Apr 9
Last night about 21:00, we were startled by a loud boom outside. We went above and found the resort next to the marina was putting on a fireworks show. It was a substantial display that went on for ten or fifteen minutes. We learned later that it was to celebrate the reopening of a local restaurant.
Today we are traveling to St. Maarten. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 06:30, and he was waiting for us at the office. We got to the Georgetown airport by 06:45, and were through check-in and security by 07:15. The Georgetown airport only serves commuter sized planes, primarily, American Eagle, Continental, and Bahamasair. These are all turbo-prop planes, not regional jets. There are lots of private planes, both props and jets parked here too. The departure lounge was fairly crowded (it wasn't very big) and there was a large group of children there that fortunately were not on our flight. At 07:30, a Bahamasair flight to Nassau boarded and all the kids got on that plane, leaving the lounge peaceful.
We boarded and departed right on time at 08:15, and had a smooth flight to Miami. We were a little concerned about our connection time in Miami. We have to check-in through US Customs & Immigration and then get to our next flight in a little over an hour. We did not check any bags, so hopefully it won't be a problem. The line at Immigration moved pretty slowly, as the guy in the booth was intent on checking every passport, page by page, for any signs of tampering. As we had plenty of time in the line to observe all the agents, it was obvious he was much more focused on this than other agents. Since there was a steady stream of people continuously keeping the lines full, switching lines wasn't really an option. We finally got through and were on our way. American Airlines has a lot of gates in Miami, but luckily for us, it wasn't far to our next flight and we were there in plenty of time. We were able to stop off for a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza to keep us occupied while waiting for our flight. Nothing like pizza for breakfast.
We boarded the flight to St. Maarten right on time. The plane was a 757, and it was full. A few minutes before scheduled departure time, the pilot came on the PA system and announced that there might be a problem with the plane. During the walk-around, the co-pilot had noticed a wiring harness on the landing gear that was chafed through the insulation. They were awaiting a maintenance guy to determine if this could be repaired quickly at the gate, or if we would have to get another aircraft. After about twenty minutes, they announced that it would take longer to fix than to move us to another plane. So we were to all disembark and move from gate E-9 to gate D-45, which was a fair hike. They implied that we should hustle there as if another plane was already there waiting. It seems to me it would be less disruptive if they had us stay in the same gate area and swapped the planes, but that isn't the way they do it. Everybody got to D-45 much to the surprise of the gate agent there. She was just finishing boarding a flight to Honduras, and seemed initially unaware that we were coming. Needless to say, we were not immediately boarding another plane. She did some looking on the computer and quickly made an announcement that our plane would be there as soon as the Honduras plane left, and we would board at 12:20 with a planed 13:00 departure. This is about two hours later than planned.
About 13:00, we left on the new plane, and the flight was good. I was surprised they didn't offer free drinks or something to compensate for the delay, but I guess things like that are a thing of the past in the airline industry. The two hour delay would not have been much of a problem, except that my niece is trying to make our arrival a surprise for my brother and sister-in-law. She has a plan to get them out by the pool playing cards around our arrival time so we can just walk up and surprise them. I called from Miami and left a message in their room, but I didn't know if they would get it or not. As it turned out, they didn't get the message until just before we arrived, two hours later than expected. However, the surprise still worked. They had been playing cards by the pool for over two hours when we walked up to the table. Of course they were shocked to see us, as we had been making a big deal over the past few weeks about how we really regretted that we couldn't be there. The good news about our late arrival was that is was Happy Hour! So we got some drinks to toast our arrival.
We are staying at the Oyster Bay Beach Resort which is a timeshare condo place, not a regular hotel. Adam, the groom, has owned a timeshare here for ten years. He was able to arrange for rooms for all us. Most days the resort is putting on some kind of entertainment, and this evening during happy hour they have a group of women, and a group of young girls, in local costumes doing some dancing in the courtyard between the lobby and the bar. We enjoyed that for a little while and then got ready for dinner.
