Abstract In the late 70s it was becoming increasingly difficult to run modern carbonate-sediment seminars in the classic locations of the Florida Keys and the Bahamas. Logistics had always been difficult moving the class from one location to another and weather often controlled the schedule (e.g., if it was stormy on the Florida Reef day it had to be skipped because there was a plane to catch to the Bahamas). The Cat Cay ooid shoals and Three Creeks tidal flat locations in the Bahamas were usually visited using seaplanes chartered from Chalks Flying Service. Increased commercial scheduling by Chalks made it difficult to schedule charters and the planes themselves were getting old and unreliable for field use. Drug traffic passing through the Bahamas also added a security risk. At the same time that field trip logistics were becoming more difficult there was an increased demand for modern carbonate seminars from the oil and gas industry. We decided to look for alternative locations. Mike Lloyd recalled that, in the early 60s, while returning from a field trip in Bonaire on a commercial flight from Curacao to Miami, the plane flew over the Caicos Bank on a very clear day. He remembered that, at 30,000 feet, he could recognize all of the familiar depositional facies on the bank (reefs, tidal flats, Pleistocene islands, grainstone bars, etc.) in a very compact setting. At the time, he viewed it as an interesting curiosity and contrasted it with Inagua Island to the west, an almost totally