3457 UNITED KINGDOM (Cayman Islands) - George Town

With a population of 40,200, George Town, situated on Grand Cayman, is not only the capital of the Cayman Islands, but also the largest city (by population) of all the British Overseas Territories, and a popular port for Caribbean cruise ships. This quaint town is host to a variety of activities – including luxurious glass-bottom boat tours, fascinating rum distillery tours, beautiful art galleries, top-notch shopping that includes duty free shops, delicious eateries and an historical museum.

3430 UNITED KINGDOM (Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha) - Island of Saint Helena (UNESCO WHS - Tentative List)

Saint Helena is a volcanic tropical island in the South Atlantic Ocean, part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. It is one of the most remote islands in the world and was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. From 1659 it has been a British possession, apart from a short Dutch interlude in 1673, and was an important stopover for ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa for centuries.

1570, 1586-1587, 1781-1782, 2758 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - The map and the flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands

1570, 1586 The map of the Turks and Caicos Islands (1)

Posted on 10.05.2015, 17.05.2015, 03.06.2015, 26.07.2015, 17.09.2016
The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago, part of the larger Antilles island grouping, which lie southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola. The resident population is about 31,500, of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales. Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island. TCI are named after the Turk's-cap cactus (Melocactus communis), and the Lucayan term caya hico, meaning string of islands.

2758 The map of the Turks and Caicos Islands (2)

The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, who crossed over from Hispaniola sometime from AD 500 to 800. Soon after the conquistador Juan Ponce de León arrived in 1512, the Spanish began capturing the locals as slaves, so that the islands were completely depopulated a year later, and remained so until the 17th century. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the islands passed from Spanish, to French, and to British control, but none of the three powers ever established any settlements. For several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts.

1781 The map of the Middle Caicos

After the American War of Independence, many Loyalists fled to British Caribbean colonies; in 1783 they were the first settlers on the Caicos Islands. They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry, which was a highly important export product until the 19th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the islands were either a separate colony, or part of the  Bahamas, or of  Jamaica. In 1973 the Turks and Caicos received their own governor. In 2013 and 2014, interest in annexing the islands to Canada, an idea which previously circulated, was renewed.

1782 The map of the Salt Cay

The eight main islands and more than 299 smaller islands consist primarily of low, flat limestone with extensive marshes and mangrove swamps. The weather is usually sunny and relatively dry, but suffers frequent hurricanes. The islands have limited natural fresh water resources; private cisterns collect rainwater for drinking. Most capital goods and food for domestic consumption are imported. The primary natural resources are spiny lobster, conch and other shellfish. The United States was the leading source of tourists in 1996, accounting for more than half of the 87,000 visitors.

1587 The flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands

The official language of the islands is English and the population also speaks Turks and Caicos Islands Creole, which is similar to Bahamian Creole. Due to its close proximity to Cuba and Hispaniola, large Haitian Creole and Spanish-speaking communities have developed in the territory due to immigration. The Turks and Caicos Islands are a biodiversity hotspot. The islands have many endemic species and others of international importance. Due to this significance, the islands are on the United Kingdom's tentative list for future UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

2725 UNITED KINGDOM (Anguilla) - Chairs at Shoal Bay

Anguilla has approximately 33 beaches, but the most popular one is Shoal Bay East. With its pinkish-hued white sand and intense turquoise water, it ranks as one of the top beaches in not only the Caribbean, but the entire world. The northern shore of the island is set up to entertain daytrippers from St. Martin-St. Maarten, so there are plenty of bars and restaurants, plus rental equipment for snorkeling, parasailing and scuba diving.

2719 UNITED KINGDOM (Anguilla) - Sunset at Sandy Ground

Sandy Ground is a village and one of the fourteen districts of Anguilla, and its main port. According to the 2001 census Sandy Ground has a population of 274. The long curved beach is backed by high cliffs and a disused salt pond. It is the busiest beach on the island for boat traffic. The container ships come and go to the south end of the Road Bay. Local boats and charters come and go from the wharf closer to the middle of the bay. The fishermen and their smaller boats seem to stick to the north end of the bay.