St. Maarten in the smallest body of land shared by two countries. The Dutch side is where the largest town, Philipsburg, and the main airport are. I have included a link to two maps which show the division of the island and the places we went. The resort is on the southeast side of Oyster Pond, which is on the east side of the island and is on the Dutch side. The north side of Oyster Pond is on the French side of the island. The airport and Philipsburg are on the southern shore of the island.
Dinner was at a nice place across Oyster Bay on the French side of the island. Oyster Bay is a fairly small body of water with a marina and many moored boats. The Moorings and Sunsail both operate charter bases here and most of the moored boats are theirs. From the restaurant we had a nice view of the resort across the bay and the sea to the east.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140. (Boat - not us)
Apr 10
We are starting off the vacation activities with an offshore fishing charter. Barb & I, my brother Bob, Adam (groom), Ruben & Sabrina (friends of Adam & Shannon's), and Rachel (Shannon's sister) all went. That is everybody except Kitty, my sister-in-law, and Shannon (the bride). We left the condos at 06:30 and were at the boat, Diventure, about 07:00. The boat owner and fisherman was Gino, and his captain was Geraldo. We got underway after a brief explanation of how we would fish, and where the beer and snacks were. There was no mention of where the life jackets were or any extraneous stuff like that.
Bob and I rode up on the flybridge with Geraldo. The plan was to troll for wahoo and mahi-mahi. The water depth drops off to way-deep just a few miles offshore, so we didn't have to ride far to be in the right place. Gino had explained to us what to look for to find the fish. When a big fish is trying to feed on little fish, primarily flying fish here, the little fish come to the surface. Frigate birds fly over a spot where they see fish. Also, boobies will fly around trying to catch the flying fish as they break the surface. Within the first hour, we saw some bird activity and moved to where they were. After following them around a bit, we saw a mahi-mahi break the surface several times. But, we didn't hook him up. About fifteen minutes later, we spotted another mahi running just below the surface. We circled around him so he went through the spread of lines we were trailing, but again, no luck. After that, I guess the word got out amongst the fish, because we were skunked. The overall sea conditions were fairly rough, and we were on a roller coaster ride most of the time, depending of course on which way we turned relative to the seas. The good news was that nobody got sick, although there was some queasiness for some folks. I was proud to say I felt fine and grabbed a beer for the road as we left the boat. I had to get something for the charter fee.
We all went back to the condo where we went to lunch at a beach bar next door called Mr. Busby's. The afternoon was spent relaxing on the beach by the condo, and then we had a nice dinner together in Adam & Shannon's condo.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140. (Boat - not us)
Apr 11
Today is wedding day. The wedding isn't until late this afternoon on a beach, so we have the day to while away. Mid morning, we went out to the condo beach and claimed several chairs. We walked on the beach, swam a little, and read. I have just started reading Herman Wouk's Don't Stop The Carnival. Jimmy Buffett made a musical out of this book back in the late 90's. The show never made it to Broadway, but it did get produced and did some regional theatre and played at Atlantis in Nassau for awhile. I know the basics of the story from the soundtrack CD from the show, but it will be interesting to read the whole thing. The book was re-released in paperback in 1999 with a new introduction by the author regarding the collaboration with Jimmy for the show. We had lunch at Mr. Busby's again, and around 14:30 started getting ready to go to the wedding.
I should explain a little about the wedding plans here, since they are a bit unconventional. Last fall, Adam & Shannon announced their engagement with plans to get married in the summer of 2006 in Chicago. At least that's what Mom & Dad thought. They invited Mom and Dad to spend a week with them at their timeshare in St. Maarten in April, and secretly planned to have a beach wedding there. We were privy to the secret wedding plans, because we needed incentive to spend the money to fly down there and be part of the event. Of course, Mom & Dad think the wedding is in July in Chicago, so plans are being made for that. That will still happen so their local friends can attend. Well, plans are made to be disrupted, and these were no different. Shannon discovered she was pregnant a few months ago. Rather than change anything about the St. Maarten trip, Adam & Shannon went to Colorado where a friend married them. So, the St. Maarten event is to keep the original plan of an intimate family gathering, and the Chicago event will still go on for family and friends to celebrate. We joked that they have to stay together forever, because three divorces would be too complicated.
