TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Up early again (because I look forward to every minute on the boat), we quietly slipped up the anchor and left our neighbors to stern. Winds were pretty calm so we creeped across to Road Harbour using as little battery as possible to  ensure the tanks remained full.  It was a good time to finish the cleaning up we had begun the evening before and I swabbed the decks several times (remembering Miss OCD from Little Harbour). Road Reef was just stirring as we slid into the dock. We unloaded our luggage and Kathy and Debbie declared the interior ship shape just in time for our return inspection.  I was a little surprised how little they actually checked but that’s probably a testimony to how clean we returned her (thanks crew!).  The heads seemed to be their only concern (wonder why?).

The manager did sit down and have a chat with us about the cost of having to clean out the holding tank clog earlier in the week and was prepared to charge us $150 for same. Fortunately, Norman was there to back me us as I explained to him the problems, inconveniences, and even safety concerns we had about the need to constantly do a manual reset of the electrical motherboard.  We mutually agreed that it was in his best interest to forgive the charge as a courtesy and so it was a win-win.

 The Trip Home

Our taxi driver took us over the ridge on the way back to Beef Island airport and we enjoyed some spectacular views of the islands around. We arrived in time to rest and relax a while and enjoyed a different flight back to SanJuan in the Cape Air Cessna. The pilot gave us a low level fly by of Sandy Spit and all of Jost Van Dyke and never climbed above about 2500 feet the whole way to Puerto Rico.  

Customs was a breeze and we even got to see a special presentation of Spanish Castenette Dancing as we made our way through the security maze. Got a scrumptuous lunch at a place called ____________ a Puerto Rican fast food Deli? As we boarded our Delta flight all the attendants were excited because we were on the special Pink Plane – Delta’s way of raising awareness for Breast Cancer. It was actually painted pink and they served pink lemonade (for a $2 donation). It was a really nice plane. Every seat back had an LCD screen where you could choose movies, TV shows, video games, etc to view. Debbie and I watched Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and would have seen all of Kitt Kittridge, American Girl, if the pilot didn’t love to cut in so often to share! 

We wandered around a bit in Atlanta to find our shuttle back to parking, and discovered we had left an interior light on (dead battery). Not to worry, the attendants have a small jumper battery that got us on the road in a flash. A Chick Fill A, some gas, and a quick stop to pick up our little Yorkie at the inlaws and we were back in our land based bed at a decent hour.

Cool thing was – all night, I kept waking up to a gently rocking bed, looking up to see if the stars were visible through the open hatch. And No, we do not have a water bed (for now).