We woke up like every other day on the boat but instead of swimming around it, we are all walking around it organizing our stuff to leave. Organize, pack, clean... generally trying to untangle three weeks of our lives from our temporary 45 foot home.
We radioed our friends on Skyline to see if they wanted our last unused supplies and Christian headed over at 7am in their dingy to collect what they could use and say one last goodbye. Then engines on, mooring lines thrown off, sails up and one last peaceful hour on Peace Out sailing north east through the Sir Francis Drake Channel toward Hodges Creek Marina.
It took us about an hour to get to our final destination. We dropped the sails, motored through the cut in the reef, past the remaining wrecked and sunken boats from Irma, and toward the Catamaran Company dock. A quick 180 degree spin, reverse, starboard lines thrown to the staff on the dock, engines off and Peace Out was home again. It is amazing how comfortable we all became with every aspect of sailing, motoring, docking, mooring and living on this boat. Week one broke us in, week two broke the boat in and week three was harmony.
After an hour at the dock finalizing our packing and doing our final checkout with Jean Olivier from CatCo, deciding which shells we could take and what would have to be left behind, and eating a pint of chocolate ice cream someone found hiding in the freezer, we piled into our waiting taxi and headed to the Beef Island Airport.
While nothing in the BVI has ever been quick, the check-in and security screening process at this wonderful micro airport was slow even by local standards. But we made it through and were escorted out onto the tarmac as our Air Sunshine flight was landing. We were lead out to the plane, the stairs dropped and the eight of us climbed into a 20 person plane with exactly eight random open seats.
Luckily it was a quick 15 minute flight back to St. Thomas. There, we cleared US immigration with the help of our pilot and co-pilot (full service operation) and checked into our American Airlines flight to Miami. One last round of dark & stormies (ginger beer with dark rum and Angostura bitters for anyone that has not had the pleasure) and painkillers at the airport bar and we were on our way.
We landed in Miami and headed off to the Sagamore Hotel in South Beach. Everyone was exhausted from a full travel day so we used Uber Eats for the first time to get tacos and ceviche delivered to the hotel from a local restaurant and CRASHED.
Tomorrow is a South Beach pool and beach day and then the party actually comes to an end and we head home.
Hard to believe.