Gringos in the TCI Photo Blog

[Admin]

Hey man What I would do is start from the begging make a new topic here in mix it up or in what ever forum you want. Start telling the story from the get go.

If you want have tons of photos I will set you up with a bulk upload if you want via ftp!

Everyone around here would love to see it all and so would I !

Very nice to see you here and hope you like the site.

Our staff is around 24 hours a day so if you need anything contact us

Capt John Eppehimer
856 415 7711

[TunaTeaser1]

Gringo, glad you made it over from the other place. I spent almost 2 hours catching up on your other thread about a month back and enjoyed those incredible pictures and your story... trust me, I don't mind seeing those "old" pictures again and I don't think anyone else will this time of year, so you ought to just post away and share some of your story!

[wauwinet]

Can someone post a link to the blog?

Many thanks.

[Admin]

Can someone post a link to the blog?

Many thanks.

He hopefully we be posting everything here !

[brandon558]

looking forward to the photos man..Welcome to the site!

standing by

Brandon

[Gringo]

Okay. Well, what happened was that I had posted a few photos here and there, without much in the way of explanation. Several people asked me to post some more. So I basically went back through my collection of photos and put together a loose mixture of images, including these. But I have found that writing a couple words for each photo seems to help. So, here is an improved version:

This is a spot called the "Aquarium" on Pine Cay. It's about 25 ft. deep right off the rocks, and teeming with fish to watch. We have seen snapper, barracuda, dolphin (mammal), and Tarpon in here. The water is very clear,like most TCI waters.


This was at a model boat "race" on Middle Caicos. The kids mistook me for a WWF wrestler, and wanted my autograph. Pretty funny. They don't see many big white guys with shaved heads and goatees out here.


We bought a Brownies Third Lung hookah setup before coming down. I have been teaching La Gringa to dive.


Just another crowded beach. This one on Water Cay.


This is called Devil's Cut. Taken at slack tide. At flood or ebb, the water races through here. I know I have posted photos on the blog of it at full flood. It's a "devil's" cut because at high tide the rocks are mostly submerged about six inches below the surface and it looks like you can run it. You can't. Even in a panga. don't do it.


Dawn at the Aquarium, looking North toward North and Middle Caicos.


I got involved with the TCI Maritime Heritage Federation. This is a Caicos sloop, called Ranger. I was helping do some work on it. The bags are full of sand for ballast. We have races with these boats here on a regular basis.


Just chilling on the beach at Pine Cay. It's always five o'clock, somewhere...


Our friend Jay Stubbs runs Sail Provo, with two sixty foot cats and a trimaran for sightseeing cruises. I put a remote controlled camera under a six foot helium balloon and took a lot of aerial photos. This is one of those.


This is Trish, one of the capts. with "Catch the Wave" charters in Provo. Good friends of ours. Trish contributes now to the blog.


This fire coral is a 'land'mark we use for one of the old, old wreck sites we have found. I have a lot of photos and info on old shipwrecks we dive on here. Another hobby.


This beauty is sitting about two miles south of Providenciales. It draws 9 feet. It's sitting in five. Whoops.


Just one of many, many grouper hanging around here. They are thick on the reef.


One of our five sons hooked this little puppy on the Caicos Banks. We tried to look excited for him. This year he caught a nice baby YFT and was REALLY thrilled.


Me playing with a new u/w camera housing out near the reef.


Sapodilla Hill has a spot on the top where sailors sat for hours over the past three hundred years, some carving their names on the stones. I did a whole post on those later on.


One of two stone cats sitting watching the ocean near Pirates Cave. People who have lived here sixty years tell me they don't know who carved them.


These guys were following me around out on the reef one day like a flight of Klingon fish or something. Let me get real close. Amazing color changing displays. Fascinating to watch.


We found this swing while exploring some sea caves we had spotted from the water. Lots of caves here, in the limestone.


A view of Mudjen Harbor on Middle Caicos. It might be a harbor, but good luck getting into it with a boat.


A view of Sapodilla Bay from the hilltop with the carvings.


Hobie sailors get together quite often on Water Cay and race each other up and down the coast inside the reef.


One of many Haitian sloops that come to grief here. They put these things together with rags and pitch, and hope they make it the 130 miles from Haiti to the TCI. A boat this size will typically have something like a hundred people on it. I did a whole post on these things on the blog.


A view through some ruins on a hill on Salt Cay. That's a great little island south of Grand Turk. We plan to go back in the summer when the weather is calmer. Its a 22 mile trip across the Columbus Passage. Deep ocean. Big waves. Little boat.


A view from our room at Windmills Plantation on Salt Cay, looking toward the huge new cruise ship terminal on Grand Turk a few miles to the North.


Another wooden Caicos sloop. They pull them up on the beach to dry out and repaint from time to time.


This is a hunk of iron we found on one of our old wreck sites. Bottle fragments, bricks, etc. date the site to about 1700. this is a piece of the pintel/rudder setup, we think. I left it in place. The rope was to a float so I could get a GPS on it. I am mapping the site. Have found pieces scattered over 1000 yards, so far. They tell a story when you plot them out.



From the beach at Pine Cay looking down Water Cay. We spend a lot of time on Pine Cay in the summer.

So, those were the photos that started the long thread. People kept asking for more, and I posted more and at some point started writing about them, and about our experiences.

Is this the kind of stuff you guys would be interested in here?

[fmoore]

You are going to be like a God here. Those pics are absolutely stunning. I want more!

[GALAZIO]

Gringo...my man!

Nice start to what I am willing to bet will be one of the most viewed threads here!

[Gringo]

Hey cool, I am glad you like the photos. Not a bad deal for a dumbA East Texas boy, huh?
Well, the photos have gotten better since August. We were up on Martha's Vineyard, and I bought an Olympus 770 camera. Its the really small one thats ruggedized and supposedly waterproof to 33 ft. I have had it down to about 20 feet so far, but I dont trust it. I am going to pick up another camera for the UW stuff. But the Olympus is a great little camera to drop in your pocket, so now I carry it everywhere. Get a lot more pics.

This is an anemone on an old shipwreck here, taken with the Olympus. Its only maybe 8-10 feet deep.


and this is a different wreck about two miles away from the one with the anemones. Well, this one probably has anemones on it too, but I didn't dive this one. But how would you like to run over this in the pitch darkness at about 40 mph?

[hunt4fish]

EXCELLENT POST GRINGO,I think I need to chk. on coming down there this summer,post up some info on the fishing/climate down there in May-July!! Looking @ a family trip somewhere in Carribean this coming summer tell us more!!!