Bryan Sheedy brewed a pot of freshly ground Kenyan coffee for guests arriving on the 6 a.m. Grand Turk flight and for the handful of stragglers left over from the weekend's Salt Cay Days festival. Those islanders had slept in hammocks amid the gaggle of chickens, donkeys and horses that wander the hardscrabble yard of Sheedy's Mt. Pleasant Guest House. For divers who have already sampled Provo and Grand Turk, tiny Salt Cay is truly an outpost. It is quite possible to feel immediately native, since crowds are nonexistent and the 80 residents (62 adults, 18 kids) are more than eager to make friends. Roads are all dirt and limestone, and golf carts are a common tourist transport.The island gets its name from the extensive shallow salt ponds that produced arguably the world's best salt for almost 300 years. Grand Turk and South Caicos have similar ponds, but they're not as dominant as those on 2.5-square-mile Salt Cay.As Sheedy likes to put it: ''When George Washington was using Salt Cay salt at Valley Forge, they had already been raking it here for 100 years.''Diving from Salt Cay is quite diverse and quite solitary. The one operator, Salt Cay Divers, runs several skiffs to moored sites along a precipitous wall. Even shallow reefs above the wall are lush with healthy coral, both soft and hard varieties. On one particular dive, our group slipped over the edge of the wall to meet a school of neon-blue chromis poised against a deeper blue background. Parrotfish of all varieties and ages gnawed on plentiful coral polyps, and a nurse shark found comfort in a shallow cavern on the reef's slope. Co-owner/operator Debbie Manos also runs trips to Grand Turk's wall, Gibbs Cay and a now world-renowned wreck called the Endymion. The Endymion, a British warship, sank in 1790 in 40 feet of water. The wreck still features intact cannons and relics because it is protected by the TCI government. Divers say the reef around the Endymion makes it an all-inclusive site, though calm weather is needed to make the 16-mile trip.Manos also takes visitors to Great Sand Cay, where they stop for lunch, hike the island and sometimes camp. In coming weeks, Manos said she was taking a couple to the island for their honeymoon night - their first night together - with a bottle of champagne, moonlight and a deserted island. She couldn't script it better. For more information...