No Regrets: Sunday Day 9

We woke up to a beautiful day. For the first time this trip, we were all up and ready to get moving by 8am. We thought maybe we’d get one last snorkel in, so we got ready, had something to eat and headed over to the Indian’s. After hanging for half an hour or so and watching the birds, we decided it would be more fun to spend the time sailing back to the base. We figured we wouldn’t get back by noon as we wanted to if we did the snorkel and sailed.

So, we dropped the mooring, raised the sails and began sailing back to Road Town. Wind was decent and we moved along between 6-8 knots. The closer we got to road town, the more the wind shifted, but we made decent time considering wind was coming out of the NNE. We were at the entrance to the harbor around 11:45 and began dropping the sails and hailed Sunsail on the VHF.

As we pulled up to C dock, one of the TUI guys was going to meet us and take the boat in. I told him I was happy and able to dock it. He was happy to let me and told us to head all the way in to C dock. We first had to lower the dinghy, so my crew took care of that as I tried to keep us steady. Once lowered I headed all the way down to the inside end of the dock, spun the Cat around and started to back in. We were right up against the inside edge of the dock next to a mono hull. First attempt I was getting blown a bit too close to a piling in the water, so I pulled forward, repositioned and backed in without issue on attempt #2. Got some compliments once done, thanked the guys and we began our cleanup and final packing.

I never know how it happens, but we always bring stuff down that will get used and not brought back home, yet we always end up with the weight of the bags being very similar. No different this trip as I had to shift things around since we were at 50lbs in one bag and I only trust my sale to be accurate within two pounds. We got that squared away and then I took care of the debrief, giving her about 6 items that needed to be addressed with the biggest being the generator – it was far louder than it should be and vibrated far too much – the whole boat vibrated – it was annoying, but bearable. I’ve made a mental note to check this for the future as I would have been happy to have them put us on a different boat from the start. Once done, we headed to the restaurant by the pool for our final bushwhackers and lunch before heading to the airport.

2:30pm came far faster than I thought it would and we were off to the airport for our 4pm flight. Flight was on time and I got some great pictures. There were two couples on the plan with us that had 6pm flights out of San Juan! I think they probably made it as long as they were expedited since our group made it into the Jet Blue terminal by 5:45. Not bad, but I wouldn’t count on being able to do that had customs been busier – it was dead quiet.

Grabbed a bit in the terminal and now we’re on the plane heading home. Starting to think about our next trip already.