About 15:30, we all headed to Cupecoy Beach in the two rental cars we had. Cupecoy Beach is way around on the southwest corner of the island, past Simpson Bay where the airport is. The traffic all the way around the island was very heavy, and it took forty-five minutes or so to get there. The reason for having the gathering here is that this is where Adam proposed to Shannon. When we got near the beach, we went down a road past an abandoned resort that had been damaged in a hurricane and never rebuilt. Then we turned off the road onto a well used dirt road. A ways down this road, we came to a number of parked cars presumably belonging to people on the beach. The beach is fifty feet or so lower than this bluff we are parked on, and you can't see it from the parking area. A local guy, Danny, walked up to the car Adam was driving and spoke with him. We were in the other car and were not sure what was going on. Turns out he kind of "runs" the place and rents beach chairs and umbrellas and sells drinks. He gave Adam advice where to go a little further down the beach where there would not be as many other people. We all got out of the cars and walked a short distance around a small hill to a concrete stairway that led down to the beach. We were surprised (at least some of us were) to find a naked guy at the top of the stairs. Turns out this is a clothing optional beach. Adam & Shannon were well aware of this, but had not let us or Mom & Dad in on it, lest anybody balk at the location, which was important to them. I should mention that clothing optional and topless beaches are quite common and accepted here.
We proceeded down the staircase only to find about half a dozen other naked guys lounging on the beach at the bottom. This area where the parking lot guy directed us did seem to be less populated, apparently because it was where the gay guys hung out. When we left later, we noticed many more people with beach chairs and umbrellas back where Danny had directed us away from. We were trying to decide who was more surprised by all this - us or the naked guys watching nine fully clothed people do a wedding thing. We found a good place to do our thing, and proceeded as if the others weren't there. We each had readings to do, and Adam & Shannon had vows they had written. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes and then we took a bunch of pictures. I was successful in not getting any unwanted backgrounds in my pictures. There was one shot my brother took that had a bare butt in the background though. Needless to say, the setting was unique. The location truly is a beautiful place, especially as sunset approached, and the rest of the surroundings will make it something we will not soon forget.
Once we finished the picture taking, we headed back to the parking lot. One of several guys who seemed to work for or with Danny had asked us if we wanted drinks, so I bought a round of rum punches to toast the happy couple. We talked and laughed about the whole thing while downing the drinks, and then headed for dinner.
Dinner was at a restaurant in Grand Case on the north western part of the island (French side) called Spiga. Grand Case has many restaurants and bars along the main street. Adam & Shannon had eaten at Spiga on their previous visit and liked it. The main street is very narrow, and parking in the area is at a premium, so we all bailed from the cars in front of the restaurant and Adam and Ruben went to park. Once they got back, we took some more pictures in front of the restaurant and then got seated. Spiga is an Italian place and the food was excellent. For dessert they made a huge tiramisu that said "Congratulations Adam & Shannon". After dessert, the waitress brought a shot of Lemoncello liqueur for everybody. Since a couple people don't drink, I got two.
