But I had never heard of Turks & Caicos until last year, when I was invited to spend a couple of days at the Grace Bay Club on the main island of Providenciales. I thought Turks & Caicos were some New York slacker duo singing at the Empty Bottle.

The group of islands gets its name from the native Turk's Head cactus, which looks like the red fez worn in Turkey, and the Spanish word (cayos) for small islands. Cay is a low island or reef of sand; the word denotes minimum activity and population. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and the U.S. dollar is legal tender.

Buffett recently told me, "Turks and Caicos are laid-back and chilled. There's not much on Salt Cay. There's a lot going on at Provo [Providenciales]." Well, that depends. The population of Providenciales is 20,000. Shaped like a half-crescent, the island is only 25 miles long and a mile and a half wide from point to point. Providenciales is so quiet it has yet to have a traffic light. The big news during my November visit was the new IGA grocery store.

Over the last decade wealthy Americans and Europeans have come to Turks & Caicos to chill. Most of the Providenciales property consists of condominiums. Don't look for any Holiday Inns or Travel Lodges. The number of hotel rooms on Providenciales totals around 2,000, which includes all actual hotel rooms as well as condominium units for rent. According to the Turks & Caicos Islands Hotel Association, it must be understood that the majority of hotel rooms are effectively condos, allowing guests space and a more residential feel, but where they also have all hotel services and amenities. There are no sale pitches.

Until a 1999 renovation, Providenciales International Airport was a tin-roof shack, not air conditioned, with one gate. Today there are three gates (one for local arrivals and departures, one for international departures and one for international arrivals). It remains the only airport in the islands.

Due to the seclusion of Turks & Caicos, be prepared to spend some money. Up until 1996 there was no fresh meat on the island. One plane a week brings produce and provisions that cannot be obtained in the islands. Salmon, oysters and mussels are occasionally imported, for which there is a 40 percent duty.

We learned that's why a six-pack of Corona beer cost $36 at the Grace Bay Club, and a bottle of locally brewed Turks Head beer cost $5. Here's a tip: Buy a six-pack of Corona at the supermarket ($13) and keep it in your room refrigerator.

Turks & Caicos has the third-largest coral reef system in the world. The pristine white beaches are protected by the reefs. Ocean water in the bay never gets real cold because the reefs prevent the deep cold water from entering. Divers love Turks & Caicos. Healthy reefs translate into lots of fish, and the clear waters make them easy to see. The area is known for bonefishing and deep-sea fishing.

Grace Bay Club General Manager Martein van Wagenberg was our host, and he went beyond the call of duty. He put us up in a ground-level one-bedroom suite in a three-level Mediterranean-style building. The property is on the northeast side of the island along Grace Bay. The quiet bay is named for Grace Hutchings, who sailed to Providenciales from Grand Turk in 1892 with her husband to honeymoon in the island hills. Local residents were so taken with Hutchings they named a 12- mile portion of the beach in her honor. I had a good time in Turks & Caicos, but don't look for a Dave Bay anytime soon.

I'm only now beginning to wake up from graceful sleeping in our bed, appointed with new (goose-down) featherbeds and Egyptian cotton linens made for the hotel at a mill in Turkey. Our suite had a large living room with flat-screen TV and a DVD player; kitchen; two (his and her) baths, and a patio that opened up into a backyard with 70 feet of ocean frontage. "You come here and see the potential," said Van Wagenberg, a 40-something native of Waspik, Netherlands, near the Belgian border. "You're lucky if you see 10 cars on the [15-minute] drive from the airport to the hotel." Van Wagenberg had been working at the Hyde Park Hotel in London and took up diving, which brought him to the Caribbean.

The Grace Bay Club opened in 1993 and was the first luxury, all- suite hotel in Turks & Caicos. It has placed in the top 10 on the Conde Nast Traveler's Gold List for the past six years, ranking number one in the Caribbean in 2000. The hotel buildings are surrounded by tall coconut palm trees, jasmine and hibiscus. A modest swimming pool is secluded within all the dense tropical foliage. My 48-year-old poolside physique didn't scare any small children -- kids under 12 are not allowed on the premises.

About halfway through our visit I learned that Buffett stayed here a couple years ago. I can't get rid of that guy.

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Turks & Caicos is a retreat in the purest sense of the word.

Providenciales doesn't have any live music clubs, dance halls, Carlos & Charlie's or even a Margaritaville restaurant. Yet. The modest American Casino offers blackjack, poker, roulette and slots at the Allergro Resort (649-946-5508), a long island block from the Grace Bay Club. The casino is open from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily.

Providenciales also has a fine bookstore in the Unicorn Bookstore (649-941-5458; unicorn@tciway.tc), which was on Leeward Highway during my visit, but is planning to move near the busy IGA. Unicorn carries American magazines, postcards, new and used books and the Miami Herald, which is flown in daily.

One of the benefits of staying on such a small island is that everyone knows each other. By the end of our three-day visit, we were spending Saturday night in Brayton Hall, site of the Turks & Caicos Friends of the Arts Foundation (TCFAF) second annual musical revue.

For a typical tourist, it looked like a bunch of average guys were onstage singing, dancing and camping it up to "Jazz Hot" from the gender-bending musical "Victor/Victoria." But these were not average guys in my eyes. In just two days on the island I knew that singer Andre Jeanneret was the local landscaper and karaoke champion of Providenciales. Ray Durie works at the local interior design company. And lo and behold, dressed in black slacks, white shirt and top hat was our friend Martein van Wagenberg.

What a day it had been.

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In the afternoon Van Wagenberg had arranged for a private five- hour sailboat ride from the Leeward Marina through a string of islands near the Atlantic Ocean. He also prepared a lavish lunch consisting of smoked salmon, cucumber dill salad, penne pasta salad with goat cheese and capers, fresh melon and a couple of bottles of champagne.

Our captain was Tim Ainley, an engaging 52-year-old native of Montreal. Ainley landed in Turks & Caicos in 1985, when 2,000 people lived on Providenciales. At one time Ainley aimed to be an actor. I wondered if he was going to be part of the big revue later that night.

"This is my stage," he said, spinning the plywood helm that he'd made. "I've seen people come and go in this industry and they don't realize it's more about making people happy than it is about sailing. The ocean is the soul of the planet. I have spent more of my life on the sea than I have on land. The ocean is cleansing for all of us. You just have to let it in."