Monday, December 30, 2002
Got up at 3:45am this morning. Enough time to collect ourselves together, wake up an excited Vanessa, have a quick cup of something caffeinated and then out the door with our bags to the waiting limo.
A long journey lay ahead of us. "Three airplanes" as we told Vanessa. Three trips through customs too, as it turned out. Ugh.
It was a day of hurry-up-and-wait. First we waited about half an hour to get to a ticket agent at American Airlines. Then an equal amount of time waiting in line to go through U.S. customs. Both went off without a hitch (though Vanessa was freaked out about passing through the metal detector), and we had time for Erika to eat a bagel, and me to eat a sandwich, whose expiry date happened to be today I wryly noted.
Then, onto the first plane. Then wait some more. In all, the plane was about 40 minutes late in leaving, and we heard from the flight steward about some sort of security scare. It was also apparent that a family related to some people behind us missed their flight, and may have been caught out by arriving too late in order to be processed through security in time.
The first flight was uneventful -- a 2+ hour flight to Miami on a 757. The only thing to watch on the overhead TVs an endless ad for CBS' mediocre TV shows (sorry, but not everyone loves Raymond ;-)
Due to the lateness of the flight, we had to scramble a bit once we got to Miami, but we made it to the next flight.
This time it was a 737. The exact same "show" played out again on the overhead displays. Thankfully we all managed to get seats together, and Vanessa managed to get in a short nap. It was another 2 hour flight, and since only snacks and pop were served on board, we were all beginning to get very hungry by the time we got to St. Martin.
St. Martin is a Dutch possession. So another set of customs to go through. We were worried that our baggage might not have followed us from the first airplane to the second, but after a longish wait we were relieved to see our bags turn up. Two planes down, one plane to go.
Erika bought the tickets going from St. Martin to St. Barthelemy (known more simply as St. Bart's). At the small airport while waiting we ran into one of the boat's crew members, who was himself heading back to France to be with his wife and daughter. He filled us in on the state of the boat (in need of a number of small repairs from the wear and tear of the trans-Atlantic voyage) and that a locally-hired replacement crew was on board. He told us this while all three of us greedily munched away at some hot dogs Erika had found while we were waiting. Soon plane #3 arrived, and we had to leave.
At least the next flight would prove to be short -- a 10 minutes island hop. It was also the most adventurous of the whole trip. In a small twin-piper cub we flew at 1,500 feet over the impossibly blue calmly lapping waters of the Caribbean, viewing the old volcanic cores now become small islands looking like a set of eroded teeth sticking up from the seafloor. Then St. Bart's hove into view. The adventurous part was the sudden steep dive over a mountain which put us right on top of the airport and made a bouncy two, then three-point landing. The landing reminded both Erika and I about landing in Oaxaca City, which is situated in a mountain valley -- lots of fun if you don’t expect it. ;-)
Feeling truly jagged by this time, we clambered out of aircraft #3, and went through another round of customs, this time French. Thankfully Josef was there waiting for us in the foyer of the small St. Bart's airport. We got out, grabbed our bags and were warmly greeted.
Josef's rental car was a very cool looking French-made Smart car, open to the elements save for the roof and a windscreen. But it was small, so Erika left with Vanessa to the dockside with her Father while I waited at the airport. It turned out well -- I found a bank machine across the street and grabbed a bunch of Euros (up until a day ago I had no idea we were heading to St. Barts instead of Tortola ;-) as well as a toothbrush -- the one thing I had forgotten to pack.
Soon we were re-united and set off in a small dingy to head to the boat. The familiar ship hove into sight, though we noticed that the S.Y. Audacious was now re-christened the Volterra -- the name of Josef's estate in the South of France
We all had a pleasant drink while the skies quickly turned from crimson to a star-studded dark.
We met the new temporary crew (briefly -- they soon headed to their home on the island) as well as Ariane, who is Josef's guest, an artist of some sort also from France. She had made the transatlantic trip also -- a first time for her and for Josef apparently (as she told me later -- "lots of blue water and the occasional fish; and not much else").
At about 7pm, we climbed aboard the dingy and headed back to town (Gustavia) for dinner. We walked aimlessly looking for pretty much anything, and we found a place (I think it was called "Le Palace"), which turned out to be a good restaurant specializing in French seafood cuisine. Amazingly, Vanessa was still practically bouncing up and down, and was thrilled to see the giant sea lobsters in an aquarium at the front of the restaurant, and ran to and from our table to the aquarium several times telling us all about them and what they were up to.
One bottle of fine wine and some good fish dishes later, exhaustion began to set in, and so we made our way back through the tiny streets to our dingy, looking even tinier parked next to the giant floating ships -- all of which looked like lumbering condos on floats, their improbable bobbing up and down the only real sign that there were not oddly shaped buildings planted on land -- and made our way back to the relatively sleek, elegant Volterra. We crashed out in our staterooms.
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