2007 Day one
2007-03-06

The flights were even better than uneventful. We got in ahead of schedule enough to catch the early plane to Tortola and arrived on the island two hours before we were supposed to take off. Yea us...
Immigration was their usual pain in the ass and of course we got in the wrong line. Our agent was in serious island mode and was processing one person for every two or three the other agent was. It took us at least an hour to clear in. While in line, I took off my long sleeve shirt, removed my sox and tried to chill. We'd come from 22 degree weather. It was now 82.
We found the charter company taxi and after quite a bit of waiting for no apparent reason (usually the way mon...) were off to the base. It wasn't much to look at, just a couple of brightly colored cement buildings and docks filled with charter boats. Oh well, we weren't there for the land accomodations.
We paid the driver, grabbed our bags and went to check in at the office. Of course we were told to come back at 6:00 or if we were lucky 5:00. How would we know if we could get in early? We wouldn't. Check in at 5:00 and if they were ready fine, if not come back in an hour. OK, island time strikes again.... We wandered off to find food, drink and our friends. Not necessarily in that order.
The walk to the next charter base up the hill was about five minutes. They had a much nicer set up with a pool, bar and food. We found a table between the water and the pool and settled in. The menu was limited, but since they stopped serving real food on the planes and I hadn't eaten all day, anything was fine nd it was. We also managed to knock off several painkillers a nice potent rum drink that tastes like fruit juice and kicks like a black belt.
A couple of the other folks we were travelling with showed up and joined us for drinks. They were there for the first time and were going to follow me around. My own little ducklings. They already had several frustrating eppisodes with the office. They did not understand island time at thi spoint and actually expected things to work they way the expected they would. I'm not sure they ever did adjust.
Finally when 5:00 rolled around we wandered back and were pleasently surprised to find our boats were ready. We got our assignments. I got the 41 footer, they got the 38. Well now, this was the plan from the begining, but somehow they forgot that. They were thinking two 38's and wanted the bigger boat. Um, no... I made the arrangements, got the bigger boat for the price of the smaller one and um, you've never sailed one of these before, what makes you think you can sail one this big? There was talk of transferingone of the other couples to us. I said fine, then they worried they wouldn't have enough people to sail the boat. Um they can sail with you, but sleep here? No that won't work. Argh... They finally decided to leave thigs as they were. They had six, we had three. Fine with me.
Then there were the provisioning issues. The food orders got mixed up and each order ended up on the wrong boats. Since we were all eating the same stuff and I was doing all the cooking so to me it was no big deal, but one of the ladies on the other boat who placed the order flipped out, totally... I was ready to cut them loose right then and there but I didn't. Chill mon, you are on vacation. I would repeat this mantra several times during the week. I helped them take what ever they wanted back to their boat. It would all come back to mine a piece at a time anyway, and so it did... What ever it took to just shut them up, you know?
Then there was the booze order. The food person also placed the alcohol order or at least thought she did. They got theirs, we didn't get any... it was too late to call the licquor store. I hit the superette for a few beers and a bottle of grapes. We'd work it out in the morning.
The guy showed up right on time for the boat checkout. Everything was pretty straight forward except the shift linkage for the starboard engine wasn't working right and was very hard to shift. I was told it was normal. I would find out later it wasn't. That was the only issue I noted on the pre-departure check list.
The boat itself dispite being 6 years old was in decent shape. There were four equal sized cabins, 4 heads, a decent galley that for some reason only had a two burner stove. The refer/freezer worked super and it even had air conditioning. Sweet... It looked to make a fine home for the week.
We were all starving at this point. The ladies from the other boat for some weird reason wanted pizza. I did not travel 2500 miles to eat pizza as my first real meal in the islands. I told them fine, you have pizza, we were going out. This caused some issues of course. Our first night, we should all be together Kumbya and all that crap. Um, no... We're headed to Fat Hog Bobs. Who ever wants to come can... Two of their party defected and we had a wonderful meal full of real food (I had the ribs) and beverage. The service was even good. I hoped they enjoyed thier pizza...
We took the cab back to the boat, had a beverage or two and then got ready to hit the sack... Of course there was more complaining. Our AC worked better than theirs... I was hoping the rest of the week wasn't going to be like this or else I was going to have to slip away during the night never to be found again. After the long day, I slept like a rock.
Tomorrow we sail... to be continued...

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