Back to the BVIs – 15/07/11

After 10 weeks in the UK, the day dawns for us to return to the BVIs.  We travel down to Gatwick in our funny little hire car the evening before and stay in a plastic room at the Ibis.

The flights the next day are uneventful, for which we are extremely grateful given the nightmare that was the journey back to the UK.  All flights are on time leaving and arrived on time or early.  The food on the BA flight is good – not just edible but actually good.  It’s Friday and they provide us with quite a spicy chicken curry.

Excitement is offered to us in the form of being allowed to sit in first class for half an hour while security checks are performed on the plane while we sit on the tarmac at Antigua.  As we settle ourselves down in chairs that lie right back like beds, a kindly flight attendant demonstrates all the luxury features before sending us back to cattle class after the checks are performed.  Actually, he is sadistic, not kindly!!

Our little Cape Air flight from Puerto Rica consists of the pilot and 10 passengers.  There doesn’t look like there is enough room for the luggage and in fact the hand luggage is placed in little compartments in the wings, causing me to wonder if the bloody things will drop off – Mike’s bag alone weighs a ton as it holds two computers and all the paraphernalia needed to go with them.

We arrive intact and get through customs and immigration in record time – thank god for small planes and short passenger lists.  Then it’s outside to haggle with the licensed bandit in a taxi to take us to CRC (Candace and Malcolm’s house over the hill at Little Apple Bay).  His charge is more reasonable than usual which helps us ignore the inconvenience of having to stop for 15 minutes at a grocery store on the way for his other passenger to do some shopping!

We arrive at CRC at around 8.30 pm, for us 1.30 am.  It’s great to see Candace and Malcolm – it’s been nearly 2 years and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge (literally).  After sharing a bottle of wine we collapse into bed under the protection of a mosquito net and fall asleep with just the light of the moon through the huge open doors and the rhythmic noise of the waves crashing onto the beach just yards away.  How different they sound to when they are crashing all around you in the middle of an ocean!