White List

I've mentioned before in the blog that the largest economic sector in the Turks and Caicos Islands is finance. And I've suggested that this is really just a pretty name pasted over an ugly practice: tax evasion. Just yesterday, however, I stumbled across a headline that suggested TCI was cleaning up it's act. Perhaps it's just my cynical character, but after reading it in full I was left with the impression that there was just enough compliance to keep their crooked dealings out of the spotlight.

Read the article here: http://www.tcweeklynews.com/link.asp?smenu=1&sdetail=1808&wpage=1

The article reports on TCI's removal from the G20's "grey list" of countries that don't comply with international tax transparency standards. This would appear to be a huge step in the direction of cleaning up the country's reputation for corruption and shady dealings. And, indeed, a spokesperson for the Governor is quoted as saying just that. But it appears it took considerable arm twisting to get this far - according to the article, the recent actions leading to TCI's removal from the list came just weeks before threatened sanctions were scheduled to take effect.

What does it take to get off the G20 grey list, anyway? A listed country must sign a minimum of 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) to be removed. Is it any surprise that TCI has signed on to exactly that number, including ones with the likes of Greenland and the Faroe Islands (population 50,000)? I guess there might be some Inuit seal hunters or dogsled runners that are going to have to find somewhere else to hide their unbounding wealth. To be fair, the twelve agreements do include the UK, France, and the Scandanavian countries, and there are plans to sign agreements with several other wealthy countries. Notably, however, there is no agreement in place (and no indication is given of plans for one) with the United States, which according to the article loses "around $100 billion each year due to offshore tax evasion."

Evidence of this kind of dirty money passing though the Turks and Caicos is everywhere. I'd be willing to bet that much of the luxury tourism on Provo is a byproduct of such tax evasion. How so? Let's suppose you have a large amount of taxable assets in the United States. And even if you paid the most crafty accountants to find all loop holes in the tax code, you'd still owe the government 25% of it. So look to the Turks and Caicos for some place to hide your assets. An unscrupulous banker here in the Islands would gladly help you to find "investment" opportunities - a new luxury resort, for example. You move enough capital into a Turks and Caicos account to fund the development. On paper the development might cost $5 million. In reality maybe it only cost $2 million. The remaining $3 million can then be moved into secret accounts that the IRS can't track. If the tax evader then wants access to that money without it being linked to his or her devious activities, that money must be laundered. At this point it is simple, fudge the books a little and hide the money in the returns coming back on the tourism investment. That extra cash can then be used to buy something nice like a yacht.

When I start thinking about all this it makes me sick. When I'm in Provo I can't help but think everybody around me is a tax cheat, fraud, and the sort of person responsible for the recent economic collapse. Excess isn't enough for these people. They'll take everything they can get, and when it all comes crashing down, it's the honest laborer that suffers the most.

Shark Alley

Our snorkel at Shark Alley today was a chilly but eventful one. There were five snorkelers in all: Eva and Annemarie, the two lecturers who just joined the SFS team, Annemarie's husband, Pepe, Brett, and me.

Patch Reef at Shark Alley

Just a few minutes after we got into the water, a porcupine fish swam past us. Usually they're really timid, but this one got fairly close to us and didn't seem skittish at all. A few minutes later we saw a reef shark that was about average length, but really wide around the middle. For a second, I questioned whether it was actually a bull shark, but we all talked about it when we got back onto the boat, and the consensus was that it was just a little chubby.

Chubby Reef Shark

You can tell that I was carrying the camera today instead of Brett, because when I have it we come away with very few photos. I just get so focused on looking at what's around me that I forget to actually take pictures. The above photo of the reef shark swimming away from us was actually taken by Brett when he realized that I was busy watching the shark and letting this awesome photo op slip away in the meantime, and took the camera back to get a shot at the last possible second.

Probably the most exciting part of the snorkel was the number of eagle rays we saw, and how close they were to us! One of them actually swam directly underneath me, about 4 feet down. (I did actually take the pictures below.)

Beautiful Eagle Ray

Brett checking out a cute little sting ray... can you find it?

What's Suzie Doing?

Everybody was pretty sure Suzie was on the final leg of her journey, soon to return to TCI waters, but now she's in the Bahamas. She's traveled something in the range of 6000 km and visited many countries.

Suzie's Track

As she approached the southwest corner of Hispaniola in December, there was a lot of excitement that she might be home for Christmas (read about it in the news: http://www.tcweeklynews.com/link.asp?smenu=85&sdetail=1798&wpage=1). But she turned east instead of traveling between Haiti and Cuba directly to the Turks and Caicos. There was some fear for her safety in Haitian waters as the turtle fishery is quite large there. Social tensions bubbled to the surface as TCI Belongers warned of backlash towards Haitian expats living on South Caicos if she went missing in Haitian waters. We joked that it was going to incite an international incident and cause rioting on South. More than likely it was all talk, but it demonstrates the real interest local people have taken in her and the affection they have for her. I don't think anybody anticipated the level of awareness and local pride Suzie would generate, especially among people who routinely eat turtles.

