Week of March 7th, We are to meet Salted Rim in St. Thomas on 3/11 at 6:30am. Lisa is still positively “positive” with COVID with an unwavering dry cough (remnants of COVID) SO here’s the deal: No Negative Test =No Entry into the BVIs. I had COVID three weeks prior but still tested positive 4 days in a row. Finally a positively “negative” test on 3/9, meaning we can leave on 3/10 for St. Thomas. Book your last minute flight and give away your first born child to get it. Pack your bags sister.
Back to flights on 3/10. Kirk had already booked his flight because somebody had to show up to meet the ship in St. Thomas whether that was with me or possibly Peter. So, Kirk’s itinerary on American Airlines landed perfectly (I know right – great pun). Me – I was the last minute negative COVID patient on Jet Blue. Delay, Delay, can you say Delay- 3 hour delay out of San Juan which made me miss the last flight to St. Thomas by 15 minutes – like they couldn’t hold that flight?!. So I had to spend the night at the airport hotel (aka Motel 6)- caught the first flight out and cabbed it over to the cruise ship dock to meet Kirk at the ship.
Talk about hurry up and wait. Instructions were very specific to meet the ship at 6:30am which Kirk did and I was expected around 9:30am. Total of 5 hours sitting around waiting and finally watching a quite interesting chain of events. This ship is a float on and float off ship – meaning once they put water back in the hull of the ship, you float your yacht off – we were last on – so first off – Amen to that. However, you only got about 15 minutes to get everything prepped after they ferried us to our sailboat. So we only had enough time to put one side of the windscreen up – the port side (or left side) with the starboard side having no protection. Time to float off the ship and off we go to Tortola – should be an easy 3 hour sail. Off we go!