life on earth. And we pay them the ultimate disgrace by trampling them with anchors, fins, scuba tanks, errant hands and feet. Of course, the greatest harm comes from nature herself, from the rising temperatures in the world’s oceans. A report last summer by the National Geographic news service focused on the devastating effects of the soft-coral bleaching that has been the result of sustained high water temperatures. Hudi Benayahu, a marine biologist and head of the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University, observed sites in Okinawa, Japan, before and after bleaching events. “It was remarkable to see a massive disappearance of soft corals,” Benayahu said. “Just two years passed, and the entire area was deserted, lifeless. Once soft corals disappear, the entire ecosystem is threatened.” Benayahu added that until recently, soft corals had covered 50 to 60% of some of the sites he studies. This figure has dropped to an average of 5%. Benayahu, along with other experts, fear that if bleaching continues, entire soft coral species may become extinct—including some that haven’t even been catalogued yet.

It starts with knowledge

Hard coral is the more prevalent type (with some notable exceptions, like Fiji) and is the foundation of many reefs and even tropical islands. Its complement, soft coral, comes in a kaleidoscope of colors (including bright reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples and all shades of white and tan) and in as many shapes, sizes and textures as a beach garden. While they don’t directly build up reefs, soft corals play an integral role in the coral ecosystem. In fact, to maintain the delicate balance of its marine environment, a reef requires precise interaction of hard and soft corals, as well as sponges, anemones and critters as diverse as snails, rays, crabs, lobsters, turtles and dolphins.

Like its hard cousins, soft coral begins life as a larva secreted by its parent. Simply explained, soft corals (also known as gorgonians or, more properly, Alcyonacea, or Octocorallia) can be distinguished from hard corals by their eight tentacles, while hard coral polyps have multiples of six tentacles. (Hence the “octo” in the name.) Because soft coral secrete little to no calcium the way the hard, or stony, ones do, they grow more quickly, are far more flexible and require less light to exist. All corals are made up of polyps, and many types of soft coral have small side branches, giving them a featherlike appearance. Like hard corals, most soft coral species rely on internalized single-celled algae (called zooxanthellae) to deliver their food supply, which is supplemented by free-floating food in the ocean like plankton or brine shrimp.

There are many varieties of soft corals: sea fans, sea rods, sea plumes, sea pens and sea whips, which can be found in the shallowest waters right down to depths of several thousand feet. Gorgonians’ size and shape are correlated to their location: In shallower depths with stronger currents you see more fan-shaped and flexible ones, whereas you will find taller, thinner and stiffer ones in deeper, calmer waters. Research tells us there are some 500 different species of gorgonians found in the oceans of the world, and that they’re most readily found in the shallow Atlantic waters surrounding Florida, Bermuda, the West Indies and right here in Turks & Caicos.

One of the things Barbara and I love about gorgonians is what we’ve learned to discover hiding out in their delicate, regal “branches,” namely adorable fish like the sharp-nosed pufferfish and the slender filefish (sometimes as tiny as half an inch long). These little guys, and the very occasional seahorse, take shelter from predators in the branches. And because it’s nearly impossible to spot them, they are indeed safe!

Another category of soft coral are those that imitate land plants. There’s the tree coral, with a large, rubbery body that actually looks like a tree. Usually under three feet tall, these elegant forms are found in lagoons and calm oceans. A rare site is the daisy coral, which bears a striking resemblance to its namesake, the gerbera daisy. Varieties are distinguished by the number of petals or tentacles that surround the polyp. A favorite of divers and snorkelers alike is the sea fan (technically a “horny coral”).  Typically a beautiful shade of light lavender, the fan can also be brown, gold, orange or even red. It sports a lacy web of polyps embedded in a soft layer of tissue that grows out of an internal stalk, often a vibrant shade of deep purple. You can watch the fan wave in mild to strong current. An unusual but thrilling site is when delicate polyps come out to feed and cover the branches with featherlike tentacles.

Hope for the future?

As research continues, the news that leaks out is mostly grim—but not entirely. In Indonesia, for example, a region legendary for vast coral diversity, scientists are discovering that there are not just one but several species of the zooxanthellae algae in coral and that some of them seem resistant to rising water temperatures. A monitoring system is in place, and researchers are watching closely to see which algae survive, which may help preserve other reefs in the future. Elsewhere, manmade electrical-stimulation tiles are proving effective in growing new coral where the colonies are particularly threatened.

In a study released in February 2008, a group of researchers at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, CA, published data from 17 different studies that sadly concurred that almost 50% of the world’s coral reefs were experiencing “medium high to very high impact” from human pressures, which included the effects of rising temperatures, fishing practices and pollution. We may feel there’s nothing we as individuals can do—we don’t pollute the waterways, don’t run our boats aground in shallow waters and never touch corals when underwater—but there’s a reason global warming is called “global.” We’re all in this together. Small steps we take (or don’t take) in our everyday lives ultimately affect all other areas of life on the planets. We can live lighter, more greenly, be mindful of all our interactions with nature—and seek out good organizations to contribute funds for ongoing research. Following are a few of my favorites:

• REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) is a grassroots organization that seeks to conserve marine ecosystems by educating, enlisting and enabling divers and other marine enthusiasts to become active ocean stewards and citizen scientists. www.reef.org.
• The Coral Reef Alliance is the only international organization working exclusively to save the Earth’s coral reefs. www.coralreefalliance.org.
• Oceana is the largest international ocean environmental advocacy group dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans and its inhabitants. www.oceana.org.

New York-based Suzanne Gerber writes about scuba, travel and health for a variety of publications. Book your next dive trip by contacting Suzanne at suzanne@worldofdiving.com.

Avid underwater photographer Barbara Shively discovered Grand Turk diving in 1997 and has returned every year. It is her passion to share the coral reefs’ beauty through her photographs, many of which can be viewed and purchased at http://shivelygallery.com/. A variety of her prints are on sale at Art Provo, located in The Regent Village, Providenciales.

By Jonathan Sayao, T & C National Trust Education Officer

Photo By Brian Riggs

Listed among the Turks & Caicos Islands’ must-see places to visit is Little Water Cay, popularly known as Iguana Island. This 116-acre cay lies just off the eastern end of Providenciales and has two small interior ponds surrounded by an abundance of native plants. It is home to between 2,000 and 3,000 Turks & Caicos Rock Iguanas (Cyclura carinata carinata). A day trip to Little Water Cay means stepping onto one of the  only places in the world where you can see this rare species of iguana in their natural habitat.

The Turks & Caicos National Trust, the main non-governmental organization committed to the preservation of this endangered species, reports that almost 18,000 tourists visited the cay in 2007. Ideally, the more visitors, the better. Revenue generated from visitors means more resources can be used to develop projects that are aimed at preserving our physical, natural and cultural heritage—the National Trust’s core mission. Moreover, iguanas will continue to thrive and be protected to ensure that this unique creature does not become another name on the extinction list.

In recent years, the National Trust has worked with a team of researchers led by Dr. Glenn Gerber of the Zoological Society of San Diego to restore the Turks & Caicos Rock Iguanas to their former range. In 2002, hundreds of iguanas were moved from two islands with large populations to four uninhabited cays where they can be safe and multiply.

Adults and children visit the Little Water Cay site. Children usually enjoy seeing iguanas. Some of them even put names on them, like Rocky or Iggy. One Little Water Cay warden shared an incident of a four year old girl who screamed at the top of her lungs when she saw an iguana which she had mistaken for one she had seen in the Cayman Islands a year before. She shouted, “Ebby is here, Ebby is here!” The warden, with a nod from the girl’s father, said, “Yes, it’s Ebby.” The reality is that Rocky, Iggy, Ebby and thousands more like them need to be protected for all to see.

Unfortunately, these docile lizards are extremely vulnerable to extinction. Inappropriate development, introduced domestic animals and habitat destruction threaten them daily. In the 1970s, in a study conducted by Dr. John Iverson on Pine Cay, iguana numbers dwindled from 15,000 to almost zero in just three years. Without any positive action, all the iguanas in the country could suffer the same fate.

Little Water Cay is a protected nature reserve within the National Park System; dogs and cats are not permitted on the island, to ensure the survival of this critically endangered species.

Trails on Little Water Cay are raised on boardwalks, constructed for visitors to avoid stepping on the iguanas and disturbing their habitat. Some iguanas will greet you while others hide in shallow burrows dug in the sand or under rocks. Others are busy eating berries, leaves and fruits and some are simply “sunbathing.”

The Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana is the largest native land animal in our country and plays a very important role in the ecosystem. Their foraging activities help to maintain native plant communities and aid in the dispersal and germination of seeds. In the morning, they emerge from their burrows and bask in the sun before going off to feed. At midday, when the sun is the hottest, they retreat into the shade to avoid overheating.

During mating season, beginning in early May, the nesting females, characterized by their lack of large dorsal spines, dig a side tunnel off the main burrow to lay their eggs. After laying their eggs in early summer, the female seals up the nesting chamber and walks away. The heat from the sand incubates the eggs, which hatch about 90 days later. Guided by instinct, the small hatchlings dig their way out through the top of the chamber and emerge into the sunlight.

Iguanas on Little Water Cay have been tagged with colored beads. Scientists and researchers use bead tagging, which is a harmless procedure, to get information about  the iguanas’ life span and survival, reproductive rate, eating and mating habits and individual growth rates.

To differentiate one iguana from another, scientists use tags made of colored glass beads—each bead color corresponding to a different number. By using 8 different colors and putting up to 3 beads on each iguana, it is possible to have 888 possible identifiable individuals.

To tag a captured iguana, the scientist uses a sharp, hollow needle to thread a thin wire through the upper dorsal crest of the animal. This crest contains fatty tissue and has few nerves, similar to our ear lobes. The bead pattern is mirrored on each side of the iguana’s crest so that the color code can be read from either side.

The trail at Little Water Cay offers more than just an opportunity to easily view these normally shy animals. It winds through a pristine habitat that holds an abundance of native plants and other species.

Along the trail, a viewing tower gives a vista of the vastness the cay and the adjacent busy island of Providenciales. The area in front of the tower is a good viewing spot for iguanas, too, as it combines burrows and open basking areas sheltered by a variety of vegetation.

Like all Cyclura species, the Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana is primarily herbivorous, consuming leaves, flowers, and fruits from over 58 different plant species. The Sea Grape and Seven-year Apple are a couple of their favorite foods. Interestingly, native plants and trees benefit from the iguanas presence as much as the iguanas do from these many sources of food. The trees and other plants benefit from iguanas eating their seeds and fruits, too; when ingested the seeds are cleansed of pests and their protective waterproof coatings are removed, allowing them to grow in the fertile surroundings of iguana droppings.

Visitors to the cay should also be on the lookout for a variety of bird species. Small birds such as Bananaquits often cling to tree branches in the dense understory. A longer walking trail leads to the north shore where, especially if the tide is high, it’s easy to look for some striking wading birds, like the Great Egret, the Reddish Egret and Tricolored Herons. Raptors such as Osprey and American Kestrel are often seen.

An area of thick Red Mangroves, with their special prop root system that allows them to survive in salt water, can be seen along the north shore. These mangroves are important for many species of marine animals as they provide a protective habitat for many fishes and invertebrates.

