It certainly seems like a very long time despite only being 36 hours since we arrived in Tortola. Last night we arrived at The airport at Beef Island after circling for about an hour to avoid a storm. The Cessna 420 we arrived on was much to small to safely navigate a storm and so the pilots chose to skirt around the islands rather than return to San Juan. We were 1-1/2 hours late, but at least we had arrived! The other three passengers, Kelly, and I were grateful to be on the ground. We were given umbrellas and escorted from the short tarmac to the room That served as baggage claim, immigrations, and customs. It took a little while, and presumably a second incoming flight to retrieve all of our baggage but we eventually found our driver waiting patiently outside the terminal while engrossed in a conversation with his girlfriend.
The forty minute cab ride was as exhilarating as the plane ride had been. By the time we landed, made our way through customs and immigration, and received all of our luggage, it was dark and getting rather late. The drive from the airport to the marina could not have been very far. Tortola is a rather small island relative to Puerto Rico, but the narrow roads twisted along hugging the mountainsides and making the trip seem unnecessary riddled with anxiety inducing turns that would have made a skier on a slalom nervous. Perhaps it was the relatively unique arrangement of car and driver that seemed to heightened the intensity of the experience. In the BVI, steering wheels are configured in the American fashion, that is on the left hand side of the vehicle, but operators drive as the might in the United Kingdom on the left-hand side! That meant that every time we went around a curve the lights from an oncoming auto felt as if it was hurtling directly at me!
When we finally arrived at the hotel we were content to find a comfortable bed and an air-conditioned room. The amenities were sparse, but in its own way, that is one of the things that attract me to the Caribbean the most.
SonoranSailor.com 