Summer 2019

Community teamwork investigates early island culture. By Dr. Shaun D. Sullivan and Dr. Michael P. Pateman ~ Photos Courtesy Turks & Caicos National Museum In the fall of 2018, local volunteers and students came together in a community effort to record a key part of the culture of early Turks & Caicos Islanders. They came from nearby ...

People of the Islands in front of the lens. By Michael P. Pateman and Vanessa A. Pateman “People of the Islands” is the National Museum’s new oral history/ethnography program. This project seeks to tell the story of “Islanders” of the Bahama Archipelago through their own voice, with a first person narrative. Oral histories are stories that living ...

Discovering the “Old Caribbean” on Salt Cay Story & Photos By Mat Matlack Providenciales is an amazing island. It has truly become one of the top vacation destinations for the Americas and the rest of the world. With its world-class beaches, restaurants and other amenities, it has everything one could desire in a beach location. But the ...

Spending a season with the humpback whales. Story & Photos By Kelly Currington The stillness of the water is broken and silence gives way to the sound of a low, powerful groan as air is being expelled from the lungs of a creature at an approximate speed of 200 mph . . . and the spell is ...

From harpooning leviathans to holding them dear. By Ben Stubenberg “I need everyone’s eyes on the water,” Captain Kell Talbot earnestly tells the guests on the Deep Blue Charters whale watching boat three miles east of Salt Cay. “The front of the boat is twelve o’clock, the back six o’clock. When you see a whale surface, call ...

Tissue Loss Disease a threat to TCI reefs. Story and Photos By Erin Bowman and Heidi Hertler, Ph.D. In a time when climate change is wreaking havoc on coral reefs worldwide, the reefs of the Turks & Caicos Islands remain some of the most resilient and pristine in the Caribbean. They are home to more than 60 ...

Using whale sightings by citizen scientists in the Turks & Caicos Islands By Cathy E. Bacon M.Sc., Mithriel M. MacKay Ph.D., and Katharine Hart M.Sc. Photos By Katharine Hart, Deep Blue Charters, Grand Turk There are few places in the world like the Turks & Caicos Islands where humans can enter the water and photograph some of the ...

The clock is running out on TCI’s conch fishery. By Kathleen Wood Earlier in 2019, research spanning decades in the Bahamas concluded that without significant intervention and changes to fishing policy, the Bahamian queen conch Lobatus gigas fishery will collapse within 10–15 years (Allan W Stoner, Davis, & Kough, 2019). Conch populations in legal fishing grounds in ...

The annual roller coaster. By Paul Wilkerson As a tourist to the Turks & Caicos Islands, I can count on one hand the number of times it has rained during our stays! Many visitors don’t realize what a commodity rainfall is, and how desperately it is needed here. When it comes to water availability, it is ...

BWIC student Chelsea Stubbs. By Kathy Borsuk ~ Photo By Daphne Roots Let us not grow weary or become discouraged in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give in. Most of us are familiar with the Bible verse that tells us that we reap what we sow. It’s always uplifting when ...