We truly had a very special vacation. Definitely a dream come true!

We left thursday morning (the 1st) superearly and saw the sun rise above Washington DC, beautiful! But even at 5 am (our flight was at 7) there was such a line at check in, that we barely made our flight!

Because of that we had no time for breakfast (thankfully, Rick had gotten the children some food at Starbucks in time) and "breakfast" according to American Airlines consists of a granola bar, blech! In Miami we quickly ate a soggy turkey breast sandwich, as we had little time to transfer. What a nasty airport that is! There are only 6 bathroom stalls for women for an entire terminal and there were long lines, needless to say (advise: pee before landing if you don't want to spend your transfer time waiting). Of course the men's room had no line at all, grrr!!!

Upon arrival at the resort (customs was fairly easy and the taxi ride too) we got handed some delicious punch and a cold towel. And we checked in at the concierge service.

We got a suite (because we're five, we were not allowed in one regular room and a suite turned out to be less expensive than 2 rooms!) with perfect view of the beach and 2 balconies to enjoy the view with a nice drink. All food and drink was inclusive, and in our suite we had a filled minibar with soda's, juices, water, wine and even champagne. There was whiskey, gin and other hard liquors too, but we never touched those. Rick did however ask for a bottle of Baileys and that on some ice went down nice and cool! ;)

The suite had 2 rooms, in one was a king size bed and in the other a pull out sofa. We had requested a rollaway and brought an inflatable mattress, so all 3 kids had their own bed. Rick has been sold on a king size now, so he's looking into upgrading our bed at home. I don't know if there is enough room for one, but it would be nice, especially with the huge pillow I use against the fibromyalgia.

The rooms were decorated very nicely (for a hotel ;)) with a very colorful bedspread and matching curtains. We had a large bathroom with jacuzzi tub and separate shower and a double sink. And in the other room a small kitchen with microwave (popcorn was provided as well) and coffee machine.

With the suite came concierge service, where we could make restaurant reservations (2 of the restaurants required them) and make special requests. As a welcome gift we got a cute Beaches bag with lotions and shampoo.

After exploring the resort with us the first day all 3 kids tried the kids camp the second day. Katja and Kai met some friends and didn't return to the camp, but played in the pools with those kids. But Saskia loved the camp and gladly went from 9-4 and then again from 6:30-9. The few nights she didn't go, we regretted it, as she made it quite clear she was with us against her will ;). It was very nice to have her enjoy the camp so much, as she's still too little to enjoy the snorkeling/diving and that's what ended up being our major pastime (though, when she saw the fish pictures, she did say "I should have at least tried").

All girls had their hair braided with beads and of course Katja and Saskia too. Some women did it too, but frankly, on most I thought it looked downright weird! For the girls it's handy, with all the swimming they do and it looks cute too. Even Kai got two minuscule braids in the front of his hair, like 2 little antenna's ;). Some boys got their whole heads braided, how they slept at night is beyond me, seemed like the feeling of a pincussion to me!

Saskia still has her braids in, she wants to keep them in till her birthday (December!), but I think they look kind of yucky already, so I hope to convince her to take them out soon (the sunscreen makes the beads all sticky). Katja took hers out the day before we returned home and Kai's antenna's are still in too.

The resort (http://www.beaches.com) is enormous! There are 8 restaurants and a cafe (more about this later) and 4 big swimming pools, one with 2 slides and a covered little babypool. Also whirlpools with all pools and one adults only whirlpool overlooking the beach.

There is also a huge computer games room with X-Box, Playstation etc. for the kids (and parents who like that, of course), Kai was to found there regularly, though not as often as I'd feared ;).

There were swim up bars in the pools and a couple of adults only bars. Pool tables, ping pong tables and life size chess games were in several places. At the beach you could take out kayaks, hobiecats and windsurfers and take one of the 4 boat snorkeltrips offered per day (sign up early!). In other words, something for everyone. I have to admit I spent most of my time on my belly in the sea looking at fishes, though, the snorkeling was truly awesome!

The first few evenings we ate a buffet at the "Reflections" restaurant in the main building, but we soon realized, that the food was not the best there and so we didn't return (not even for the lauded lobster night, as the lines for food were too long as well).

We ate most breakfasts and lunches at Giuseppe's, an Italian restaurant, which served a delicious buffet and had not been discovered by many people, because it was never crowded, as opposed to Reflections where we had to elbow ourselves through a single door with 10 others. No wonder some people thought the resort was too crowded!

