Over our last few years of travel we have had a few challenges now and then; however this morning's trip from Bayfield has to be near the top. Brian, our shuttle driver picked us up at 4 am and eight hours later we arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. We tried most of the back roads and finally ended up going over to London and along the 401 to Windsor. We passed dozens and dozens of cars and trucks in the ditches. We kept hoping that the weather would let up but we didn't get our break until an hour out of London on the 401. Hindsightot says that we should never have left Bayfield; however hindsight is always 20/20. As Rob reminds me we are safe and warm and poor Brian has to make the trek back to Goderich. Needless to say we missed our flight but we were hopeful that we could catch another one this afternoon. I knew the choices would be poor; however we now have seats on a flight to New York with a change of planes and on to Fort Lauderdale....arrival time midnight. For this pleasure we handed Spirit another $600.00. Then it will be a very short sleep at The Ramada and up at 5:30am to catch our Yellow Air Taxi to The Abacos. It feels a little like an endurance expedition so far but in a couple of days and a good night's rest things will look different. Besides, how often do you get a chance to have dinner in New York?
It would seem that it is just one of those days. We were paged and told that a number of items in our checked luggage have been removed as they are deemed hazardous. Losing our water maker lubricant is a bummer and we can not replace it in The Bahamas. They also removed our stainless steel polish, polyurethane sealant, butane lighter and a tiny key chain torch. Just the price we pay by flying instead of leaving the boat in Florida and driving down to her. And one more thing....the flight to La Guardia is delayed so we have to hope that we get there in time to make our connection. As for now we try and amuse ourselves by reading and people watching.
Our flight to New York was delayed two hours and we were fearful that we might not make our connection to Fort Lauderdale; however as it turned out we rushed to connect with our flight just to learn that the plane to Fort Lauderdale was delayed by two hours. Weather related problems were causing flight delays to and from Detroit. By the time we reached Fort Lauderdale the shuttle to our hotel was no longer running so we had to take a taxi. We collapsed into bed at 1:30 am just to be jolted awake at 5:30am for our Yellow Air flight to Treasure Cay, Abaco. There was just one other passenger on our plane so once again we were lucky and all of our luggage made it on to the Cessna. All of our luggage but Rob's electrice toothbrush that is. What else can happen? We were a little concerned about getting through customs but we were three times lucky and had no problems with our boat laden luggage including our brand new yankee sail. Treasure Cay is definitely the best place to check in to The Bahamas.
We took a taxi to the grocery and liquor store and then off to the ferry dock for our trip across the Sea of Abaco to Green Turtle Cay. We arrived at Abaco Yacht Services around noon and spent the rest of the day opening up the boat and getting things on board. Celebrian's circus tent had stayed on this year; however she is very dirty under the tarp with no rain showers to wash the dirt off. Evidently this summer was very hot so she got a good baking. We were so exhausted by dinner time that we made an emergency meal....Kraft dinner and washed it down with copious amounts of Kalik (Bahamian beer and California White Wine)! After eleven hours we awoke to a sunny and pleasant morning. Another long day of cleaning, organizing, unpacking and fixing in preparation for our launch on Friday. The captain installed two new foot pumps...one for the galley and one for the head. The galley pump failed near the end of our cruise last year and the head pump failed yesterday....good thing the captain always brings spares of everything. Today the captain is putting in our new water pump so that we can fill up with water at the dock. When you are your own public utilitie's commission it can be challenging at times. We are also charging our batteries which is in itself a very detailed process. Rob calls it making love to the batteries.
Lots to do so I had better get back to the admiral's list of jobs!
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