In the next several months, Little Water Cay will undergo yet another improvement as the National Trust plans to put up a Visitor’s Centre and Conservation Management Office on the cay itself. The centre will allow the Trust to boost eco-tourism activities, implement more conservation measures, better monitor the iguana population and preserve their habitat. This undertaking is a bold step that seeks to prevent the further loss  of these endemic reptiles, a unique symbol of our national heritage.

Traditional life and culture in the Islands has always depended on the bounty of the land and sea, forests and reefs. So conservation measures in our natural world also stand for the protection of the roots of our culture. Sadly, if these roots are lost they can never be brought back, and both our ties to the past and our hopes for the future will suffer.

At Little Water Cay, people and iguanas meet; it is where both share a common world. Your visit would make a big difference—so that nature and our special iguanas will always be there for future generations to see and enjoy.

By Bobbi Misick

Grand Turk [is a] low key charmer that holds wild architecture, remnants of the island’s colonial past,” reads the website for travel-guide authority Frommer’s, noting the island’s “friendly small-town vibe,” and calling it “Mayberry by the sea.” This Old-World, small-town charm is one thing that sets the Turks & Caicos Islands’ capital apart and encourages a large supply of development opportunity.

In fact, every detail of the Wyndham Cacique Royale Beach Resort is intended to promote Grand Turk’s understated greatness—from the resort’s positioning before the glorious peach and purple sunsets to the buildings’ gabled entryways and metal rooftops, a wink to Bermudian architecture, and names like Nanichi that testify to the ancient heart of the project.

Separated from South Caicos by the 22-mile Columbus Passage, the seven-mile-long, bean-shaped island maintains buildings and establishments that have—in the modern sense—been there forever, with a lazy layout that resists industrial change. An aerial view of Grand Turk reveals pointed roofs with zinc coverings formed around frothy salinas and carelessly drawn roadways, similar to neighborhoods on the outskirts of London or (more aptly) the center of Bermuda, from which much of the Caicos architecture and infrastructure is derived.

Zoom in to find an enchanting island where donkeys, horses and cows freely roam the quiet streets, eating bushes and blocking roadways; where large buildings, out of use for decades, stare out onto the reef as if remembering times past and waves crash below an old lighthouse (now a historical attraction).

These endearing qualities helped foster local developer C. Washington Misick’s long-term relationship with Grand Turk. He served here as a police officer in the 1970s and later founded the first branch of 27-year-old real estate agency Prestigious Properties (the oldest agency in TCI) on Grand Turk’s historical Front Street. Misick eventually represented the major settlement of Overback Salina in the Turks & Caicos parliament for 16 years.  Although he’s since relocated to Providenciales, where he and partners own the seven-year-old Alexandra Resort & Spa on Grace Bay, Misick chose to build his second condo-hotel resort community—the Wyndham Cacique Royale Beach Resort—on Grand Turk.

“I just think it’s a fantastic opportunity to give back to the community of Grand Turk that has given so much to me,” Misick sighs. “I want to create something that not only I can be proud of, but the people on the island can be happy with.”

Washington Misick had originally hoped to introduce an establishment to revive the sleepy island’s economy during his years as Turks & Caicos Islands’ Chief Minister and Minister of Development (1992–1995)—after the shift in commercial centers from Grand Turk to Providenciales in the 1980s—but was unsuccessful. He recalls, “I thought a resort was necessary to revive the economy and provide jobs. I wasn’t able to do it as Chief Minister, but as soon as I was, I acquired the land and I did.”

Misick purchased beachfront property on northwest Grand Turk, a “picturesque and tranquil location” that added to the project’s appeal (among other factors) for Wyndham Hotel Group, says Marco Roca, Senior Vice President of Development for Wyndham’s Latin America and Caribbean division. With an expansive development plan underway, as the first branded beachfront resort property in Grand Turk, Cacique will instigate an industrial renaissance for the island, boosting the profits of local tourist-oriented businesses and providing nearly 200 new jobs on location. The project will consist of 251 studio, deluxe studio, one and two bedroom residences situated directly on the beautiful beachfront location.

“The completion of this commercial venture has been a dream of mine to contribute to the economy of Grand Turk and to give something back for the confidence of that constituency in me,” Washington reiterates. “We’re excited to bring such a tremendous hotel brand into the Turks & Caicos Islands. In terms of presence in the marketplace, Wyndham is one of the largest hotel companies in the world and certainly in the Caribbean, with 6,000+ hotels worldwide and approximately 500,000 hotel rooms.”

With 24 resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico—including hotels in neighboring countries the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic—the folks at Wyndham know the key components to a luxury Caribbean resort. “The Cacique project was always of an upscale, high-end nature,” Marco Roca emphasizes. “we are proud to be a part of this development and are available to assist and approve where we feel there is a need.”

Roca’s team suggested an “increase of all public spaces,” expanding on the deluxe amenities package to include a convivial lounge in the reception center, a second restaurant, a banquet space and other additions to the already planned state-of-the-art spa, dive and watersport facility, shops and bar and grill.

“Basically, we want to create a luxury resort with a sort of old-world charm, but with all of the contemporary amenities. Branding Cacique Royale with the Wyndham name brings all of the amenities of a four-star resort,” Washington Misick says.

“The Wyndham Cacique Royale Beach Resort in Grand Turk will promote tourism and introduce thousands of travelers to this wonderful island, with its colorful history and culture, friendly people, beautiful beaches and exciting recreational activities,” Roca adds. “Wyndham Hotels and Resorts has had a long standing appeal in the Caribbean by developing properties that work well with the local setting and embrace the community in which they are located.”

In this respect, the Wyndham Cacique Royale Beach Resort blends with the rich local history and architectural aesthetic of Grand Turk, paying close attention to even include pre-Columbian, Taino (or Lucayan) Indian references such as the name Cacique—the term for chief in Taino culture. This theme carries over into naming all areas on the site with traditional Taino terms like Baqua (sea) given to the beachfront cottages and Nanichi (translated to mean “my heart” or “my love”) as the name for the resident spa. “I wanted to build a resort that in every respect reflects the history and culture of the island,” Misick says.

He also named the 1,000-foot stretch of beachfront on which the resort lies Pirate’s Bay (residents of the Turks & Caicos Islands have long assumed the responsibility of naming streets and special locations as a way to speed along the government process), as a reference to Grand Turk’s noted history of piracy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

But perhaps the architecture is Cacique’s best example of history. The Baqua cottages’ simple, functional design is synonymous with Bermudian homes and will be painted a bright pink that blends in with the magnificent sunset views along the shore.

“Grand Turk and South Caicos are the places where you can see the most examples of Bermudian and Turks & Caicos architecture,” Misick’s son and project architectural technologist Chuck Misick says. “The resort is designed on one side to give you that cottage-style feel of living in a traditional house on Grand Turk. The buildings have the appearance of a sturdy monolithic limestone structure that Bermudian architecture is so recognized for.”

Beginning in the late 1600s, Bermudian sloops traveled to the Turks & Caicos Islands transporting salt from Grand Turk and Salt Cay (leaders in the industry during the milling era) to North American colonies.  Many Bermudian sailors relocated along the archipelago as the first Colonial settlers here. In fact, Misick traces his own lineage back to Bermudian sailors who settled in North Caicos.

“The phrase ‘Washy’ used was, ‘Try to Bermudify it,’” chuckles Brian Macdonald, the OBM International architect responsible for Cacique’s initial drawings, while showing off the development’s original designs. Having worked for an OBM competitor in Bermuda for over six years, Macdonald knew where and how to add the right touches to the project, careful not to make anything seem fake or out of place.

Larger buildings like the Karaya Suites stray from the cottage model, but continue the Bermudian-Caicos aesthetic with accents like hurricane shutters and traditional Caicos style railings. Gabled entryways and corrugated metal rooftops further illustrate the Turks & Caicos’ longstanding relationship with their fellow colony in the North Atlantic. “The goal was not to copy, but to interpret the history of Bermudian architecture for today,” Macdonald comments.

Bermudification aside, Cacique’s suites are anything but ancient.  Misick called on award winning, Texas-based interior design firm Duncan and Miller Design to craft an effortlessly comfortable atmosphere in every room with porcelain tile flooring, granite countertops, brand name Kohler fixtures, stainless steel appliances and solid wood cabinetry. “Our goal was to design something with lasting value, something classic and simple in design,” Duncan and Miller’s Shantell Travis explains. “We wanted to keep a fresh clean palette that would showcase and create a backdrop for the breathtaking view. We wanted to offer something that would inspire a calm, serene environment for the guest.”

Ensuring that all the elements of design, architecture and location work together to pay homage to the local surrounds, Misick, Roca and their associates wish to showcase Grand Turk’s intrinsically enchanting quality. “Grand Turk has a ‘trapped in time’ feel where it seems as if you’re taking a step back into history, where time seems to stand still and nothing else seems to matter but the moment you’re in,” Chuck Misick says.

It seems if anyone could stay true to Grand Turk’s cultural ambiance, Washington Misick and his team can. Cacique Royale—the “Royal Chief” is a testament to old and new existing in harmony.

For more information, visit

www.WyndhamCaciqueRoyale.com.

Story & Photos By Richard Green Jr.

After guiding thousands of people around Smith’s Reef and Bight Reef snorkel trails for a decade, the educational trail markers circling the popular Providenciales nearshore patch reefs have been treated to a much needed cleaning, thanks to two of the people responsible for the trails’ creation.

Marine ecologist Marsha Pardee and artist Pamela Leach, both of Providenciales, donated proceeds from the sale of their children’s book Twas a Sight Before Christmas to help pay to clean off the marine growth that inevitably overtakes anything underwater for a long time.

The blue ceramic tiles—13 at Smith’s Reef and 11 at Bight Reef—have done their job well, leading snorkellers along the outskirts of the reefs to minimize the negative impacts possible when venturing directly over the shallow, beautiful formations. Some of the markers warn against touching or breaking corals—even kicking up sand—that can destroy the delicate basis for so much marine life. Other tiles give newcomers and old salts information about the reefs and creatures living there, enriching the wondrous experience.

Both Smith’s and Bight reefs are just a few fin kicks from public beach accesses. So discovering this undersea beauty is easy for everyone, young and old alike, requiring only the ability to swim and to not disturb these treasures.

To get to Smith’s Reef, turn off Lower Bight Road at the Princess Alexandra Land & Sea National Park beach access sign nearest Turtle Cove Marina. Bear left at the fork in the road and follow it to the end, where a narrow gravel road between two walls leads to a small parking area. Out on the beach, walk to your right for about five minutes and look for a small pile of rocks on the beach marking the beginning of the trail. Spotted eagle rays and sea turtles often cruise the reef. The trail takes only about 15 minutes to follow through depths of one to 10 meters. Novice swimmers should pace themselves and pay attention to currents and tides.

Bight Reef, often referred to as White House Reef, is off Lower Bight Road in Grace Bay. Turn at the entrance to the Coral Gardens resort and park in the lot just outside Coral Gardens. A short path leads to the beach, where you’ll see the reef surrounded by swim buoys. Do NOT swim inside the buoy line. This not only protects the reef from you, but you from the reef, which contains lots of yellow fire coral that inflicts severe stinging if touched. A shallower reef than Smith’s, Bight is only 5 meters deep at most.

