Has anyone done one of those those excursions in T&C? I know J&B Tours has one....any advice or comments? Thanks.

My wife and I were on Provo in February 2002. We did the 'pirate' tour with (I believe) Billy's. You go to an old pirate cave then climb up top for a view of some old carvings in the stone. Then you go to a beach locale for a BBQ lunch. While they said the snorkelling was good there I was not impressed. We also did the day tour to Middle Caicos to see some 'ancient' (?) and interesting caves where the original Carib Indians lived. It took close to 1 hour to get to Middle Caicos from Provo. En route you will see a fair number of nurse sharks and sting rays. They brought us to a lovely beach for a boxed lunch (quite satisfying with a cold beer to quench your thirst) and refreshing swim. On the way back we stopped a Seashell Island for snorkelling (again, not impressed) and then Iguana Island. Now this was interesting. There is a wooden walkway leading you away from the beach. As you walk along many many iguana come out of the underbrush looking for treats. Be sure to bring some bread or such with you so you can feed them. This tour was provided by JB Tours. I would not hesitate to use them again.

We didn't do the "private island" tour but talked to a couple at our hotel who enjoyed it (with J&B).

You are dropped off on a beach where you can be by yourself, although you may not have an entire island to yourself - there may be other groups several hundred yards away (still pretty private). You have food, drinks, umbrella, chairs, snorkeling gear, etc., and a cell phone to call the tour operator if there's a problem, or if you decide to end your day earlier than arranged.

Obviously not an activity for the easily bored, but kind of neat, in that I haven't seen it offered on other islands.

Hey Ken

My wife and I did this trip when we were visiting Provo last Spring(Feb/04) . The stretch of beach we were taken to was far from secluded. Boats were going by every five minutes . Not 10 minutes after we were dropped off a family of 10 pulled up 100 yards down the beach . The guys from T&C saw this and gladly came back ( on their way back from dropping off the last couple)and moved us further down and out of site. We still however had boats buzzing buy us all day long . One boat actually came within 50 feet of shore just to take a look at what we were doing. It almost became laughable at one point when we noticed that almost every boat was straying of course just to get a closer look . The cooler had six beers in it . We had those baby's done within the first hour . Good thing my boy scout training came in handy , I had packed some back ups along with some water . I think we paid somewhere around $200.00 US for the trip .

My only advice would be to talk to the boat driver and tell him what your looking for. Learned this on the way back in .

I think next time we'll look into renting a boat and find our own secluded beach .

Thanks for the heads up, especially you Jethro...that is a great tip