The alarm went off earlier than usual. But that's because it's a travel day. As Sandra and I left Alexa sleeping in the hotel room, we caught the taxi to the airport. Hopefully, Alexa had her alarm set to jump her plane back to the states. But for Sandra and me, we were focused on getting to the boat with backpacks of half dirty clothes. I found a Starbucks near the gate and thought "Don't mind if I do." I must have waited in line at the slowest Starbucks known to U.S. Territories, but dammit, I'm getting my last double-tall Latte until we get back to civilization. I also started appreciating the finer things in life like Air Conditioning. That too, will be a sacrifice for the opportunity to sail the big bathtub in BVI.
The trip from San Juan to Tortola was only 30 minutes. There was almost no time to store my gear under the seat before we heard "Prepare for landing". That was the shortest hope I've ever been on. There was no gate when we got off. It's essentially a 5-step ladder down to the tarmac, where we walked past other planes unloading their sweating, tired passengers. Surprisingly, we exited customs quickly and were on our shuttle across the island to Conch Charters. It was just as we remembered, and the same folks manning the operation were there as last year. We looked over our boat and stored all the provisioning we had delivered that day. Everything was in order except for maybe a couple small things. The boat was a 42-foot Benateau, about 3 feet larger than last year, and it had a nicer layout. With just the two of us, we had a vast amount room to bandy about. We checked out with Hannah (same person as last year). We went over the details of handling the boat, and then we were off on our own at about 4pm. Not much time to sail, but we just needed to make it to Norman Island before sundown. The following days will be the time spent doing the work of sailing.
We dead reckoned to Norman Island and found a mooring ball around the area Sandra wanted to Hike and Snorkel. Once we secured the boat, it was cocktails and dinner while we watch the sunset. The wind was blustery when we went to bed, and with the hatches open, it was quite comfortable. Ahh, natures air conditioning.