The British Foreign Office and more than 30 local businesses and individuals paid for the two trails, and their names appear on the tiles. Marsha Pardee and Gudrun Gaudian were the project leaders, and artists Pamela Leach and Barbara Young designed and created the tile markers.

The trails no longer have funding support, leaving their upkeep to local volunteers who cleaned the tiles periodically in the water. In the latest cleaning, Julie Davis and Brian Cabral volunteered to remove the markers, clean and reinstall them. Marsha and Pam partially paid for their work through Mer Angel, the company they named after the main character in their undersea twist on the famous Christmas story. They are in the process of forming a foundation of the same name to fund further ecological efforts.

The tiles are bolted to small Reef Balls, concrete hollow domes specially designed for reef restoration. The balls, devised by the Reef Ball Development Group, come in various sizes, featuring holes that allow fish to use them as habitats. When corals must be moved to be rescued from coastal development, they are cemented to the environmentally friendly structures as a new home base, jump-starting the natural process. Fish move into the balls immediately, and marine algae flourishes within in the first few months, but corals take many years to grow onto the concrete and eventually cover it.

Reef Balls are being used to create another nearshore reef across from the National Environmental Center near the intersection of Pratt’s Road and Lower Bight Road. The Reef Ball Coalition provided training and marketing, which inspired the Living Classroom Foundation of Baltimore, Maryland, to take on the project for its students, which included at-risk youth and groups from various backgrounds.

Backed by the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) and the Ministry of Natural Resources, the program began in June 2000 when students arrived for two marine ecology programs that included the Reef Ball installation at what is now known as the Junior Park Warden Reef Discovery Site. Since then, the project has been carried on annually by local youth through the DECR’s Junior Park Warden Program, and more than 60 balls have been put in place.

In 2006 Marsha Pardee and others transplanted the first corals they rescued from Babalua Beach, where developers of the Third Turtle Inn paid to remove corals that would have been destroyed. DECR is currently transplanting a second round of corals to save them from development and dredging in Leeward Going Through.

Reef Balls are catching on elsewhere in the Turks & Caicos. The all-inclusive family resort Beaches, which donated to the JPW Reef Discovery Site, installed two sites off the beach for their patrons in the summer of 2007, with corals saved from the Babalua Beach development area and other places. The final corals were rescued from Leeward Channel dredge sites and transplanted in January.

The Turks & Caicos Government has declared 2008 the Year of the Coral Reef, acknowledging that development and tourism are taking their toll. That pledge has many residents, businesses and environmentalists hoping for more government money for DECR to monitor and protect the reefs, and for worthwhile projects like the nearshore reefs.

Making reefs more accessible to people is a two-edged sword. Human contact of any kind is detrimental to coral, whether from development, water pollution or water sports like snorkeling. But showing people the incredible beauty of reef systems and the myriad life forms they support can bolster awareness that might help protect and preserve them for future generations.

For more information about Reef Balls, visit their web site at www.reefball.org. For more information about MerAngel, go to www.merangel.net.

Story & Photos By Brian Riggs, Curator, National Environmental Centre

In 2001, the Turks & Caicos Islands Government signed an important and far reaching document. The Environmental Charter (see page 59) outlined TCI’s commitment to the environment and conservation efforts on behalf of all the people of our Islands. The very first guiding principle recognized that all people need a healthy environment in which to live and work, but also that it is the responsibility of all people to help maintain and sustain it.

The charter and this year’s extension of the visionary 2007 “Turks & Caicos Year of the Environment” as the “TCI Year of the Reef” are good indicators of our people’s will to preserve both our natural and cultural heritage far into the future. This article takes a look into the past to see how the journey got started.

The earliest days

The Turks & Caicos Islands were first inhabited over 1,200 years ago by Taino Indians from Hispaniola. They settled on almost every island and cay, spreading out to take advantage of the abundant natural resources they found here. The Tainos (or Lucayans as they later came to be called) settled on an archipelago that had never seen a human footprint in its half-million years in existence. Many islands had tropical forests much as today’s, but on a much grander scale. Rains were more frequent, so the trees were much larger and the forest canopy was many meters above where it is now. With no human intervention for agriculture or firewood collection, the earth was covered with the leafy detritus that had accumulated over centuries. Because of this, the ground held more water and it is probable that all the islands, including many of the larger cays, had sizable amounts of fresh water trapped in underwater lenses.

We know from archaeological research that the Islands once held large populations of animals that are now extinct. Indeed, these animals were hunted to extinction by the Tainos in the earliest years of their occupation. An unknown species of giant land tortoise, similar to the famous Galapagos tortoise, roamed our Islands and the southern Bahamas for millennia. But in the course of only 100 years, it was completely extirpated. At least six species of flightless birds were also hunted down quickly and disappeared from the archaeological record by 900 AD. The Lucayans fished heavily in the waters surrounding our Islands, but their unsophisticated technology (compared to ours) and their habit of spreading out their small population to cover large areas of shoreline, apparently did not affect the abundant underwater fauna in the same devastating way that they had on land. Inshore fish stocks and conch populations were undoubtedly affected though.

It is commonly thought that “primitive people,” the “Noble Savages” of the early philosophers, lived in harmony with their environments. Unfortunately that’s just not true. People are people and wherever they settle they leave a mark. They change their surroundings to accommodate themselves. Agriculture, hunting, gathering, cookfires, large scale fishing; all these endeavors change local environments. Sometimes the change is not as drastic as the complete extermination of species, but sometimes it is.

Colonial resources

By the early 1500s, with the arrival of the first waves of European adventurers and settlers the Lucayans themselves became an endangered species and they all but disappeared by 1530. While European settlements grew rapidly on the larger islands of the West Indies, small places, like our island group, were largely ignored and left empty by those early Spanish and French colonists.

Almost 200 years later, in the late 1600s, the Turks & Caicos Islands were finally inhabited again. The Turks Islands—Grand Turk and Salt Cay—were settled by the sea-going merchants of Bermuda. They came for the abundant natural salt deposits there and to make use of the Turks Islands’ strategic position on the busiest of sea lanes for the trans-Atlantic trade of the Spanish and French. The salt industry lasted almost 250 years, right up until the 1950s.

The Caicos Islands, on the other hand, were settled by agriculturalists. In the late 1700s, a century after the Bermudians had set up shop in the Turks Islands, American Loyalists, their properties confiscated by the new revolutionary government in the United States, were given land grants throughout the fertile Bahamas and the Caicos Islands to start their plantations again. The Loyalists brought their entire households including their slaves. Even though the slave plantation system lasted only about 25 years, the agricultural lifestyle remained. The Caicos Islands became the breadbasket for the entire country for the next two centuries.

These new colonists changed the landscape even more and at a much faster rate. On the Salt Islands of Grand Turk, Salt Cay and South Caicos, large trees were the first to go. Not so much to “stop the rain” as many local historians think, but because those earliest European colonists all cooked with charcoal, not wood. It takes ten pounds of wood to make only one pound of charcoal, so even a small population of a few hundred would use up an amazing amount of wood for charcoal burning alone.

Our first settlers were also boat-builders and carpenters. All the first boats and houses in the Turks & Caicos were made with local timber. Many blacksmiths were at work making iron fittings for these new houses and boats and for animal harnesses. They, too used a lot of charcoal. Usable wood supplies became so scarce by the early 1800s that our new government was sent a letter from the Bahamian government protesting the “poaching” of lumber  from the nearby island of Mayaguana, a Bahamian territory. Many Grand Turk houses from the 1860s onward were made from Canadian lumber, brought down as cargo to trade for the Islands’ abundant salt. There are still a few Canadian-cedar shingled roofs and sheds in Grand Turk and Salt Cay.

On the Caicos Islands, the plantation period lasted only a few decades, but drastic changes in the environment occurred there, too. While the plantations were being set up, there was no profit to be had from the agricultural crops that were being developed. To make up for that shortfall, Loyalist settlers harvested valuable hardwoods from the Caicos bush and exported them to Europe. Lignum vitae, mahogany, cassia, satinwood, and logwood were used extensively in the burgeoning manufacturing processes of the new Industrial Revolution and quite valuable as export products. They were much sought after for shipbuilding, furniture making, textile dying and medicines. Remaining Georgian mahogany furniture was made almost exclusively of mahogany from the Bahamian archipelago, and is very valuable.

This intensive resource harvesting left huge gaps in the ecologies of our dry tropical forests. Many endemic and migratory bird species relied on these trees and plants for food or nesting sites. We may never know what species were displaced by the logging. The seas around the TCI were home to several mammal species that also disappeared during the Colonial period. Manatees and monk seals existed in Bahamian archipelagic waters right up until the turn of the 20th century, but are now “functionally,” if not literally extinct.

Modern times

Rapid population growth of the past decade and the ensuing development has brought about many more changes. Previously uninhabited islands are now teeming with workers and potential clients for the homes and resorts they are building.

The Turks & Caicos Islands are at a new crossroads. Our country, still considered one of the most environmentally aware and ecologically pristine in the Caribbean, is developing swiftly.

The Turks & Caicos are still a treasure house of biological diversity. Many of our plants and animals are found nowhere else in the world. Fortunately for us, many of the most important and sensitive areas of our country have been included within a National Park system that is the envy of our neighbors. The 33 National Parks, Reserves, Sanctuaries and Areas of Historical Interest contain a wealth of natural, historical and spiritual treasures that can sustain our country for generations to come. It is our collective responsibility to preserve them.

The excesses of the past were not based on ignoble or dishonorable motives. For the times, they were the only methods to get ahead. But today, our people are much more sensitive to their environment and the wealth of natural treasures that it contains. Profits and livelihoods are easily made by gently exploiting the environment for its beauty and uniqueness. This is the goal of what is called “eco-tourism.” The need for squandering and extractive processes is over. New technologies and new attitudes can help us live within our environments the way we always assumed that our first visitors did. (As we now know, they did not.) But, starting today, we can!

Story & Photos By David Bowen, Director of Culture, TCI Cultural & Arts Commission

The origins of the Masquerade festivals celebrated in the Turks & Caicos Islands and the Caribbean have many explanations and colorful theories. It has been the subject of numerous historical articles and just as many books, while an Internet search pulls up hundreds of sites on the subject. So instead of looking at the festival’s history, this article will outline the celebration of Masquerade or the “Masses,” as it is known in the Turks & Caicos, and reveal that the Bahamian version of Junkanoo that has been presented here is not a traditional Turks & Caicos festival.

Due to the lack of written information and documentation about “Massin’” from our pre-slavery past, we will never know the true origin, but we do know some of the cornerstone components that are essential and common in all the variations of the festival celebrated by a diverse list of islands and countries in the Caribbean region such as Barbados, Jamaica, Bermuda, Guyana, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, Belize, St. Lucia, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Bermuda and even North Carolina in the United States.

The Masses

The Masses is a masquerade tradition that draws on a combination of West African ancestral roots and mimicry of former slavemasters’ costume balls. It is one of our oldest festivals with an oral tradition that is steeped in that mysterious stew of our African, slavery, Colonial, American and Caribbean past. It is a tradition that we in the Turks & Caicos, like other former slave colonies, celebrate during Christmas and New Year and has been passed down through the generations. In the British colonies, Massin’ bears a strong resemblance to the English Mummers and Guisers tradition in which performers visited people house to house in disguise at Christmas.