We finally were ready to leave, so Adam and Ruben went to get the cars. It seemed like they were gone awhile, and then Adam came driving down the road. Turns out Ruben had left the lights on and now the battery was dead on that car. We asked the owner of the restaurant if she knew where we might find cables to jump it. She directed us across the street and down a little to a bar. She said to ask the bartender and he could probably help us. Adam went down there and the bartender's brother came out and went back to the car with him. Then they drove back to the bar, then back to the dead car. After a few minutes here came both cars. Turned out there were no cables involved. The guy took another battery to the dead one and just tipped it over and mashed the posts against the dead one's posts and had Ruben crank it. Ah, life in the islands.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140. (Boat - not us)
Apr 12
We were scheduled to do a snorkeling trip this morning, but the boat operator called and cancelled because the seas are too rough. We rescheduled for Friday afternoon. Instead, we decided to go rent some jet skis. Now the boaters who read this will think "how can he do that?". It's true most boaters curse jet skiers, because a number of them are irresponsible and obnoxious. But, it really can be a lot of fun and can be done without irritating boaters. I have been on jet skis twice before: Once in a very protected bay in Cape Hatteras, NC, and once on a lake near Phoenix. Both experiences were much different than today. Today we drove up to Orient Bay on the northeast corner of the island. This large bay has several beach bars that rent chairs and umbrellas and water toys. We got there early, and rented four jet skis. Barb & Kitty stayed back at the condo, and Shannon, Rachel, and Sabrina are going to work on their tans. Myself, Bob, Adam and Ruben are going to play on the jet skis. We planned to rent them for an hour, and we asked the guy if he would cut us a deal since there were four of us. He knocked ten bucks each off the rental. We got a quick briefing on how to run the machine, and where we could and couldn't go, and then got turned loose. This bay is pretty much open to the ocean to the east, so there were about four foot waves coming in at us. Just getting on the machines was tough. While a worker guy held it, already started, you had to time the wave, jump on the back from about four foot deep water, slide up the seat, and take off before the next wave. Somehow we all did it. Adam was the only who had the foresight to bring a pair of goggles, so the first issue was seeing anything once your eyes started burning from the salt water. We all played around and got used to the feel of the machines. We found that the waves were noticeably larger on the northern side of the bay. For that reason, I stayed mostly to the southern side. I found that I could go out into the waves at just the right speed so most of the water went off to the sides and not in my face. Then once I got out as far as we were supposed to go, I could run with the waves real fast. Adam was the only one who fell off. Not surprising since he was the most kamikaze-ish of us. After an hour, we were all tired and ready to stop. When we approached the shore, the worker guys took us one at a time and had us jump off and he loaded the next renter on. There was a line of people waiting. Good thing we got there early.
Back at the hotel we went to the pool for a little while, and then had lunch together in Adam & Shannon's condo. This afternoon, we are sitting through an hour long pitch about buying timeshares here. The reason we are doing this is because we then get half price on the snorkeling trip. Larry the sales guy knows Adam and Shannon from there previous trip, because they upgraded their ownership then. He knows that Barb & I live on a boat and probably aren't looking to buy, so he was pretty cool about just giving the basic pitch. I must say, that if I was still a working person the deal sounded attractive. Ruben was seriously thinking about it, but said he needed some time to think about it. By the end of the week, Ruben had decided against it, but Bob & Kitty bought one.
For dinner, we went just up the road a little ways on the French side to a pizza place. It wasn't open yet when we got there, but there was a little store across the street that had a small booth out front with free rum samples. The lady who ran it lived nearby and made the rum herself. She then added flavorings and had about ten varieties. She would give you as many shots as you wanted to taste the various flavors. I tasted a few and then bought two bottles.
We took a walk down a side street to kill time and found a large hotel casino building that has obviously been abandoned for many years. I would guess it must have been damaged in the large hurricane they had here in 1996, and never repaired. We joked about picking it up for a song and fixing it up ourselves. By the time we got back to the restaurant, it was open. Several of us had pizzas (they were personal sized) and several had other things. The pizzas were quite good, although they had a thin crispy crust, unlike American pizzas.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140. (Boat - not us)
Apr 13
Today we are going to Pinel Island. Pinel is off the northeast corner of Orient Bay. It was one of our out-of-bounds markers when we were on the jet skis. All that is on Pinel is two restaurants which each rent beach chairs and umbrellas, and a small gift shop. Nobody lives on the island, although it is allowed to camp there overnight. To get there we drove to Orient Bay and took a ferry over. The ferry is just an old open boat with bench seats across the hull. It carried about fifty people fully loaded. The ride is only about five minutes, and the water is only four or five feet deep, so you could probably walk across if you really wanted to. We were on the first ferry over, so we got our pick of the chairs. The very pleasant young French guy who keeps track of the chairs came to greet us and take our money for the rentals. Later he brought us a drink menu and then delivered our drinks.
Most of us spent some time in the water first. There is a large area off the beach that is no deeper than five feet and has a nice sandy bottom. The cove is protected from the waves that we were jet skiing in yesterday, so it was very pleasant to just hang out in the water. This beach is a topless one, so there were quite a few women who are letting it all hang out. The problem with topless or clothing optional places is that most of the people you see are not people that you want to see naked. There were two very attractive young girls who were not at all shy about showing off their assets. This becomes important later.
