I survived another airborne night, and have finally arrived in Tortola. After checking in at San Francisco, my concern all along was about my 3 overweight bags making it through Atlanta and San Juan on Delta, and to Tortola on American with me. As it turns out, my worries were founded. Only 2 of the 3 made it to Tortola. But after a few phone calls and hndling things on Caribbean time, my lost bag showed up on the next flight 3 hours later. Whew! The hidden benefit of my troubles was that in all the commotion, the airline rep escorted me out of customs to take my report, and later delivered the lost bag to me outside of customs as well, so I avoided paying about $100 in duty on some new gear I had brought down with me.
I got to the marina and met with the local manager, and found out the boat had not been delivered from their maintenance marina a few miles down the island yet, and that there might be one or two small things to finish still. So we made plans to meet at the boat tomorrow morning at 8:30am, and we’ll go down the list and see if there’s still anything to be done. If its good to go, I’ll bring to the Moorings marina later in the morning, and then I can get to work on my items, and start provisioning it and getting things ready for Steve and Marianne’s arrival on the weekend.
Since the boat wasn’t quite ready, the good folks at the Moorings arranged for a nice new Beneteau 50 to be available for me to sleep on, and that is where I sit at this moment, ready to collapse and get a good night’s sleep.
The wind forecast is looking pretty steady, with one more tropical wave passing through next week, meaning we should see mostly 15-20 knots on the long reach to Trinidad, with maybe a half-day of 10-15. The skies will be typical tropical summer, with some sun, some clouds, and some thundershowers and rain, with a high of 90, and a low of 77.
More tomorrow as we see how ready the boat is…