The Masses is said to have originated with the slaves who were brought here by the Bermudian salt rakers between the 16th and 18th centuries and it flourished in the salt producing islands of Salt Cay, South Caicos and Grand Turk. According to a few of the elders in the Caicos Islands, the Masses there were not as grand as those in the Turks Islands due to the great distances between each settlement and the smaller population, but they did celebrate Christmas morning with some form of Masquerade.

One of the earliest written accounts of Massin’ was recorded in the journal of Methodist missionary Reverend W. Dowson, who was on a mission to the West Indies and happened to land on Grand Turk on Christmas Day. In his journal dated December 25, 1811 he wrote, “I have never before witnessed such a Christmas Day; the Negroes have been beating their tambourines and dancing the whole day and now between eight and nine o’clock they are pursuing their sport as hotly as ever.” He then goes on to say, “I mentioned the dissipation of the Negroes (to a Presbyterian clergyman) as a thing which greatly pained my mind; but he made light of it and apologized for them saying, ‘The week of Christmas is the only time in the whole year in which to be merry and I am pleased to see them enjoy themselves.’”

This account supports the theory that the festival in all its variations throughout the region was celebrated by the slaves during the only time of the year they were given to indulge in a public celebration of their identity and artistic expression. These celebrations served as a chance for social interaction and as a release valve for all the stress and discontentment they experienced throughout the year. It was also a nostalgic reminder of their African heritage and traditional folkways.

During the years following Emancipation in 1834, the Masquerade celebrations developed and took on a whole new meaning for the former slaves. They were now able to express themselves fully and they freely mixed their African traditions with those of their new homes in America, the Caribbean and South America. Masquerade is the root festival for what is now called Carnival in Trinidad, Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Junkanoo in the Bahamas. Yet unlike these festivals, which have undergone tremendous change with hundreds of participants in elaborate costumes parading down the center of town, Masquerade retains its cultural roots as Masqueraders still perform house to house, settlement to settlement, for monetary tips and gifts of food and drink.

Like many of our traditional and cultural expressions, the festival has had a number of peaks and valleys due to the cultural, social and economic changes that have taken place in TCI society over the years. It is a known fact that as a country develops, experiencing both upward and downward economic swings, culture, traditions and customs are altered and changed.

Some expressions completely die out; some barely survive while others are transformed into something new. In the Turks & Caicos, Masquerade has been reduced to a shell of its former self; but the good news is that it has survived and still takes place yearly on the islands of Grand Turk and South Caicos. What is also important is that the memory is strong among the elders who are keen not only to share their recollections and stories, but also their experiences in constructing the costumes and props.

Organizing the Masses

In Grand Turk there were usually two Masquerade groups—the Back-Salina Masses and the Town Masses—but according to a former Masquerader from Grand Turk, Ed Been, the Masses did not really have a committee or an organized structure, nor did government or the private sector sponsor them financially. Each person was responsible for making his own costume and providing any additional items necessary. “Massin’ was something we did for the love and fun of it, it was our culture, this was a tradition passed down to us by the older folks,” states Mr. Been. “The Masqueraders were a group of men who were not shy or afraid to dance, sing and do foolishness in public.”

Despite not having a formal organized committee for the Masses, there was always someone who loosely organized the group. He was considered the Head Masquerader, and the Masqueraders and musicians usually met at his home to prepare themselves. From there they begin their journey around the island. Their first stop, usually around 4 AM, was at the home of the head of government. In Grand Turk it was and still is the governor’s house at Waterloo. During the years before there were resident governors, it was the commissioner’s home that was their starting point and they often went on Massin’ until well after sunset. The length of their performance depended on what kind of tips they received, so of course the homes and businesses of merchants and government officials were given special treatment.

Father Emmanuel Been, a retired Anglican Priest, remembers the excitement brought on by the Masses on the island of Salt Cay in the 1940s and 1950s, which in those days—along with Middle Caicos—was known to be the cultural hotspot in the Turks & Caicos. The excitement centered around men such as Alfred Simmons, Roderick Robinson and Traffet Bassett as they prepared for the Masquerade on Christmas morning. As a young boy, Father Been fondly recalls his attempt at Masses one year along with his childhood friend Albert Simmons. He was heartbroken when he discovered that Albert had already gone out much earlier then they had planned and scared some old woman half to death when he poked his masked face in her window. “The Masses was something everyone looked forward to. It is an important part of our culture,” states Father Been.

The Masses were a big thing in East Harbor (South Caicos) according to the “man for all seasons,” Bill “Archie” Clare, whose early recollections of the Masses in the 1950s were centered on a Christmas he spent with his uncle W.H. “Lou” Mills and his cousins. He remembers the loud ripsaw music early Christmas morning and being frightened by the group of Masqueraders he saw dancing about outside the bedroom window. Later, as an adult, Mr. Clare confessed to being a Masquerader himself for a number of years and remembers during the months leading up to Christmas being drilled by the Head Masquerader in the Massin’ dance steps at one of the local hops (bars) owned by Wilson Saunders.

Father Emmanuel Been and Arthur “Do Do” Swann remember an important aspect of Massin’ called “serenading” that was organized by the members of the ripsaw band. Serenading is very much like Christmas caroling, but the songs were local folk songs and Negro spirituals. The ripsaw band would perform around the town a few months or weeks before Christmas as a way to heighten awareness for the big Masquerade to come on Christmas morning. As a matter of fact, some of the senior citizens often use the word “serenading” in place of “Masquerade.”

The one person that everyone remembers as one of the best Head Masqueraders was Hilton Robinson who was also known to many by his nicknames, “Bulldog” or “Zion.” Bulldog is considered a Masquerade icon. The son of a Salt Cay mother and Middle Caicos father, Zion, like his sons, began Massin’ from a young age. He was a gifted, self taught musician who was known for skill on the mouth organ (harmonica). Zion also had an over-the-top, outgoing character which is essential to being a Head Masquerader. According to Bill Clare, Zion took over leadership of the yearly Masquerade when leaders like James E. Seymour and Julius “Goo” Jennings retired. As traditions go, Bulldog’s sons Alfred and Whitfield Robinson and their nephews now carry on the Masquerade tradition in South Caicos. Another popular person also keeping the tradition alive in South Caicos is Eric “Mr. Boom Boom” Smith and his Masquerade group.

In Grand Turk, Arthur “Do Do” Swann and his friend Dudley “Size” Lightbourne have carried the Masquerade torch. Do Do is very passionate about the Masses and learned from some of the best Masqueraders in Grand Turk such as George Thomas, Oliver “Spot” Smith, Will Brian and Oliver “Bus” Lightbourne.

During an interview for a documentary on Masquerade being produced by the TCI Culture & Arts Commission, Mr. Swann states, “In this day and age it is paramount that we preserve the Masquerade heritage for future generations, so we need to be organized and supported by the government, private sector and the general public.” As a way to assist in the preservation of the tradition, the Masquerade groups in South Caicos and Grand Turk have been receiving small monetary donations from the Turks & Caicos Tourist Board and the TCI Cultural & Arts Commission to assist with purchasing the basic materials and instruments needed.

The costume

A typical Turks & Caicos Masquerade costume consists of a mask, old stockings, a colorful mixture of paper or cloth strips attached to a pair of pants and shirt along with a head scarf, a straw hat or headdress, a walking stick and a pair of old shoes. Gluing and pasting strips of colorful pieces of paper or mis-matched strips of cloth onto old shirts and pants made the patchy, shaggy looking costumes. A basic glue made from a mixture of flour and water is still used but it is now more common to use store-bought glue for convenience. Other techniques include sewing on the strips of cloths or using a nail to punch holes in the material, then threading the strips through and knotting one end. The effect produced by these colorful strips of cloth when the wind catches them or when the Masquerader begins dancing and moving around is quite spectacular and often scary. (In fact, it is the desire of the Masqueraders to frighten the children. Many of the earliest memories by those interviewed for this story are centered on how frightened they were of the Masses.)

Besides scaring the children, the mask and costume served another important purpose. Like a costume ball, the key was to take on a different persona so the Masqueraders were meticulous in hiding their identity. They often covered their body from head to toe so as not to give away any clue to who they were. A big no-no during Massin’ is for someone to call out the name of a Masquerader, thereby revealing their identity, so it was not often you heard them speak. When they did communicate with one another, they used a series of grunts and unintelligible vocal sounds to disguise their voices. If a spectator called out someone’s name or tried to guess who they were, they were chased off—sometimes receiving a few licks on their hand, heads or legs with the Masquerader’s stick. According to a 1982 written account by Miss Irene Roberts (who was 87 years old at the time), some characters even walked on “Waddy Sticks” (stilts).

The mask

The handmade masks were usually ugly and grotesque. As masks are used in almost all festivals, celebrations and rituals in Africa, it would have been a common cultural expression shared by the African slaves who most likely came from different tribes and regions. Without the proper traditional materials or the money and resources to get them, the Masqueraders were forced to make their masks from cheap available materials such as sacks, cloth or cardboard. These were then painted to resemble strange and grotesque looking characters. Twine or pieces of elastic and rubber bands were tied on and fastened around the head to keep the mask in place. Later on in time, a lucky few were able to purchase ready-made masks from abroad and in recent years, with Halloween celebrated so close to Christmas, modern rubber masks have been introduced. Traditionalists such as Do Do and Alfred still prefer to make their own.

The house

The house on the head, locally known as the “Doll-Baby House” is an intricate part of the Masses and is always present. The origin of this practice is clouded and unclear but most historians believe that it is a throwback to the elaborate headdresses worn in African rituals and celebrations. Others believe that the slaves made replicas of the Great House of the master and paid tribute to him by displaying it. Some say it might have even been used to mock him and his authority. Ed Been’s brother Herbert, who also has a wealth of information on the Masses, even suggested that the Masquerader, by toting the house on his head, was demonstrating that he is so poor that he is carrying all his possessions with him, with the hope that the wealthier homes will throw more money and give quality tips.

The construction of the house took time. These days, a cardboard box has to be specially selected, but before cardboard boxes were used, a simple stick-frame house was constructed and paper was pasted to it to form the walls and roof. The technique used to make a house from a cardboard box is quite simple. The longest flaps are brought together and glued or attached to form a simple triangle or A-frame roof. The shorter flaps are then attached and trimmed to close the holes and gaps at both ends. Doors and windows are cut in a flat U-shape and held open with a piece of stick or twig. The house is then decorated with colorful paper and sometimes even painted. Christmas wrapping paper is the most common material used nowadays.

Some houses had a long protruding stick, looking something like a sloop’s “jib,” attached to one side of the roof with a string tied to its top and fastened at an angle to the other side of the roof. The jib and the string were then decorated with streamers, frills and, recently, balloons. Exceptional artisans designed doll-baby houses that had two and three floors with staircases, furniture and dolls inside. Others placed lights in the window.