Adam and Ruben decided they had not had enough jet skiing, so they rented two for a half-hour and went out and played some more. Bob and I thought we had enough yesterday. While they were gone, somebody looked straight up and noticed a very odd sight. There was a perfect circle rainbow around the sun, which was directly overhead. This was a large circle, many miles across. We asked about it with some of the staff, and they said it is very rare, but they had seen it before. It has to do with the heat rising from the island and the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. It was pretty spooky. It reminded me of how when you see a movie scene of an atomic explosion, the shock wave goes out in a circle from the epicenter. We joked that perhaps the sun had exploded and this was just a little treat before the world went dark and we all froze.
After the jet skiers got back, we all went up to the restaurant to have lunch. The tables are picnic tables of various sizes, each in their own thatched roof palapa. We enjoyed a nice lunch and were taken good care of by two young French women and another young French guy. The staff here was all extremely pleasant. Almost makes me want to change my opinion of the French. Once we finished lunch, we caught the 14:00 ferry back to shore and drove back to the condo.
Every day as we have been driving around, we have seen various forms of livestock along the roads. Part of driving here is watching out for loose animals. Goats, pigs, chickens, and dogs seem to run free everywhere. There are also horse and donkeys, but they seemed to be contained in fences. Most of the animals seemed quite comfortable around the traffic and stayed out of the way.
We spent a few hours at the pool then went and showered for dinner. I have not mentioned all the showers we took, but we once again were enjoying being able to take a long hot shower whenever we wanted. Given all the pool and salt water time we were spending, I think we averaged two showers a day.
Tonight we are going back to Grand Case for dinner. Grand Case is a crescent beach that faces west, so it's a good place to enjoy sunset drinks and then dinner. We drove there and went to a nice beach bar that Adam & Shannon had been to before. We sat out back on the beach and ordered drinks. Even though this beach is right behind restaurant row and is a very populated area, it is also ok to be topless here. Just past where we were sitting, there were the two attractive young girls from Pinel - still topless. As the sun was getting too low to do any tanning, they got up and went in the bar, still topless, to change. We decided to have an appetizer here and then go elsewhere for dinner, so we ordered two orders of nachos for the table. Now, everybody knows that nachos are tortilla chips with melted cheese and various other things on top right? Not the French. We got two baskets of Nacho Cheese flavored Doritos and two little cups of salsa to dip them in. You have to be adaptable when you travel.
We walked down the narrow main street looking for a good place to eat. We passed many good options, but then came to Il Nettuno. Inside the front door was a bar area. The main seating area was on the back side of the building, and was open to the bay. We got a large table at the end of the row, so we had water on two sides. Our waiter was French, of course, and we quickly had him telling us about how long he had been here from France, and about his family. We had several nice appetizers, and then a delicious dinner. After dinner, everybody ordered dessert and a couple of after dinner drinks. Then the restaurant sent complimentary snifters of Sambuca for everybody. Several of those went to waste, including mine, since Sambuca is a licorice flavored liqueur and many people don't care for licorice.
While enjoying dinner, we were serenaded by a guy with a guitar. He was like an Italian mariachi. He came and sang a couple songs, and Ruben joined in. It was quite a show which we all got a good laugh out of.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140. (Boat - not us)
Apr 14
We have no early plans today, so we slept in a bit. We have to return one of the rental cars today, and we have to do some grocery shopping because we plan to have our last dinner together in the condo. So about 10:00, Adam & I took one car, and Ruben & Sabrina took the other, and we headed to Philipsburg. We stopped to gas up the car first and then went to Dollar rent a car. We were surprised that their gate was closed, but there was a handwritten sign that said to honk. We honked and the gate opened. We turned in the car and all got in the other and went to the grocery. We had noticed there was very little traffic today, and there were no cruise ships in town, so lots of stuff seemed to be closed. When we got to the grocery, it was closed too. We thought that was odd, since you wouldn't think the presence of a cruise ship or not would affect the grocery. We went to several other stores, and all were closed. Finally it occurred to us that it was Good Friday. Apparently they take their religious holidays seriously here.