The fisherman who caught Suzie (originally intending to make a meal out of her) is particularly proud, and he often jokes that if he had known that she'd become so famous, he would have demanded more money for her.

After heading east along the southern coast of Hispaniola, Suzie rounded the corner and picked up her pace. Keeping a close eye on her progress, we were pretty sure she had finally found her way and was headed directly back home. In fact, if she had continued that path and speed, she probably would have arrived today. She's currently off the coast of Great Inauga, Bahamas and, according the project webpage, the researchers are speculating that she might need to be down current of the TCI to detect them. Will she be home soon?

Project Page: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=398

100 Dives

I went on my 100th South Caicos dive today. I'm pretty fortunate to get to dive as often as I do (even though I'd probably go three times as much if I could). It takes most people years to get over 100 logged dives.


This was our first dive since getting back from break. The water was a little bit murky, but otherwise it was a good one. We went to The Arch and saw, among other things, a Channel Crab, two Lobsters, two Spotted Drums, and a small Lionfish.

Lionfish

Bar Jack and Jessee

On the Surface

Alternative Energy

Something that has bothered me since arriving on this island is power generation. 100% of South Caicos energy comes from a diesel powered generator, a dirty and extraordinarily expensive form of power generation. When it's all said and done, the School for Field Studies and, I assume, the residents of the island pay something in the range of 50 cents/kwh. According to the US Department of Energy, the American commercial sector pays an average of 10.3 cents/kwh (view the figures here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html). So why does it cost so much to use such dirty energy here?

South Caicos Power Plant

I can only speculate. In general, you can expect things to cost more on an island, but the South Caicos rate is more than double Hawaii's (which averaged 21.1 cents/kwh in the commercial sector). It's expensive to import all the diesel used in the South Caicos power plant, so that translates into a higher cost of electricity. The bill actually lists a fuel surcharge to cover the cost of the diesel - it makes up about 40% of the total expense. More than that, however, I believe the high cost has a lot to do with the fact that only one power company operates here - it's a monopoly. I'd be willing to bet that somebody with an entrepreneurial spirit and investment capital greater than my own could do quite well here.


Video of Exhaust
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkSzQaX76SE)

Barrels of what, I assume, is diesel fuel.

More importantly, however, this island has enormous potential when it comes to clean energy generation. The sun is reliably intense and wind is strong and consistent. The fact that nobody (especially the School for Field Studies) is currently taking advantage of this is pretty unbelievable. I've heard that it's been looked into before and that there was even some sort of resistance put up by the power company, but I plan to re-open the issue. At the very least, SFS should be generating a portion of its energy through clean alternatives.

If anybody out there reading this knows about setting up solar or wind generators, please get in contact with me, especially if you work for a company that does installations.

Back on South!

We made it, finally. Actually, we got here yesterday evening, 24 hours behind schedule. It wasn't supposed to take that long, but we got bumped off the first flight because of bad information. I can't even begin to explain how irritated we were with the lady who led us to believe we'd get on that plane. So we sat in the airport for the better part of the day hungry, thirsty, and uncomfortable, and with little confidence we'd get on the second (and final) flight of the day. We fully expected to have to stay a second night in the hotel. If there were any other option, I'd recommend never flying with Air TCI.

Arriving on South

The whole ordeal only increased my distaste of Provo. I'm sure there are nice things about it, but it caters to luxury tourists and has almost no budget options. Everything is so expensive there - two bagel sandwiches cost us more than $20. And when we finally got back here, we were quite dehydrated because a small bottle of water is $2.

It's uncharacteristically dreary today. Normally when we get rain, it passes through quickly and the intense sun dries everything up. But there must be a stationary low pressure system right over top of us now. If I'm right, it'll get very windy within the next couple days, and the sun will come back.

On the bright side, the poor weather made it easier to take care of the various chores we needed to do. The refrigerator has been severely neglected since we left. Half the stuff in there was rotten, especially the vegetables! So we spent about 3 hours cleaning it out this morning. Disgusting!

This used to be salad.

This was cheddar cheese when we left.

Beans?

Into the Compost

Stuck in Provo

We're back in the TCI! It's about 60°F warmer than the north eastern US, but slightly cloudy at the moment. It was a great (and busy) visit (but I'll write more about that later on).


We were supposed to be back on South Caicos today, but we missed our connection and got stranded in Providenciales. We were late taking off from Philadelphia because one of the acrylic windows in the cockpit was coming loose. Fortunately, the captain noticed this before we took off. We had to change planes and missed the connector plane to South by just a few minutes. We're hoping to get the first flight over tomorrow, but all the planes are full at the moment. We're on the standby list. Let's hope we get on - it's too expensive to stay in Provo for long.