The house was not just carried and paraded on the Masquerader’s head; he had to also perform elaborate dance moves. To balance and steady the house, a brimmed hat was placed in a hole cut under the house, then the whole contraption was placed on the Masquerader’s head. For stability, rope, string or twine was firmly attached in a U or V-shape to the underside of the house at the front and back corners of the right and left walls. Using his hands, arms or elbows, the Masquerader would pull down on the rope to create tension and stabilize the house, enabling him to control and shift the weight while he danced and twirled. The house-bearer has one of the hardest jobs and requires stamina, agility and a sense for theatrics.

The cow horn and reel-a-tail

According to Herbert Been, Alfred Robinson and Herbert Ingham, the Cow Horn costume and headdress along with the Reel-A-Tail were quite spectacular. This costume was usually worn by the Head Masquerader and, based on local folklore, this character represented the devil. Along with a hideous mask, real cow’s horns were attached to a headdress and tied under the chin, while a tail called Reel-A-Tail completed the outfit. Stringing together empty thread spools through the hole in their center and then attaching it to the hindquarters of the Masquerader is how the Reel-a-Tail is made. It resembles the human spinal column we see in a doctor’s office or anatomy class and is operated by a specially made pulley system that allows the Masquerader to manipulate the tail to make it slack or stiff and spin, twirl and whip in all directions. Zion was a master of the Reel-A-Tail and has passed the technique of its construction and use to his son Alfred.

The female Masquerader

Traditionally, women did not participate in the Masses as Masqueraders. It was not considered a woman’s place to be carousing with a group of men early in the morning. However they were known to assist with the making of the Masqueraders’ costumes and a special few like a woman called “Goiya” even played the saw with the ripsaw band.

Oddly enough, there was always a female character Masquerader. The character was usually ugly with an overly made-up face, big buttocks and huge breasts. She wore colorful dresses with old stockings, high heeled shoes, a fancy hat and carried a big handbag. Sometimes she even had a parasol. Traditionally, this character is portrayed by a man and provides comic relief as she/he always draws lots of laughter from the children and spectators. The person portraying this character also has to be a good dancer and performer. Women like TCI Cultural Officer Angela Freites have now taken their place as Masqueraders and are purposefully disfiguring themselves in the tradition of the character.

The purser

Since the Masqueraders roam about and perform from house to house, the money, drinks, cakes and food given out has to be collected and shared later among the members of the group. This job went to the Purser. The Purser held on to the money, drinks and gifts collected by the other Masqueraders, who performed elaborate dance steps when offered gifts. They wore pads to protect their knees as they bent down low picking up money and tips with their mouths. The Purser’s job was sometimes given to the female character or assigned to a special person outside the Masqueraders.

No matter who collected, it was always the job of the Head Masquerader to divide the loot among the group at the end of the day. The Masses appreciated the gifts of food and drink but it was cold, hard cash they preferred and performed the best for. Before the days of the US dollar, they received pounds, shillings and pence and Bill Clare remembers receiving from Bulldog a pound for his efforts and that was “big money in those days.”

The music and songs

The music for the Masqueraders is provided by a band of ripsaw musicians who usually played together for other cultural or social occasions and knew the traditional songs and tunes that were sung during the Christmas holiday just for Masquerade. The band was not expected to be dressed in costume or hide their identity like the Masqueraders because it would hinder their playing ability (although some did wear a simple mask or makeshift costume).

A typical band consisted of the all-important drum, which is called a “Rim.” It resembles a large, round tambourine. Dried cow or goatskin was used and stretched over the circular or square piece of wood and tuned by holding it over a fire, causing the heat to contract the skin and tighten it. This allowed the drummer to achieve a loud, “sweet” bass tone when the drum is struck in the center and a high pitched ringing tone when struck near the edge. Every so often, the Rim had to be reheated when the skin got slack due to the constant playing and humidity.

The scraping of the carpenter saw with a nail or piece of metal provided the signature sound of ripsaw music, but it was the instruments that provided the chords and melody that gave the rhythm laid down by the drum and saw its true voice. These instruments included box guitars, hand-made horns, harmonicas and various types of accordions and concertinas we call locally “squeeze boxes” or “free-frooh.”  Jeffery Parker and Julius “Goo” Jennings were the most well known accordion players in their day and their names are usually the first to be called when the topic of ripsaw music or Masquerade comes up in conversation with the elders. Other instruments included the triangle, shakers (maracas), conch shell horns and rum or glass bottles struck with nails.

Unlike the other festivals in the region that either had huge marching bands, Steel Pan groups, horn sections and hundreds of drums, the Masqueraders of the Turks & Caicos only used the ripsaw band to provide the rhythm and music for their performance. Some of the folk songs that were sung and played by the band are: Christians Awake, Salute This Happy Morn, Good Morning This Morning, Mama Bake the Johnnycake Christmas Coming, On the August Morning, Stoop Down Grando Tell Me What You See and Big Lizzie, just to name a few. As Do Do says, “There is no Masses without the Ripsaw music.” He should know, since he had to stop Massin’ after a short time one year when a few musicians had a bit too much to drink, lost their steam and went home, leaving Do Do and the other Masqueraders stranded in the road.

Forced changes in culture

Actually, the Turks & Caicos Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda are not located in the Caribbean Sea, but in the Atlantic Ocean. Yet because of the branding of the word “Caribbean” as being synonymous with area vacation destinations, these countries have been zoned as such. This has its pros when it comes to marketing the region as a whole, but lots of cons when it comes to the cultural heritage and traditions of each place.

One of the most negative side effects of this zoning is the generalization of Caribbean culture by the tourism marketing machine. They take a number of exotic traditional and cultural expressions from different locations in the region, such as limbo, steel pan, reggae, Carnival, fire dancing, Jimmy Buffet’s music, dialect, cuisine, lifestyle and festivals, then sell it as a package that the average tourist expects to find and experience no matter where they go.

This undifferentiated view of our collective culture and heritage has forced tourism boards and hotels in places such as the Turks & Caicos to alter and even change and ignore their own native culture to fit this generic cultural product. This adulteration has caused a decline in most all of our traditional cultural and artistic expressions such as ripsaw music, traditional cuisine, island lifestyle and local festivals such as Masquerade now being erroneously called Junkanoo.

Junkanoo (John Canoe), the Bahamas and the Turks & Caicos Islands

Junkanoo is a popular Bahamian festival that is internationally known and celebrated not only during Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year but also during the summer months. However, there are also Junkanoo festivals in Jamaica, North Carolina, Belize and South America, just to name a few.

The word “Junkanoo” is spelled and pronounced in a countless number of ways. For instance, it’s Jankunu in Belize, Jonkonnu in Jamaica and John Koner in Hillsboro, North Carolina. Among the most common theories about the word Junkanoo, is that it is a derivative of the name John Connu or John Canoe, who was said to have been an African prince from the Guinea coast. Another theory, based on information from the book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs, states that the word comes from “Johnkannaus,” a West African fertility ritual associated with the yam harvest revolving around a cast of colorfully costumed dancers.

Although other islands and countries use a derivative of the word Junkanoo, their actual festival bears little resemblance to what is now celebrated in the Bahamas. In fact, their bands’ structure, costumes, performance style and the way they perform from place to place resemble the Masquerade and Masses in Turks & Caicos.

Jonkonnu (Jamaican spelling) is nothing like Junkanoo in the Bahamas. In fact, the only difference between Jamaica’s festival and the Masses in TCI is the name, that the music is played by a fife and drum troupe and that they have a few more developed characters, such as the Horse Head, Jack-in-the-Green, Wild Indian and Policeman.

So why do the elders of our society call the festival celebrated during Christmas and New Year the Masses, while the younger generation call it Junkanoo? After much research, I have deduced that the answer could have come from three different places.

In his book, Turks Island Landfall, historian Herbert “Bertie” Sadler writes, “Another feature of the coast is the picturesque John Canoe or Junkanoo street dance held in the islands at Christmas and New Year to the beat of the Goombay drums.” He goes on to say, “This is a relic of a West African festive dance and consists usually of shuffling movements and accompanying chanting and beating to time with the hands. The performers in this masquerade are usually dressed in the most grotesque fashion.” Mr. Sadler was a Jamaican who later settled in Grand Turk, so it is easy to see that he would have used the term Junkanoo to describe the celebration. However, he does go on to mention the word Masquerade, eluding that Junkanoo is a Masquerade. Since then, historians and other academics have mistakenly used the word Junkanoo to describe the Masses in the TCI.

Bahamian-born Kitchener “Kitch” Penn, leader of the well-known local Junkanoo group, We Funk, put on the first known Bahamian-style Junkanoo parade in the Turks & Caicos. At that time, Kitch—whose parents were Turks & Caicos islanders—was a famous Junkanoo rusher in the Bahamas and a former member of the Saxon’s Junkanoo group. He was hired by a festival committee headed by Neville Adams and Felix Grant to put on the “First Junkanoo to be celebrated in Grand Turk.” This fact is documented in a Turks & Caicos News article dated November 25, 1982. Under a photograph of the two mentioned members of the committee and Mr. Penn it states, “Junkanoo, the well-known Bahamian festival is coming to the Turks & Caicos at Christmas for the first time.” With this event, it is easy to see how the use of the word Junkanoo came into the mainstream.

Bahamians with Turks & Caicos roots (such as Kitch and William “Tanker” Williams, leader of the renowned Predators) who have lived most of their lives in the Bahamas are returning to the Turks & Caicos in large numbers. With their memory of Masquerade faded or nonexistent and the fresh memory of Junkanoo in their heads, they, like other TI–Bahamians who crave the excitement, rhythm and pulse of Junkanoo, set about trying to recreate that Bahamian experience during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season for themselves and as a tourist attraction. Naturally, the word Junkanoo would be used to describe and promote the event.

These three examples clearly show how the word Junkanoo could have come to replace the word Massin’ when describing the celebrations taking place in the Turks & Caicos Islands during Christmas and New Year.

The changes in Junkanoo

What is intriguing is that Junkanoo in the Bahamas has its roots in the Massin’ and Masquerade tradition. Hundreds of old photographs and articles that made up the Bahamas National 1978 Junkanoo Archives Exhibition and book clearly illustrates this. In fact, before changes happened in Junkanoo, there was little difference in what was going on in the Turks & Caicos and what was going on in the Bahamas in the early years. The main difference was the use of large goatskin drums, cowbells and whistles by the Junkanoo rushers. The first shift in the change came as early as 1920, when the Bahamian Development Board offered cash prizes to Masqueraders/Junkanooers as an incentive to organize bigger groups. The final shift came when the Ministry of Tourism targeted Junkanoo as a tourism product after Independence in 1973. Officials were sent to explore other similar festivals in the region. Their goal was to emulate the popular Carnival festivals taking place in Trinidad, Rio and New Orleans and market it as a tourist attraction.

Thirty-five years later, Junkanoo, to many, has become an overly commercialized competition with millions of dollars spent to put it on.  It now has little connection to its roots except the rhythm of the drums and cowbells. As stated clearly in the Bahamas Junkanoo Explorer (Issue No. XII, December 2007), “Money, Money, Money! Junkanoo has evolved into such an expensive art. Gone are the days when a bit of crepe paper here and there and a splash of glitter could cover the cardboard and all would be well.” It further states, “For those who don’t know, there are very few people who rush for the love and fun of it anymore. Junkanoo is a full-fledged business with new time Junkanooers now asking the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

One could understand the economic reasoning behind commercializing a local cultural festival, but I truly believe that if not monitored and controlled it could lead to serious issues like the ones now facing the Bahamas. Here, Junkanoo has become a huge tourist attraction, but on the homefront it has lost touch with many of the natives who have been herded behind barriers and are expected to sit on bleachers as observers to a contest. Bahamians are starting to ask, “Where is our Junkanoo?”