2663 UNITED KINGDOM (Anguilla) - Tucked-away Little Bay

Little Bay is one of Anguilla's most special and serene places, but you have to make an effort to reach its beach, surrounded by high cliffs. There are two ways to get to this most remote beach: climb down by rope, or boat over from Crocus Bay. Anyway, it worth the effort, because the scenery is fascinating. The sand on the beach a lighter contrast to the beautifully layered limestone with all shades of corals and grays, and then there is the glowing, brilliant blue of the sea.

2594 UNITED KINGDOM (Bermuda) - Avocado Harvesting

Bermuda Arts Center, located at the cooperage of Royal Naval Dockyard offers a range of impressions and style galleries. It is a creative workshop and a gallery of the local and resident artists. Art and handicrafts section of the Bermuda Arts Center started in April 1987, as the Bermuda Craft Market which still exists separately. Now it looks sleek and modern in a separate building, and has beautiful paintings & photographs on display on the walls.

2569 UNITED STATES (U.S. Virgin Islands) / UNITED KINGDOM (Overseas Territory) - The map of the Virgin Islands

 

 

The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, and form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Politically, the eastern islands form the British Virgin Islands and the western ones form the United States Virgin Islands.
The first is an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom comprising approximately 60 islands and cays including Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke, and Anegada. The last is one of five inhabited insular areas of the United States, and comprises the islands St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John.

2442 UNITED KINGDOM (Bermuda) - A ducking stool in St. George's

Cucking and ducking stools were chairs used for punishment of disorderly women,  scolds, and dishonest tradesmen in England, Scotland, and in the English colonies of North America. They were instruments of public humiliation and censure primarily for the offense of scolding and less often for sexual offenses like bearing an illegitimate child or prostitution. The cucking stool was usualy a commode or toilet, placed in public view, upon which the targeted person was forced to sit, and often while being paraded through the town.

2431-2435 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - The former life in Turks Islands

2431 Grand Turk - Barrelling salt for export

The Turks Islands were not fully colonised until 1681, when salt collectors from Bermuda built the first permanent settlement on Grand Turk Island. They were drawn by the shallow waters around the islands that made salt mining a much easier process than in Bermuda. Since then, the salt industry sustained the Turks and Caicos Islands until in the 1960s. During the 250 years, the infrastructure and methods were gradually improved.

2432 Turks Islands - Sponges and Crowl

At the height of production in the early 1900s, about 92 hectares of salina was being utilized on Grand Turk. The average annual export of salt during the period from 1888 to 1907 was 1,630,314 bushels, of which 77,6% went to the United States, and 16,1% to Canada. In 1916 the export of salt was valued at about 100,000 USD, forming nearly three quarters of the total exports. In those times were also exported, in much smaller quantities, sponges, that grew in the shallow waters

2433 Turks Islands - Cocoanuts and Guinea Corn

In the 18th century, huge numbers of trees were felled by the Bermudians to discourage rainfall that would adversely affect the salt mining operation. This deforestation has yet to be repaired. In essence, the modern landscape is the product of human activities going back thousands of years. Among the plants introduced on the islands is Guinea grass, introduced from Africa as cattle fodder. Anyway, on early20th century, Grand Turk was one of the bleakest and barrenest islands imaginable.

2434 Grand Turk - Front Street in Cockburn Town in 1900s

Before the WWI, TCI had 5,615 inhabitants. Almost 1,700 of them lived in Grand Turk, of whom not less than 1,400 were of African descendents. The only settlement on Grand Turk was Cockburn Town, situated on the western coast and containing practically the entire population. There was no harbor, and visiting vessels were obliged to anchor in an open roadstead. As any low-lying tropical coastal settlement, the Cockburn Town was often devastated by hurricanes.

2435 Grand Turk - Saint Thomas's Anglican Church

The majority of the population of the Turks and Caicos Islands were and are Christian of different confessions. The Grand Turk's oldest church is Saint Thomas's Anglican Church, located on the edge of Town Salina in Cockburn Town, and dedicated in 1823. Built by Bermudan settlers, it was considered too far to walk to the centre of the island and Saint Mary's Anglican Church was built in 1899 on Front Street, known also as Duke Street.

2407 UNITED KINGDOM (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) - The Antarctic fur seal

2407 Youg Bull Fur Seal on Bird Island

Part of the South Georgia islands, so located south to the Antarctic Convergence, in Antarctic waters, Bird Island is currently a Site of Special Scientific Interest and hosts a biological research station. Even if has only  4.8km long and 800m wide, it is a paradise for many species of sea birds, thing noted as early as in 1775 by its discoverer, James Cook, who named the island. However, the largest population on the island is not of a birds species, but a mammals species, namely Antarctic fur seal (65,000, which means around 1 for every 6 m2 of the island).