Every morning there was salmon and papaya, sometimes mango and always fresh pineapple. Besides that delicious salads for lunch and always a local specialty, like grilled grouper and snapper and stewed conch.

At night, we ate at the fish restaurant next to our room, with view of the beach and the sunset or at one of the "adults only" restaurants with delicious French food (the French restaurant "Le Petit Chateau" had great food! Funny thing: someone made a mistake in their French and added an -e- to Petit. The restaurant's name was corrected, but all umbrella's still read "Le Petit-e- Chateau") and local specialties (the kids much preferred the 50's diner food over any other restaurant). Before dinner we always got a sushi appetizer at the sushi bar (delicious different kinds of sushi -- spicy conch, spring roll, and other unusual combinations). And one night we went to the Japanese tepanyaki restaurant. In other words, more than enough choice in food.

We snorkeled every single day. Just a 15 minute walk from the resort (or 30 minutes swimming, I did that several times too and saw, that people were not the only creatures liking the sand, I saw 3 stingrays and a very colorful seastar very close to the beach!) was the Bight Reef. A large part was roped off with buoys, because they're recovering the reef. There was a "danger: fire coral" sign too, the coral that hurts badly when you touch it. But snorkeling around the roped off area and further out was gorgeous! Whole schools of parrot fishes, groupers, angelfishes, electric blue fishes, etc. Some people saw turtles there too, but not us. The coral was very colorful and alive too.

The resort offered 4 free snorkel trips by boat for free, but we soon realized, that we either had to get up super early to be on the list or in the weekends, as then the old group went home and the new ones checked in and didn't have their bearings yet. We did 4 of these trips, all on the weekend.

On the first snorkeling trip I saw a turtle and called for Rick and Kai to come look. Unfortunately, the whole group heard me and converged on the poor turtle. It got scared and hid in a cave. Later on Rick heard, that they sometimes get so scared, they don't dare to come back up and since they're air breathing creatures, they can die. I sincerely hope that didn't happen to this particular turtle! I saw 4 more turtles after that (the last one was spectacular, a large "hawksbill turtle", who was calmly eating, about 3 feet below me and came up for air twice, not at all bothered by that strange fish with the huge mask. Unfortunately, our film roll was just finished) I called Rick in Dutch then, so that the rest of the group had no idea.

I also had an up close and personal encounter with several barracuda's. The first was a little scary, as I was searching for shells in very shallow water and suddenly I look up into the eyes of a big silver fish with teeth, just a few inches from my face. Luckily he was also scared of me (I did hear they sometimes bite, especially if you're wearing something shiny). On the final snorkeling trip I encountered a whole school of them and got two on film.

And then there was the nurse shark that swam right below me. No lack of exciting sea creatures!

Rick found out, that it was possible to take a SCUBA certification course at the resort, something that's been a lifelong dream of his and, because kids from 10 on could get certified, he enrolled Katja (who's been interested for years) and Kai as well.

I don't like the feeling of water closing over my head, so I'm not ready for it (yet?), for now I'll just stick to snorkeling. Kai was initially interested, but then they watched a video and they talked about exploding lungs and that scared him off, so Rick got his money back for him.

I was secretly happy, that Kai didn't want to dive, as I now had a fun companion to snorkel with and go on tours. The first tours was to Iguana Island (Little Water Cay), an uninhabited island where hundreds of rock iguana's live. Those iguana's used to live on all Turks and Caicos islands, but the stray dogs and cats eliminated them (we did see quite a few stray cats during our stay). It was a neat experience, the iguana's were very curious and came quite close.

After that the tour took us to a reef to snorkel and finally we went to Fort George Cay, known for its shells, where we searched for shells for about an hour (we found many and a friendly barracuda ;)).

Rick, Katja and Saskia were supposed to go on that tour as well, as Rick insisted that their SCUBA training wouldn't last longer than noon and that Saskia would enjoy the tour. On Tuesday morning (the tour was Tuesday afternoon) it turned out, that the SCUBA training would be until 4 and so Katja and Rick couldn't join the tour. And Saskia (thankfully, as I didn't see enjoying the tour with her along, she refused to wear a life vest and wouldn't want to leave the boat the entire time) much preferred staying in the kids' club and doing handpainting there. I was quite annoyed with Rick though, as we could have prevented the loss of that money, if he hadn't been so stubborn and had just asked how long that class would take. In any case, Kai and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly nonetheless.

On Saturday we did a similar tour, so Rick and Katja could come along and could see the iguana's and fish for conches.