Another factor in this outcry is that over 95% of the materials used in Junkanoo are manufactured abroad. This might not seem important since, like the TCI, the Bahamas import a large percentage of their goods from overseas, but if a situation arose where these materials were not able to reach the county, Junkanoo could not go on. If it did, it would not be the same over-the-top festival as it is now marketed. It would have to resort back to its roots in the Masquerade tradition. On the other hand, since 95% of the materials used by Masqueraders can be found locally, the Masses in the Turks & Caicos can always go on, despite any economic downswing or situation where imported goods are unable to reach us.

The point to all of this is to encourage people in the Turks & Caicos to look at what has been done in the Bahamas and avoid making the same mistakes when it comes to promoting and marketing our indigenous culture. Change will come as culture naturally evolves but we should ensure that we consciously try to retain the cultural heritage of the Masquerade.

Whatever commercial changes we make should be as organic as possible, with proper planning and long term strategies put in place to ensure that we keep Masquerade as a true expression of our country’s cultural heritage and not just a side-show for tourists. It is important for all to remember that Junkanoo and Masquerade, though having the same roots, are now really two different expressions.

The future

With the continued efforts of persons like Do Do, Zion’s sons and Mr. Boom Boom, along with members of all their troupes, the celebration of Masquerade will continue its journey back from obscurity. Education is a key factor and there needs to be dialogue with Junkanoo group leaders here in the Turks & Caicos such as Kitch Penn and Wesley “Tanker” Williams to forge a better understanding about Junkanoo, Masquerade and the future of our Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Both Tanker and Kitch already have expressed a desire to adapt and make changes, but the youth and the general public must share in this desire to explore our rich and colorful past. With the success of the Children’s Masquerade group workshop in Grand Turk last year and the performance by the young members who were Massin’ alongside veteran Masqueraders on Christmas morning, 2007, the TCI Culture & Arts Commission is planning more Masquerade workshops at schools throughout the Islands. The commission is also working on a DVD documentation of the history, culture and heritage of Masquerade in Turks & Caicos. Offering seed capital to small Masquerade school groups for basic materials is another one of the ways the commission hopes to ensure the survival of the Masquerade. And with these efforts, the future of the Masses looks bright.

This article is dedicated to Dudley “Size” Lightbourne (1959–2008), a real Masquerader and master “Doll-Baby House” maker.

Special thanks to: Arthur “Do Do” Swann, Dudley “Size” Lightbourne, Alfred Robinson, Eric “Mr. Boom Boom” Smith, Ed Been, Herbert Been, Father Emanuel Been, Herbert Ingham, Bill “Archie” Clare, Alton Higgs, Angela Freites, Valerie Jennings, Tanya Keyes, Dennis “Foots” Penn, Shirley Brown, Wesley “Tanker” Williams, Kitchener “Kitch” Penn, Shara Goldsmith, the TCI Cultural & Arts Commission Board Members and all the children in the Junior Cultural Group of Grand Turk.

By Bill Keegan and Betsy Carlson

“On a voyage north from Panama to Hispaniola, according to the journal kept in 1503 by Ferdinand Columbus, ‘we were in sight of two very small and low islands, full of tortoises,

as was all the sea about, insomuch that they look’d like little rocks, for which reason those islands were called Tortugas’ [today called the Cayman Islands]. The Caymans were common ground for sea rovers of all nations who came there mostly for tortugas; these green sea turtles, which could be kept alive on deck, supplied fresh provender for the pillage of the Caribbean.”

– Peter Matthiessen, Far Tortuga, Random House, 1975, p. 1.

The Caymans are among the only islands in the Caribbean with no evidence that prehistoric peoples ever reached their shores. The enormous abundance of Green sea turtles described there by Europeans likely characterize a similar abundance in the waters surrounding the Turks & Caicos when native peoples first arrived about 1,300 years ago.

The pre-Columbian turtle population of the West Indies has been estimated (Jackson 1997) to have been between 33 and 39 million adults. This figure is meant to describe population numbers before Europeans began harvesting Green turtles; pre-Columbian exploitation is not considered. In the past, sea turtles were obtainable in vast quantities but in limited areas.

You can imagine how esteemed sea turtle meat was in the Amerindian diet of the West Indies. The Tainos had several names for turtles including carey, which described the common sea turtle, likely a Green or Hawksbill. The term caguama referred to sea turtles that were bigger than carey and may have described a Loggerhead turtle, or perhaps any adult, nesting turtle.

As the turtle is an animal that lives both on land and in the ocean (bagua), the Taino associated the animal with boundary crossings and gave it spiritual powers. At a prehistoric cemetery in Aruba, a flexed human burial was placed under a sea turtle carapace. An intact Hawksbill turtle was found cached at the base of a trash midden in a St. Eustatius prehistoric site. Furthermore, the archaeologists investigating this site interpreted the shape of one of the large houses to be a visual rendering of a Hawksbill turtle shell.

The turtle has a prominent place in the Taino pantheon. The culture hero of the Taino cosmology was named Deminán Caracarocol. He was also referred to as the “humpback God” because he was often depicted with a bump protruding from his spine. As is shown on a ceramic idol discovered in a Santo Domingo area cave in the early 20th century, Deminán’s “humpback” is actually a turtle growing on his back. According to Taino myths, this female turtle was the progenitor of the Taino people—the most ancient of all ancestors.

And yes, turtles were important calorically as well as symbolically. Sea turtles are easy to harvest and provide a substantial quantity of meat that can be processed to increase its storability and turned into a trade item. Since sea turtles were not available in high quantities everywhere, hunters came to the turtle grounds. One of these turtle harvesting sites was found and investigated in Grand Turk, the Coralie Site.

The Coralie site was settled in the eighth century. Interestingly, the pottery the settlers brought with them (the Ostiones style) displayed only one decorative motif—turtles. Effigy bowls from this pottery style typically have modeled lugs depicting the turtle’s head and flippers with the vessel representing the turtle shell.

A great deal of the activity at the Coralie site revolved around turtle preparation and consumption, with the inhabitants likely using this island’s natural salt deposits to cure and store the surplus meat. This meat would have been taken back to the Greater Antilles. The recovered turtle bone sample from this site was the remains from an estimated 5,000 pounds of processed turtle meat. From the bones excavated in this site we can ask the following questions:

• At what age were the turtles being harvested?
• Were turtles nesting on Grand Turk?
• How were they captured?
• How were they processed?

Based on the size of the recovered humerus bones in the site, the harvested population was 25% juveniles, 60% sub-adults and 15% adults. These sub-adults weighed between 50 and 150 pounds and were no longer than 2 1/2 feet. Sub-adults graze on turtle grass and occasional invertebrates in shallow tidal flats until reaching adulthood (at 30 years of age), at which time they migrate to deeper water feeding grounds. It takes even longer for females to reach sexual maturity, which occurs between the ages of 40 and 60. Adult Green turtles can live beyond 100 years. This extremely slow growth to reproductive age, the clustering behavior of the populations, and the accessibility of turtle eggs to predators are all factors that make Green turtle stocks difficult to sustain.

The turtle hunters of Grand Turk primarily harvested sub-adults from their feeding grounds, but the site did include the remains of two hatchlings (2″ in length). This shows that Grand Turk once supported a nesting population of Green turtles and that the few adult turtles in the site were captured while out of the water laying their eggs on an eastern Grand Turk beach. These large females are defenseless during this process and need only be turned over for capture. Nesting beaches are usually on the windward, rough side of an island, where the sand is coarse and the beach has a flat platform above high tide. There are no historic records of Greens ever having nested on Grand Turk, although there are past reports of turtle nesting beaches in the Caicos Islands.

Because of their predictable habits and aggregated populations, turtles are easy to hunt. Turtles sleep on shallow coral flats and migrate between feeding and sleeping sites along the same daily route. Though turtles can hold their breath for 10 to 20 minutes, they must regularly surface to get air. They exhale multiple times upon surfacing and can be heard and found before they dive again.

Harpooning is the most common turtle capture method worldwide, accomplished with a hardwood harpoon, tipped by a short detachable point that is secured to a line. The 17th century Island Carib of the Lesser Antilles used wooden spears that were 4 to 5′ long and tipped with wooden points. Turtlers work in teams of two; one maneuvers the boat while the other harpoons.

In the turtle remains from Coralie, there are a few examples of carapace with round, possible harpoon holes. This photograph shows two harpooned turtle shells. The example on the left is a bone located halfway down the animal’s back and the hole is 3″ off the mid-point of the spinal column. This was a fairly accurate harpoon shot. The hole is wider on the interior than it is on the exterior, showing that more of the interior bone was blown out by impact. This pleural was examined and X-rayed by Dr. Bill Maples, a former forensic scientist with the University of Florida, who concluded that the bone displayed a depressed fracture; a puncture wound produced by some blunt instrument—likely a wood tipped harpoon.

Nets may have also been used to capture turtles. Historic records show that as late as 1878, Green turtles were being harvested in nets from the mouth of North Creek, the large inland lagoon on Grand Turk, and exported to the commercial New York market. The Coralie site is located on the shore of North Creek and it is likely that turtles were captured prehistorically inside this lagoon.

The Miskito Indians of Nicaragua are a modern turtle hunting society. Using harpoons, these hunters regularly captured adult turtles from dugout canoes. They were successful on their turtle hunts 73% of the time. However, the Miskito would only strike a turtle weighing less than 100 pounds if there was an extreme meat shortage in their village. They called these “chicken turtles.” Small chicken turtles were all that were harvested at the site of MC-6 on Middle Caicos. This is the only other excavated site in the Bahamian archipelago with significant amounts of sea turtle remains. Here, all the individuals would have weighed less than 50 pounds. Due to the location of MC-6 on the shallow bank side of the island, it is likely that only young juveniles lived in this tidal flat habitat near the site.

In the Coralie site, turtle bone was recovered within large cooking hearths. Apparently, little butchering of the turtle was done before roasting. The hearths contained long bones, the shell bones, some broken skull pieces and even the small bones of the fins and tail. Eggs from females, green fat deposits, and blood would have been removed before roasting and consumed. The turtles were then roasted whole in their shells.

Every part of the turtle skeleton was found in the site in the proportions expected if the turtles were being processed on site. There is one discrepancy—the number of recovered humerus bones was nearly twice the number of femur bones recovered. Although no re-working of the humerus bones was noticed, their disproportional abundance may indicate a secondary use. Certain Amerindian cultures from the Guianas used sea turtle humerus bones as tool handles. At the Giaudy site on St. Lucia, Keegan found a hollowed out sea turtle humerus shaft, which could have functioned as a handle.

The Coralie site also contained small fire pits with associated post stains that did not contain any bone remains. These were the remains of Taino barbacoa (barbeques) where strips of meat or fish could have been dried and smoked. Another method to store meat would be to salt and sun dry provisions on long lines stretched along the beach. Turtle fins could also have been prepared in this manner.

