Onward First Stop St. Thomas...

Monday, December 03, 2012

Up at 2:30am cut the power, load the last luggage, last look around and lock up the house. It’s time to head to the airport to catch our flight aboard Spirit Airlines to the Islands. We have one transfer in Fort Lauderdale then onward to St. Thomas. Can’t believe that they charge you now for snacks, pop and water… Ugh…

View from plane of  one of Bahamas

It was neat to see the islands that we sailed through from the air. I couldn’t really tell which were which but it was neat to see the Bahamas bank. It stood out turquoise and yellow in a deep blue ocean. What took us night crossings by boat to get there, took us an hour by plane. Hello Grand Bahamas, hello Berry Islands, and finally hello St. Thomas! We got into the airport and the feel of the warm humid air and the smell of the place brought me back to many years ago when we flew into Cyril Airport. The taxis still hang out outside the luggage pick up area so we caught a taxi to our hotel that was across the street from the airport but would have been one heck of a walk with the luggage. Wayne wanted to walk but I wasn’t for that. Good thing since we didn’t know how to get out of the airport to begin with – it has a long runway and the walk with the luggage would have done us in. It’s the Best Western Emerald Bay. It’s a very nice place. We had a manager’s special happy hour with free snacks and rum punch. Mmmm good punch. I had forgotten how heavy-handed they are with the rum and had to ask her to go a bit milder on mine. So Wayne got the 4 finger punch and mine was only two. It’s been a while since I’ve had their Cruzan Rum Punch (grinning). The waitress thought we weren’t going to eat and kept bypassing us but we finally got an order in. I was able to get wi-fi and don’t know how often I’ll be able to get it from here on out. I doubt that I’ll be able to get it in the boatyard. So a quick email to home and time to call it a night. Need to get up at 5:30 to catch a taxi to the ferry at 7:30. Speedy’s Ferry only leaves St Thomas to Virgin Gorda on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we timed our travel to pick up the ferry. He has one of the better prices around - $40 one way to Virgin Gorda. One way… It sounds deliciously decisive. I’m not sure what shape the boat will be in but I decided to enjoy my evening in St Thomas and we had a nice time in the restaurant/bar at the hotel (called Fajitas). We’ll soon enough see how the boat fared this summer.

St. Thomas View from our room