South Caicos checkout

-Florence Janet  Keane the mini sailor

It was a beautiful day the sun was shining the clouds were out it was just such a perfect day and today was the day that me and my mom were going to go to shore to check out of Turks and Caicos. My brother and mom went the day before to try and check out but it was a Sunday so everything was closed. My brother did not want to come to shore again, I am not sure if it was because of the dingy ride or all the stray dogs, so I volunteered to come. So we ate breakfast got dressed brushed our teeth [I did some makeup] and we were off. Now the dingy ride was about 3 miles into town so it took us like 45  minutes to get into town. But we finally got there and it looked like a really clean modern  town from a far but up close it was pretty dirty and had stray dogs everywhere.

Once we got in we saw our other boat neighbour and his 18 month old. So we went to go say hi. Then we were determined to go check out. So the day before my mom went with my brother to this teal building but spoiler alert that was the wrong building. So there we were looking like dummies at a random building. So we tried knocking a few times  and saying, “Hello anyone in there” but there was no answer. Also it was a holiday so that was probably why we did not get any answers. Anyways there was this guy outside on a boat working on something so we decided to ask him where costumes was and he said it was a holiday so it probably wont be open but if you go to the market then they will call costumes and ask if someone could come in. we said thanks and went back over to where the dingy was because the store was right there. So we went inside and because it was a market there was a lot of food and treats so I immediately started looking around. My mom decided to wait in line first and then go shopping. So she did and then asked them to call costumes and so they did and then said it will take them 1 hour and 30 minutes to get there so my mom agreed then started shopping I was in the opposite side of the store looking at how much ramen costs. We finally met up near the pop section and because I had a freezie in hand she decided we should get something for the boys as well so we got 3 cokes and 1 cocoanut drink [with pulp] and then my mom showed me this cleaning thing she had in her hand and then said I am going to get it I replied with ok. Then my mom said I think we need 1 more snack so we looked at the snack area and everything there was either over priced or something weird or that we can make on the boat. Then I saw it the deliciousness that changed my life, “plantain chips” now for me at first I was sceptical about them but I thought my mom would like them so I decided to try them. Of course my mom said yes. Then we also bought 6 gallons of water. [sadly the ramen did not make it] but we got this guy that worked there to help carry the water back to the dingy. He dropped it off and then took off I helped my mom load the water into the dingy.

We still had a lot of time to kill so we decided to join our friends that were still there they had also just gone in to the store and the 18 month old named Victor had orange juice dribbling down his chin onto his shirt. He was so cute. Once we finished our freezie’s my mom said lets go see if they are ready I was not wanting to go because I wanted to watch Viktor but I agreed so we went back to the store and they said it will be 30 more minutes. So I said I am hungry just so mom could buy me snacks and surprisingly she said she was hungry so we started looking around the store and then decided to buy Twizzlers and another bag of plantain chips. Once we were finished our snacks the guy said that the person going to check us out was ready and gave us very strict directions like turn here do this do that take a left on bramble street and stuff like that. he said it was a grey building. So we took all the right turns and stuff and we got to this almost a neighbourhood but Had no houses and literally ALL THE BUILDINGS WERE GREY!! But what did help was that there was signs on every building. so one was a clinic and one was motor vehicles. Both me and my mom were really confused and were considering going back to the market to ask for better instructions but then we saw some fancy,19 year old looking girls and decided to ask them. So we did and they kind of reminded me of wizards because of what they were saying and they’re hand movements they were kind of like, “hmm I think I know its that way or no that way no wait yeah its that way.” We ended up just asking a guy in a truck. So it turns out it was actually  motor vehicles. I thought to myself pffffffffffft we are so dumb we literally walked  right past it. So there was also this horse in his pen right next to the road that I had been petting  while this was all happening and I wanted to keep petting her but my mom said we have to go so  they don’t get impatient and leave and you can pet her on the way back I said ok. so we went and got all the paperwork done we had to pay 80$ in total to leave Turks and Caicos.

After we left it started to rain not like really heavy rain it was just light rain. But still it was annoying. Anyways I got to pet the horse and I found 1$ in American on the ground  yayyy [well I didn’t find it my mom did then I picked it up as quick as I could and then took credit for it he he ha ha classic me] then we headed on our way back to the dingy  and started going really fast we were plaining if you don’t know what plaining is its basically going so fast that you are on top of the waves and your not hitting any bumps it feels like your in a race car and its really fun, well until your motor prop hits the GROUND! Yeah we hit the ground almost breaking the motor prop that WAS JUST FIXT! But thank god we didn’t break it. Anyways soon after the actual dingy hit the bottom and my mom tried to row but kept hitting the bottom so the dingy wouldn’t move. Eventually she got too fed up and just decided to walk, after a while I just decided to row so I did and my mom hopped in feeling relieved and I rowed for a good 10-15 minutes once we got in a  little deeper water my mom put the motor down and we started plaining again. We soon saw that we had a new boat neighbour and thought we would stop to say hi, and turns out they just came from the Dominican Republic where we are trying to go so that was cool! Once we got back to the boat we had our plantain chips coke and cocoanut drink and played Mario kart!!! over all it was a great day in town and a fun experience!!!!!!!!!!!