Besides Green turtles, other large reptiles inhabited the prehistoric Bahamian archipelago and some were exploited in the Turks & Caicos. A large Loggerhead turtle weighing approximately 1,000 lbs. was found in the Coralie site. This is evidence that both Loggerheads and Greens were nesting on Grand Turk beaches in the past. Crocodiles (called caimen by the Taino) inhabited many of the Bahamian Islands in the past. They have been identified at prehistoric archaeological sites on Crooked Island and Acklins Island and from paleontological deposits on New Providence, San Salvador and Abaco. There is no evidence yet that crocodiles ever inhabited Grand Turk or any of the Caicos Islands.

Slider turtles (called hicotea by the Taino) were commonly consumed prehistorically, but these freshwater turtles presently inhabit only the islands of Great Inagua, Andros, Eleuthera, and Cat. Limited to islands with freshwater habitats, they have not been found in any Turks & Caicos deposits, but they have been found archaeologically on San Salvador. These Slider turtles are either relics of the last Ice Age or were transported by humans (Lucayans) from the Greater Antilles to the Bahamas. There is a biological similarity between the freshwater turtles from Jamaica and those of the central Bahams, whereas the Inagua turtles are more similar to those from Hispaniola. It is possible that people were moving these animals between islands in prehistory to provide a ready food source.

Even though all native species of West Indian tortoise are extinct, they are known from cave sites in the Bahamas, Hispaniola, Cuba, Barbuda, Mona Island and Middle Caicos and were found in cooking hearths at the Coralie site. Due to its isolated and predator-free existence, the Grand Turk tortoise is three times larger than the South American tortoises. Two of the Grand Turk specimens measured 2 1/2 feet long. This is another slow growing species that takes 20 years, under optimal conditions, to reach sexual maturity. Tortoises were only exploited on Grand Turk in the last phase of occupation at Coralie.

It must be remembered that few of the staple foods in this prehistoric Taino diet still inhabit this region. The process of resource overexploitation began prehistorically. Sea turtle remains decrease over time in the Coralie site and the largest specimens came from the earlier deposits. Nesting beaches may have been overexploited first. It is possible the Grand Turk tortoise did not survive its exploitation documented at the Coralie site. There is no evidence of tortoise in later prehistoric sites on Grand Turk or any historic records of their presence in the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Yes, the 15th century Europeans were amazed at the density of turtle populations they encountered. During the second voyage of Columbus (1493), near the Gulf of Batabanó in southwest Cuba, Andres Bernáldez described seeing so many sea turtles “that it seemed as if the ships would run aground on them, and their shells actually clattered” along the topsides. Now imagine Taino dugout canoes approaching the shores of Grand Turk, clattering through waters brimming with populations of the mother sea turtle.

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Betsy Carlson is an Archaeologist with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc., Jonesville, Florida.

By Dr. Donald H. Keith, Trustee, T & C National Museum and President, Ships of Discovery

Being involved in the survey of underwater archaeological resources is one of the main fields of expertise of the Turks & Caicos National Museum. Due to a series of occasions where the right people were in the right place at the right time, the Turks & Caicos National Museum and Ships of Discovery played a leading part in a cutting edge archaeological survey of Endymion Rock at the end of 2007. This protected site includes the British Fifth-Rate warship HMS Endymion which sank in 1790, along with an unknown “companion wreck,” which was possibly identified during the course of the December survey. The following article details the survey through a journal kept by Dr. Donald H. Keith.

Thursday, Nov. 29, 4:30 PM:

Lying on his back, half-submerged with each passing wave, Mike Cameron is annoyed, and I can see he isn’t trying to hide it. With Jeff Morris and Joe Lepore, he’s on the aft platform of the research vessel Plan B, staring up at what they’ve just reeled in. It’s our side-scanning sonar suspended beneath its depressor wing, a shiny silver fish in the talons of a giant yellow bird. In fact, it’s inoperable and unless we can fix it we’ll be flying blind. In the meantime the whole archaeological survey of Endymion Rock has ground to a halt.

I watch from the main deck above the now-crowded aft platform, within earshot as the survey team takes stock of the situation. “Looks like two parts, top and bottom, and it’s starting to split at the seam between the two. No sweat—we can fix it tonight—be back in action tomorrow morning,” Mike says confidently. I look around and see a lot of unhappy expressions. There isn’t any question that we can fix it, it’s just that these things take time and time is one thing we don’t have enough of.

We are only two days into the planned two-week survey, during which we intend to use remote-sensing instruments to survey a little more than two square miles of open ocean, locate the shipwreck that gave Endymion Rock its name, make a photo mosaic of the remains of HMS Endymion and an unidentified site nearby known simply as Endymion’s “Companion Wreck,” and gather as much data as possible. One thing we are not gathering is artifacts. Our mission is simply to locate and document in place objects of archaeological and historical interest and report our findings to the TCI Department of Environment & Coastal Resources (DECR) for use as a resource management tool.

Sponsored by the Waitt Institute for Discovery (WID), our expedition is an amalgam of seven professionals and eight organizations working together for the first time. I represent the Turks & Caicos National Museum and Ships of Discovery; Mike, Jeff, and Steve Bilicki are remote-  sensing engineers and surveyors working under contract to the WID. The DECR has given us permission to visit Endymion Rock, a Protected Historic Site. Our small team is supplemented by Plan B’s extremely competent crew, largely composed of Australians and Kiwis (New Zealanders).

But right now our main concern is the sonar. We need a lot of space that we can temporarily trash, some tools and materials that we don’t have on board, and time. Fortunately for us, there is a narrow window of opportunity at the Turks & Caicos National Museum. The United Humanitarian veterinarians have just vacated the Museum’s open air “wet lab” following their semi-annual animal clinic, and Deborah Annema, the Museum’s director of development, has graciously offered to let us turn it into another type of hospital—one for a sonar with a broken wing. This bird is big, and everyone who helped move it swears it must weigh at least 300 pounds. But there’s a catch: Museum Day is the day after tomorrow, and the wet lab is going to be a center of activity, so we have to be in and out before that and the space has to be spic and span when we leave.

Still Thursday, 6:15 PM:

Plan B puts back in to Grand Turk. Six of us wrestle the wing off the ship into her tender, then over to the customs dock, up a ladder, into a pickup truck, and finally into the Museum’s wet lab. By now it’s pitch black, but Lance Milbrand, our expedition’s cinematographer, has trained his movie lights on the center of the room where the patient is lying on the operating table, ready for a complete exam and reconstructive surgery. Salt water seeps out of the cracks in the fiberglass—not a good sign. Water will slow down the curing process and make for a weak bond, but we haven’t got time to wait for it to dry out.

“So where’s the glass and the resin?”  Joe asks. Mike Dessner and I rummage through bags of material we picked up at the Do-It Center just before it closed and lay it out: all the resin they had in stock, a couple of rolls of fiberglass cloth, brushes of various widths, paint, three grades of sandpaper, files, rasps, gloves, facemasks, nuts and bolts, and of course, duct tape. They all dig in. Jeff and Steve go for the sandpaper and files. Mike attacks the bent stainless steel brackets that clamp the sonar “fish” to the wing. I ask if he needs a torch. He growls, “No, just get me a hammer and a vice.” He takes another look at the mangled brackets. “Make that a big hammer!” Joe Lepore goes for the drill, bolts and nuts, then sends me up to the Museum’s workshop for clamps and rags.

Soon the air is filled with fiberglass and yellow paint dust and reeks of resin fumes. Lance is everywhere, shooting stills and video as if it were prime time at the Oscars. I become the expediter, kept busy ferrying tools and materials from elsewhere in the Museum to the work site. I pause to marvel at how, in the space of a few hours, this group of strangers transformed itself from monitor-watching technicians into seasoned deck hands and now into a pretty good imitation of a body shop crew. You would never guess that Mike, the guy bashing away at the bent brackets, is an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) pilot and fiber optics engineer who cranks out patents when he isn’t on a ship somewhere applying his skills and deep-water “tele-presence” inventions.

Jeff and Steve are marine archaeologists and remote-sensing specialists, skilled in the collection and interpretation of data acquired by towing sonar and magnetometer fish around behind a boat. Their technology is both sophisticated and complicated. The US Navy is one of their clients, and right now we are using equipment that isn’t available to the general public. The trick to their specialty is not just gathering the data, but knowing how to interpret it. It’s an art as well as a science. In this business, experience is everything.

Joe, the guy over there cutting fiberglass cloth, comes to the Plan B crew courtesy of the US Navy. With 20 years’ service under his belt diving all over the world using all types of equipment under all kinds of conditions for a wide variety of missions (some of which he can’t talk about), he is more than qualified to be the diving safety officer on board, which in this case also entails mixing exotic breathing gases, operating the on-board recompression chamber, and piloting Plan B’s 28-foot dive boat, Nautica.

There are two Mikes here, and they really hate to be confused with each other. The guy who keeps looking at his watch and making calls on his Blackberry is Mike Dessner. We call him “Dess” to keep things straight. Dess’s official title is “logistics director,” but in practice that translates into “cat herder.” His job is to keep the specialists on board from being distracted away from what they are supposed to be doing. Someone has to be picked up at the airport? Dess handles it. Need a truck to haul Plan B’s trash to the dump? Dess sets it up. Critical parts have to be ordered? Dess approves it. The yellow wing has to be repaired and here’s the list of what it’s going to take: Dess goes shopping. Having studied philosophy and religion in college while doing a brisk business as bouncer in a local bar (that’s where the scar came from), having fished commercially in Alaska (if you’ve seen episodes of “Deadliest Catch” you know what that means!), and having run dock operations in the Florida Keys, Dess’s background is appropriate for his present position with WID: director of logistics. It was his responsibility to get Plan B overhauled and all of its systems up, running, and tested, and it has taken two years to get to this, the start of our two-week survey.

Lance is the only guy in the room actually doing what he was hired to do—take pictures. By now we’ve all become totally desensitized to Lance’s cinéma vérité style and his omnipresent cameras catching the good, the bad, and the ugly all the time. A successful wildlife documentary cinematographer, this is his first brush with underwater archaeology. As far as capturing the action is concerned, we’re probably not that different from a pack of hyenas anyway. And like hyenas, we don’t worry about looking good or acting the part.

Still Thursday, 11:15 PM:

“All right, listen up everybody!” Dess claps his hands. “That’s it!  Enough for one night!” No one disagrees. Midnight is fast approaching. It’s been a long day and between the action, the five Mookie Pookie pizzas we inhaled a little earlier in the evening, the fiberglass resin and paint fumes and the dust, we’re staggering around like drunks. We’ve done as much as we can, and it looks pretty encouraging. We shut the lab down and leave the patient alone, hanging somewhat grotesquely, slowly drying and healing. As we climb into the back of the truck for the ride down to the dock a tired voice in the dark says, with no sarcasm at all, “So this is underwater archaeology?”

