Point a Pitre to Dulles
Today is our last day. The morning was a flurry of packing and cleaning, then we moved the boat to the marina for pickup by the Moorings representative. We had a slip, but had to go stern to, which was a bit tricky but easier than we thought, thanks to the guidance of the capitainerie of the marina. The boat was inspected, we offloaded, then shopped until it was time to go to the airport. It's hot, I'm starving, but no one seems be interested in sitting in a nice little cafe.
Mathieu (the Moorings representative) called a cab for us and I conversed with the drive on the way to the airport, in French. He was very nice and spoke slowly enough that I cold understand most of what he was saying. It turns out that the heat in June is unusual--they've had more rain this year than normal so everything is very green (instead of the normal brown). He talked a little about the changing climate and I sort of got lost there. Then I noticed some cows tethered by the side of the highway and asked what they were He said that they are decendents of the cows brough over by the colonists, which didn't do well in the heat. They cross-bred them with some cows from Africa (the French cows were Charnais) and ended up with a cow that can tolerate sun and high heat. The cows were beautiful--a sort of creamy dun color, with large graceful curved horns. They aren't anything like our American cows.
The wait at the airport was interminable. The check-in at the airport didn't open until noon. The when we checked in, the printer for the obarding passes didn't work. The woman who was helping us was very calm, very nice, and very pretty. Eventually, everyone got their boarding pass. The passes were printed elsewhere and then distributed.
I was so hungry, but the only restaurant is closed because of un mouvement sociale, which I take to be a strike. The little bars weren't open, and when they did open, they didn't want to take dollars. So no food for me.
And then we find out that the plane coming from San Juan was late. It took off from San Juan about the time we were supposed to leave Guadeloupe (1410h) and they don't think we would be able to make our connection. All of the passengers crowded around the American Airlines employees, discussing the various options and then the plane arrived. No one was rebooked and we made it into San Juan at 16:30. During the flight, we passed by Montserrat, which was putting out ash and had been for a couple of weeks. The aerial view confirmed what I had seen from the boat--the lava fields, and even the ash (it didn't look quite right to be only steam; it was too dark).
Going through immigration and customs was a breeze and we made the connecting flight. We even had the row to ourselves, which was nice. And we arrived at Dulles early!
It felt strange walking through the door. After being on a boat for 10 days, with different smell, coming into our own house, with its own old house smell, felt like walking into a stranger's house. Jez seemed glad to see us, but need to get used to us again. Brian had turned on the air conditioning, and it was nice and cool. So it was too bad, to sleep in a bed that didn't move, without the sound of water lapping at the hull or the creaks, clanks and groans of the halyards and stays.
Mathieu (the Moorings representative) called a cab for us and I conversed with the drive on the way to the airport, in French. He was very nice and spoke slowly enough that I cold understand most of what he was saying. It turns out that the heat in June is unusual--they've had more rain this year than normal so everything is very green (instead of the normal brown). He talked a little about the changing climate and I sort of got lost there. Then I noticed some cows tethered by the side of the highway and asked what they were He said that they are decendents of the cows brough over by the colonists, which didn't do well in the heat. They cross-bred them with some cows from Africa (the French cows were Charnais) and ended up with a cow that can tolerate sun and high heat. The cows were beautiful--a sort of creamy dun color, with large graceful curved horns. They aren't anything like our American cows.
The wait at the airport was interminable. The check-in at the airport didn't open until noon. The when we checked in, the printer for the obarding passes didn't work. The woman who was helping us was very calm, very nice, and very pretty. Eventually, everyone got their boarding pass. The passes were printed elsewhere and then distributed.
I was so hungry, but the only restaurant is closed because of un mouvement sociale, which I take to be a strike. The little bars weren't open, and when they did open, they didn't want to take dollars. So no food for me.
And then we find out that the plane coming from San Juan was late. It took off from San Juan about the time we were supposed to leave Guadeloupe (1410h) and they don't think we would be able to make our connection. All of the passengers crowded around the American Airlines employees, discussing the various options and then the plane arrived. No one was rebooked and we made it into San Juan at 16:30. During the flight, we passed by Montserrat, which was putting out ash and had been for a couple of weeks. The aerial view confirmed what I had seen from the boat--the lava fields, and even the ash (it didn't look quite right to be only steam; it was too dark).
Going through immigration and customs was a breeze and we made the connecting flight. We even had the row to ourselves, which was nice. And we arrived at Dulles early!
It felt strange walking through the door. After being on a boat for 10 days, with different smell, coming into our own house, with its own old house smell, felt like walking into a stranger's house. Jez seemed glad to see us, but need to get used to us again. Brian had turned on the air conditioning, and it was nice and cool. So it was too bad, to sleep in a bed that didn't move, without the sound of water lapping at the hull or the creaks, clanks and groans of the halyards and stays.
posted by Teri S. at 9:17 PM
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