On Wednesday there would be a tour to French Cay, during which you'd swim with stingray and perhaps would see dolphins too. First I thought "That's too bad, I would love to do that, but Rick and Katja (and at the time Kai too) will be having SCUBA training." and then I kicked myself and told that self: "You're perfectly capable of going on such a tour on your own, so why not go?". Then it turned out Kai was not going to dive, so I signed both of us up for that tour, that would last all day.

Unfortunately, the sea turned out to be wild on that Wednesday (incredible for the usually so calm Caribbean!) and after a half an hour the captain suggested to go to a calmer area, if we would continue we would have another hour on that rough water and one of the girls already started to look green and I have to admit to not feeling that great myself!

So we went snorkeling elsewhere (where I saw more turtles, even 2 at once at one point), then to an area where we could fish for conches. I found 2, the guides made conch salad from our catch while we searched for sanddollars. I have never seen so many sanddollars as in that place! In fact, I'd never seen a live sanddollar at all, so this was really cool! We found about 4 intact dead ones, which we took home with us, but at least a hundred live ones!

The conch salad was really good and we were also allowed to keep those shells, so we have 4 beautiful pink shells on our deck. In order to export them, you needed a certificate from the Fisheries Department there, so they can keep track of the amount of shells fished. Upon departure all luggage is searched, so better get that certificate if you want to take conches!

All tourguides, snorkelguides, divemasters etc. were very careful that no one took live sea creatures. Unfortunately, we didn't see (and neither did the guide) that there was a hermit crab in one of Katja's found shells and on the last day when we turned the shell over, we found a boiled crab :(.

Besides that we were very careful, didn't touch anything, never kicked against coral with our fins etc. (wish I could say the same for many of our fellow travelers :()

On Friday morning we got to see a spectacular thunderstorm, it approached very slowly and I have gorgeous pictures of the dark, dark skies and the deep turkoise water (and tried and tried to catch a lightning bolt on film, to no avail). Unfortunately, Katja and Rick were at sea for their last dive at that time as well and it was a very strong storm. So I was so super glad to see them back on land after an hour or so! They said it was quite an adventure and some people panicked, but the guides stayed calm and that helped a lot. They're very proud of their SCUBA certificates and Katja is wearing a necklace with a diver now.

On Sunday afternoon we were snorkeling while a thunderstorm was approaching and the previous Sunday we saw a waterspout in the distance. Wild weather there! But most of the time it was beautifully sunny with clouds and only the occasional shower.

On Sunday evening when I went out to catch the sunset on film, I saw a beautiful red crab on the beach, he was very slow so I was able to get a perfect picture. Other interesting animals, besides the fishes, were the birds. There was a hummingbird and a large white heron and a bird of which I don't know the name. And then of course gecko's and other lizards, much to Kai's delight. And we saw an enormous yellow/white spider .

As for people contacts, most guests came from the New York/New Jersey area. We talked to a bunch of them and exchanged email addresses. Besides that we encountered a family we met in Curacao last year! And two co-workers of Rick's with their families. What are the chances! Katja has a whole list with instant messenger addresses, Saskia had an Italian friend and an English friend (she learned a few Italian words, there was a large group of Italians at the resort). Kai first had a bunch of friends, but they went home soon after we arrived and after that he was happy to just hang out with us or his siblings.

The last 2 evenings Rick and I took the bottle of champagne to the beach and watched the stars there. First evening with Kai and the next with Saskia. We even saw a shooting star! The Big Dipper was very clear to see, so Saskia knows to find that constellation now.

The sand at the beach felt like clay, it was so fine! Really a wonderful feeling!

I probably forgot lots of things. On the island itself there wasn't much to see or do. The only thing of interest was the world's only conch farm. We tried to visit there, but paid $50 for a taxi cab ride of 20 minutes roundtrip (without airconditioning!) and when we arrived, the tourguide had "stepped out" and didn't return. So that was $50 thrown away and we didn't think it that special to spend that much again to try a second time.

We're already thinking of which dive/snorkel destination to visit next year. Who knows, Kai and I may try at least a test dive in the pool to see if we like it, but otherwise we'll enjoy ourselves snorkeling while the other 2 dive. Saskia may then be old enough to join us as well. She's already diving down to the bottom of the pool, so it won't be long!

We're nicely tanned, thankfully we brought plenty of sunscreen and didn't really burn. It was a fantastic experience to cherish for a good long while!

I just put the pictures online at http://community.webshots.com/user/petrarick . The albums are under "TCI ...."