We stopped at an ATM, which was the only reason I came along in the first place, and I got some cash. Back towards the hotel, we decided to try the small convenience store just over on the French side from the condo. It was open. Between this store and the convenience store right next to the condo, we got everything we needed for dinner except the mahi-mahi we wanted. Back at the condo, Adam went to the on-premise restaurant to see if they would sell him fish. They did, so we were all set for dinner.
We had lunch at this same restaurant, and then met at the dock across the street for our long awaited snorkel trip. The nine of us and four other folks boarded the snorkel boat a little after 13:00 with Alan the captain. It was raining while we were getting our gear from their shed, but Alan said he thought it was going to move through and be nice. We went to Flatiron Island as the first of three snorkel sites. There were many people here on the beach, quite a few boats anchored in the cove, some day trippers and some private boats, some naked people down at the end, and some campers on the beach and more up in the higher bushes. We all got in the water to snorkel the reef just off the beach. It was pretty choppy in the water and the water was murky from all the wave action. Alan fed the fish some bread, and we saw quite a few pretty fish when he did this. We reboarded the boat and re-anchored just off the beach. We all jumped off and went to the beach. Alan wanted to show us the mud baths. We hiked a few yards into the bushes where there were a bunch of shallow holes in the ground where people had made mud. The earth here is volcanic dust. Alan took a stick and started breaking up the ground into a fine powder. He then poured a bucket of water he brought from the beach into the hole and mixed up the mud. We then rubbed it all over ourselves. It really felt good because it had a fine pumas quality to it. Unfortunately, it started to pour again just as we had covered ourselves in mud and it started to rinse off. The rain was quite cold, so we all ran back to the beach and got in the warm seawater. We stayed there ten or fifteen minutes until the shower passed, then we loaded up on the boat again. We were to go to two more snorkel spots, but Alan gave us the option of bailing out on the rest of the trip. The storm looked like it was going to keep going on, and it looked ugly across the bay where the next spot was. He offered to refund part of our money, so everybody agreed to call it off. The ride back to the marina was fairly rough as we were bashing into the seas now. We got back in about thirty minutes and unloaded. It was still raining lightly, so we all went back to our rooms.
From our room we saw a huge catamaran in the anchorage that had a Moorings sailcover. I looked it up on the Internet when we got home and found it is a new sixty-two foot model. Looked real good from a distance.
We are all meeting for our final dinner together in Adam & Shannon's condo. Ruben grilled the mahi-mahi outside, and we enjoyed another wonderful meal together. I think I have regained a few of the pounds I had lost over the past few months. We sat around chatting for awhile, and then said goodbye to everybody. We are leaving at 07:00, so we won't see everybody in the morning.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140. (Boat - not us)
Apr 15
I had arranged for a cab at 07:00, and the front desk called at 06:45 to say he was there. We were almost ready, so we went on down. Our flight isn't until 09:40, but it's about a half hour ride to the airport, and they warn you about long lines. I hope the long lines are later in the afternoon when the big planes depart.
On the way to the airport, we noticed the US Navy carrier George Washington anchored off Philipsburg. We had heard it was coming and would be spending a few days here. The cab driver said they came in yesterday and some men were ashore last night. He told us how he usually doesn't work the nights they are in town because 2000 drunk sailors are more trouble than it's worth for the extra money he would make. He said they do things like leave beer bottles in the cab, sometimes not empty and they spill, or they get sick, or they're just rude. Not a good impression of our men in service. He said the seven legal brothels in town would be doing a booming business.
We got to the airport, and there were just a few people in line in front of us. We got checked in and headed for security. At the suggestion of a TSA man in Newark a couple years ago, I always pack my beard trimming scissors in the outside pocket of my bag, instead of in my toiletry kit, so if they can't tell from the x-ray that they are the legal round-tipped kind, they don't have to dig through the whole bag to find them. This has worked well several times. Sure enough the man watching the x-ray noticed them and told the lady next to him to look. I happily told her they were in the pocket where she could get them easy. She unzipped the pocket took them out, threw them in a box, and zipped the bag back up. I asked what was going on - they are round tipped and legal. She said "No scissors" and turned away from me. I was pissed as I walked away. I tossed my bag on the nearest chair and went back to her. She looked at me ugly, and I very controlled and politely asked her what was wrong with the scissors if they met the US rules. She very curtly stated "The US has it's rules and we have our rules." She then turned away from me again. It was all I could do not to say more. It's just a five dollar pair of scissors, but it really pisses me off that the rules are inconsistent. It certainly took me out of the good mood I was in after a wonderful week.