2363 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - National Museum in Cockburn Town

Established in the 1980s and opened in 1991, the Turks and Caicos National Museum is housed in one of the oldest stone structures in Grand Turk Island, Guinep House, located on Front Street to the north of Cockburn Town, the capital of the archipelago.  The house, built prior to 1885 in local limestone by a former shipwright, was named after the large guinep tree in the front yard. Its structural material came from local shipwrecks, including a ship's mast, which is one of the building's main supports.

2340, 2341 UNITED KINGDOM (Anguilla) - The sandy island

2340 Anguilla (1)

Anguilla, a flat, low-lying island of coral and limestone in the Caribbean Sea, east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, is a British overseas territory. It is directly north of Saint Martin, separated from that island by the Anguilla Channel. The soil is generally thin and poor, supporting scrub tropical and forest vegetation. The island is noted for its spectacular and ecologically important coral reefs and beaches. Apart from the main island, the territory includes a number of other smaller islands and cays.

2341 Anguilla (2)

With an eel shape, from where it has its name (the anglicised form of earlier Spanish anguila, or French anguille), Anguilla itself is only 26km long by 5km wide, but however it has 33 beaches, each one spectacular in its own way. In other words, It is everything you need from a Caribbean island: beautiful white sand beaches, turquoise waters, scenic bays, gentle breezes and palm trees. Moreover, a slow and laid-back atmosphere dominates the island, where locals and visitors both adopt a slower pace of life.

2322 UNITED KINGDOM (Bermuda) - Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute

Opened in 1997, Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) has the purpose "to advance the understanding, appreciation and knowledge of the ocean and to encourage the protection and preservation of the marine environment", but also to know and learn about the historic shipwrecks of Bermuda. This is done through a series of eye-popping artifacts and exhibits, many of them interactive. The exhibits are showcased in two different floors.

2315 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - The Queen Conch

Conch is a common name to a different medium to large-sized sea snails or their shells. The term generally applies to large snails whose shell has a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal. The group of conchs that are sometimes referred to as "true conchs" are the ones from the family Strombidae, specifically in the genus Strombus, popular throughout the Caribbean and especially in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI). It is an important symbol of the TCI, being one of three symbols on the flag.

1081-1082, 2287-2288 UNITED KINGDOM (Bermuda) - Bermuda map and snapshots

1081 Bermuda map (1)

Posted on 20.05.2014, 13.02.2016
Bermuda is a group of low-forming islands (181, the largest being Main Island) located in the North Atlantic Ocean, at about 1,030km from Cape Hatteras (North Carolina), near the western edge of the Sargasso Sea. It is the northernmost point of the so-called Bermuda Triangle, a region of sea in which, according to legend, a number of aircraft and surface vessels have disappeared under supposedly unexplained or mysterious circumstances. The archipelago is formed by high points on the rim of the caldera of a submarine volcano.

1082 Bermuda map (2)

The top of the seamount has gone through periods of complete submergence, during which its limestone cap was formed by marine organisms, and during the Ice Ages the entire caldera was above sea level.  Bermuda has a humid subtropical climate, on the border of tropical climate, and is within the hurricane belt, the only source of fresh water being rainfall. Its economy is based on offshore insurance and reinsurance, and tourism. Bermuda's pink sand beaches and clear, cerulean blue ocean waters are popular with tourists.

2287 Bermuda snapshots (1)

 

Bermuda was discovered in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez, after whom the islands are named. He claimed the apparently uninhabited islands for the Spanish Empire. In 1609, the English Virginia Company, which had established Virginia and Jamestown on the North American continent two years earlier, established a settlement. The islands became a British colony following the 1707 unification of the parliaments of Scotland and England, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain.

2287 Bermuda snapshots (2)

Its first capital, St. George's (originally called New London), was established in 1612 and is the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the New World. At the begining of the American War of Independence, Bermuda supported the rebels, but the economic realities caused Bermudians to seize opportunities; they turned to privateering against the Americans. Following the war, with the buildup of Naval and military forces in Bermuda, the primary leg of the Bermudian economy became defence infrastructure. Even after tourism began later in the 19th century, it remained for London a base more than a colony.