Grand Turk's Donkeys

I did two animal related things on the cruise. The first dealt with donkeys. The second was swimming with stingrays and kissing a sea sponge for good luck.

 Grand Turk has a feral donkey population. They also have feral horses, but there are far more donkeys. The donkeys have been on the island for hundreds of years, thought to have been imported to help with harvesting salt.

Donkeys are like a national treasure and are protected by the government there. They get to roam the island as they wish. So they are everywhere.

We saw lone donkeys,

young donkeys,

and groups of donkeys.

Some people had fences to keep the donkeys out, and others didn't.

The halfway point of the tour was at the lighthouse. Some got out to see the lighthouse, while others *cough me* were distracted by donkeys. Our guide stepped out with bread and said he had a trick to show us.

Donkeys seemed to appear from nowhere.

He picked the  'right' donkey to do the trick with.  He put a piece of bread into his mouth and the semi-feral donkey took it out. 

Then he asked if anyone else wanted to feed the donkeys, which was an easy yes.

Look how cute and tiny they are.

Cute and friendly semi-feral donkey.

My sister, Kendall, with the donkey.

When the tour was taking us back to the beach my mom turned to me and asked, "Did you get a picture of the lighthouse?"

"Nope."

Lighthouse or donkeys? Donkeys. 

I did learn other interesting things about the island. The Friendship 7 landed near Grand Turk. They had a replica of it on the island. The real one lives at the Air and Space Museum in DC.