Our flights were all uneventful. We flew on a American Eagle turbo prop from St. Maarten to San Juan. We cleared US Customs & Immigration in San Juan, so we don't have to do it in Miami. They only problem seemed to be with Customs. Two different agents questioned why we didn't have any checked luggage. Guess that looked suspicious, but they didn't ask to look in our bags. We waited there for three hours and then flew to Miami on a 757. We scored exit row seats on that flight, so it was comfortable. As we were flying north, I could see islands that I guessed were part of the Bahamas. I kept studying them to figure out where we were. I was watching a very long skinny island that I thought perhaps was Long Island, when I realized it was Exuma. I could clearly see Georgetown, and Emerald Bay where the boat is. I felt like saying "Hey let us off here." But, we were still at 30,000 feet, so we stayed on the plane to Miami. We had a little over an hour in Miami before boarding another American Eagle turbo prop back to Georgetown. It was the same crew who had been on our flight out of Georgetown last week. It was funny being on a plane where nearly everybody was starting their vacations, and we were coming home. We were seated in row four, which on an ATR is not good, because the door is in the back. Before takeoff, the flight attendant said she needed four people up front to move to the back for better weight distribution. We took our bags and hustled back there. This means we'll be first off.
We landed in Georgetown and headed for immigration. We were first in and had to wait for the officer to come out of the office and start checking people. We only had our carry-on bags, so we were out and got the first cab. The cab driver asked how long we had been gone and then filled us in on what we had missed in a week. Primarily, we missed weather. Apparently there was a large storm Sunday after we left, and then it was rainy for four days, including some other strong squalls. We were back at the marina about 20:30. The end where we are is not well lit, but as soon as I turned the corner onto our finger pier, I noticed a huge fender was tied between the boat and the dock, and my fenders were gone. I also noticed a line tied to the center cleat that had not been there before. As I got on the boat, I saw my two fenders laying on the back deck, deflated. I also saw a piece of dock line laying on the deck. We went below and found everything fine, including the cat who was very glad to see us. I turned the computer on and checked my e-mail. I found one from the marina manager that was sent Thursday. It stated that the stern line had broken during the night Wednesday night/Thursday morning, allowing the boat to turn sideways in the slip. Fortunately there was no boat in the slip next to us, but our anchor destroyed the fiberglass dock box in front of us. The dock hands had moved the boat back where it belonged and re-secured it. The only damage to the boat is some cosmetic damage on the back corner where it was rubbing on a nail once it got sideways in the slips. But, we will get to buy a new dock box for several hundred dollars. Another slap back to reality after a fine vacation.
For those of you who worry more about the cat when we leave him than we do, he was fine. His litter box was fine and didn't stink even though we were using a new brand of litter that we weren't sure of. He still had plenty of food and water, and had only hacked up one hairball and was on the floor where it's easy to clean. He did his usual half hour of talking, talking, talking to tell us everything we missed. He's going to get tired of this since both times we have left him there have been severe storms while we were gone.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140.
Apr 16
I got up pretty early, planning to get back in the habit of listening to the weather on the SSB. I forgot it was Sunday, and the weather is not on. So, I turned on the computer and started writing the logs of the past week. I saw Glenroy the dockmaster walking by, and went out to talk to him. He explained to me what had happened and I thanked him for taking care of it. He said the big fender they used to replace mine had drifted in from offshore, so I can keep it.
We took showers and Barb did our laundry from the trip. We had lunch up at the restaurant and pretty much spent the rest of the day writing the logs and downloading pictures. We also picked up another DVD to watch tonight.
GPS N 23-37.809 W 75-55.033 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 4140.