Grand Turk

This is a quick stop. Again, Regatta is anchored off shore and we grabbed the first independent tender in, before the tours start. We've found a free but weak Internet signal and are sitting on the ground with a half dozen other computer geeks, much to the amusement of those strolling by.

This is a very antiseptic artificial port center, and it's frankly a relief after the really aggressive vendors we encountered yesterday in La Romana, Dominican Republic. They were somewhere between Turkish and Egyptian vendors on the pushiness scale, and we escaped shortly for a walking tour of the shabby and relatively quiet downtown area on a quiet Sunday.

We overpaid our guide and told him the vendors would do better if they didn't accost the tourists so vigorously. He tooks us over immediately to the woman who supposedly managed the market, told her presumably the same thing in Spanish and asked us to tell her in English.

She told us she was sorry and that they'd already met with the vendors about this but would meet again. We told her we'd like to see them selling souvenirs to tourists (it's clearly not that prosperous a place) but that they were driving people here.

Here it's a complete contrast, right down to a branch of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and and assortment of the usual shops one sees in the developed ports.

There's a lovely looking beach but for us it's back to the ship soon after a quick stroll around and getting ready for our last sea day (after quite a bumpy ride last night) and docking in Miami Wednesday morning.