Actually, it is. After a similar day working on a shipwreck site in Turkey a colleague once observed, “Ninety percent of underwater archaeology is putting up, tearing down, cleaning up, rebuilding, repairing, carrying, lifting, hauling, scraping, and painting.” The other ten percent is the time you spend actually doing archaeology. Expect the unexpected—and deal with it. I don’t know the origin of Plan B’s name, but it sure is an appropriate reminder of what it takes to do this kind of work.

It’s only two days into our survey and already we’ve exterminated an infestation of electrical gremlins, mended a suspected break in a gazillion-dollar fiber-optic cable, solved a perplexing recurrent computer shut-down caused by overheating, dealt with tricky winds and currents that kept deflecting the tow package, worked through a major difference of opinion about the way things ought to be done, and survived an altercation between the sonar “fish” and an immovable object on the seabed, precipitating the present crisis. But we’re dealing with it—bonding, even. When people, even total strangers with little in common, pull together to successfully solve a problem, something happens. They may not admit it, or even realize it happened, but they become a team. After this night, everything seems to work better.

So how did the yellow bird get wounded in the first place? Expect the unexpected:  We flew it into the side of the “Dragon’s Tail,” the long, narrow tail of the Turks Island Bank just to the northwest of Endymion Rock. The wing was doing its job, trailing about 1,000 feet behind Plan B using the pressure of water passing over it to depress the sonar “fish” down to about 150 feet where it could get a good look at the seabed. The sonar was doing its job of sending out high-frequency sound pulses and picking up the reflected “echoes” to paint a picture of the seabed. Trailing behind the sonar, the magnetometer was detecting minute fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field that could signal the presence of a shipwreck.  Plan B had just started making its 2.5 mile runs spaced 100 feet apart parallel to the west side of the Bank. The water seemed to be plenty deep. But this is tricky business. One minute everything is fine. The next minute the depth indicator is rising toward the surface like a Polaris missile and everyone is shouting “Crank it in!  Crank it in!” Then, crunch . . .

Making discoveries

The ocean, “inner space,” is a great reservoir of discoveries, waiting to be made. But to make discoveries in the ocean requires a rather steep investment, even before you attempt your first effort. The 150 foot research vessel Plan B is WID’s solution to that problem. But who and what is the Waitt Institute for Discovery? According to their Web site:

“The Waitt Institute for Discovery is a catalyst for innovative approaches to scientific research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and oceanography. Our interest is in facilitating major discoveries that will improve the understanding of our past, provide better opportunities for people in the present, and enhance the promise of the future.”

“We seek out leading scientists involved in important work and support them in their quests to accelerate and enhance discoveries for the benefit of mankind. We also believe it is important to communicate the progress and process of discovery as broadly as possible to educate and motivate a wide audience interested in getting involved.”

What do you put on such a vessel, given its broad mandate? Well, if you want to discover things in the deep ocean, you’re going to need a great big winch on the stern with about 10,000 feet of very strong, corrosion-resistant cable through which you can transmit and receive signals. What’s that for? The ocean is big and deep and the bottom is often a long way from the top. You’re going to need “remote-sensing” devices such as side scanning sonar and a magnetometer. Both of these devices can detect things like shipwrecks at a much greater distance than, for example, a video camera. And if they find something (until it’s identified it’s just called an “anomaly”), you will need an ROV to check it out. The ROV mounts a video camera on it as well as one or more manipulators that enable the operator to pick things up, tie knots, shake hands with an octopus—whatever. If whatever you’ve found still intrigues you and you want to get a closer, first hand, look then you launch the two-person submersible—a free-swimming miniature submarine that looks like a flying saucer.

Of course in shallow water, where most shipwrecks lie, you don’t need the fancy high-end, high-tech stuff. At depths above about 150 feet, SCUBA divers can handle most everything that needs to be done. While SCUBA diving is no longer considered “high-tech,” it can get pretty complicated if you want to use mixed breathing gases instead of just compressed air. And if you’re going to be operating far from shore you might want to take a recompression chamber along and maybe a device for making pure oxygen, too. Obviously, this is a lot of stuff to install, hook-up, integrate, test, and otherwise fiddle with—you can’t just go down to Sam’s Club and pull a “research vessel remote-sensing and diving package” off the shelf. Even after you get it all on board and working at the dockside, you still have to have a shakedown cruise to test it and refine how you use it . . . which is where I came in.

In January, 2007, my colleagues and I gave a symposium on our search for the slave ship Trouvadore at the annual Society for Historical Archaeology meetings. Afterward, we were approached by Dr. Dominique Rissolo, WID’s director of research, who was impressed by our on-going search for Trouvadore. Many months later he called to ask for our help in finding a place where WID could test their equipment and expertise on a “real” site, rather than just conduct an exercise. He remembered Trouvadore and wondered if Plan B could be of use in our search.

The north shore of East Caicos, where Trouvadore lies, is not a great place to be in winter, and the search there needs low seas more than it needs high-tech. In any case, given that Trouvadore lies inside the reef in water only a few feet deep, such an exercise would neither help us find Trouvadore nor provide a good test of Plan B’s crew and equipment. Instead, I suggested a survey around Endymion Rock, a place I had visited nine years ago and reported in an article in the Spring 2001 Astrolabe (see archives at www.timespub.tc). With deep water to the east and west and at least a couple of shipwrecks clustered in shallow water, Endymion Rock could give the WID team a real workout. But the clincher for the idea was the fact that the Turks & Caicos Islands have a national museum, one that is well-stocked with the tools of the trade, can provide logistics and communication support, and can vouch for the legitimacy of a new research institute.

In the case of Endymion Rock, Plan B is doing survey only. No excavation. No artifact collecting. Those activities can lead to months or even years of artifact conservation and analysis and perhaps even the design and construction of exhibits. Still, even a simple survey carries a lot of responsibility. Once something is discovered—a shipwreck, a sunken city, a thermal vent—it can’t be “un-discovered,” and therein lies the rub, at least with respect to shipwrecks. Once the location of a shipwreck is known, there is usually nothing to stand in the way of curio-seekers and treasure hunters, who see stripping the site of artifacts as a way to make a quick buck.

Wednesday, Dec. 5, 10:30 AM:

“I think it’s highly improbable that the Companion Wreck was steam-powered.” Peter Dorrington, chief engineer and one of several New Zealanders in Plan B’s crew, has just demonstrated the inestimable importance of understanding what you’re looking at, and the result is a bombshell. Over the years, many divers must have seen the remains of HMS Endymion’s “Companion Wreck,” but none understood what they were seeing.

Pete holds up one hand and starts ticking off the logic behind this conclusion. “All the cylinders are of uniform size. Multiple expansion marine steam engines invariably employ cylinders of different sizes. There also isn’t any boiler or condenser down there large enough to handle engines of this size. There is a small boiler and condenser on the site, but they’re probably for a ‘donkey’ steam engine that would be used to raise the anchors, hoist sails and so forth. I didn’t see much coal down there, but there should be a lot if the ship were steam powered. The fact that the overall design of these engines borrows heavily from steam engines suggests that they are very early diesels, probably built between 1910 and 1920.”

We’re aboard Plan B’s dive boat, Nautica, moored over the site. Pete, still dripping wet from an hour of snorkeling, delivers his quiet, off-the-cuff lecture and then takes questions. We stare at him, open-mouthed. His visit to the site was considered an after-thought, just a small perk for Plan B’s chief engineer. Instead, it constituted a major turning point in our investigation.

After returning to Plan B, some quick Internet research confirms Pete’s deductions. With one incisive observation he has narrowed down the date of the Companion Wreck from the entire age of steam to a single decade. Further research leads him to conclude that we are looking at one 8-cylinder engine broken in two, not two 4-cylinder engines as one would think, and that it may well have been built by the Sumner Iron Works in Everett, Washington, USA.

Friday, Dec. 7 (Pearl Harbor Day), 5:30 AM:

One critical piece of equipment aboard Plan B is glaringly inadequate: the coffeemaker in the crew’s mess. Joe is an early riser and usually makes the first pot. By the time it’s ready there are four or five groggy scientists and crew standing around, mugs in hand, yawning and scratching. The first ten-cup pot lasts about 60 seconds.

We make small talk around the table, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Joe asks what I’ve been doing down here in the Turks & Caicos for all these years. I tell them about the Molasses Reef Wreck that eventually led to the founding of the Turks & Caicos National Museum and some of the other projects Ships of Discovery has been involved in, like the molding and casting of the rock inscriptions on Sapodilla Hill that resulted in an exhibit in Provo’s airport, the conservation and exhibition of the 900-year-old Lucayan paddle Capt. Bob Gascoine found in Grand Turk’s North Creek, and the inventory of all the windmills on Grand Turk and the working model of the best-preserved example. But of course that was in the past.

What we’re been working on for the last four years is the search for the slave ship Trouvadore. Not just any old slave ship, but one that was carrying the ancestors of many of the people who still live in the Islands today, and that’s what makes it so important to the Museum. Joe asks when we’re going back to continue our search for Trouvadore. I tell him that in fact, we’re applying for a license for this summer, and have already chartered the Turks and Caicos Explorer II, a live-aboard dive boat, for July 5–26, but this time we’ll be expanding our search to include two US Navy vessels lost off the Caicos Islands in the first half of the 19th century while engaged in slave ship interdiction and suppression of piracy. At the mention of the US Navy, Joe perks up. He wonders aloud if we could use another hand. Maybe he could take a leave of absence from WID to join our expedition. Having lived and worked closely with him for several days now I know that he would be a great addition to our team, especially if Mitch Rolling, owner of Blue Water Divers on Grand Turk (informally voted the Search for Trouvadore’s “most valuable team member” two seasons running) has a scheduling conflict, as he expects he will.

Thursday, Dec. 13, Noon:

The mission is over and the team is breaking up. Christmas is less than two weeks away. Most of us have to get back to our “day jobs.” Plan B is moving to its next destination. There isn’t any formal ceremony, no speeches, no clinking of glasses. Everyone’s too busy for that—and too professional. No one in this Mission Impossible team is going to get emotional or carried away with the “parting is such sweet sorrow” thing. Peter Dorrington, the chief engineer who just happens to be a marine engine historian, emerges from the engine room hatch to shake hands and wish me well. He passes me two sheets of paper, neatly typed in single space. I look at the title: “Impressions of the Endymion companion wreck from a marine engineering perspective.” It reads like a miniature thesis. This is the analysis that leads, a few days later, to a tentative, but highly probable, identification of the Companion Wreck as the General Pershing, launched in 1918 and lost on “Endamion Shoal” July 11, 1921.

Sunday, February 3, 4 PM:

Now I’m writing my report, full of facts and figures, for the DECR. But what I remember most is the people, the team. Sometimes you forget how great the things you have are until other people come along and point them out to you. In this case I was left with a new appreciation for the Museum, the efforts of the DECR to inventory and care for the incredibly rich and enthralling underwater world of the TCI, and the potential for making new discoveries there. Apparently other people saw that too, because shortly after the conclusion of the Endymion Rock survey I get word that Joe, Mike, and Lance are all making plans to join us when the field work part of our search for Trouvadore begins, and Dominique, a Mayan specialist and cave archaeologist in addition to his job as director of research for WID, is intrigued by the possibility of exploring a cave system on East Caicos thought to have been occupied by the Lucayan Indians long before the first Europeans arrived. One mission is over, but the next one beckons…