On a Wing and a Prayer

Now, to be fair, a combination of distance and difficulty demands a bit of creativity to get to the British Virgin Islands from the West Coast.  Two or three planes are required as are ferry rides all capped off by taxis that invite death.  And it is exactly these sort of complicated travel plans that makes my fathers fingers tingle.  He loves to spend hours comparing fares, times, airline miles and airports before making a final decision.  More often then not the results of these escapades to kayak, travelocity, and priceline are odd departure times,  the shortest connections imaginable, or individuals taking different flights to the same location.  And why take one plane when three is $100 cheaper?

This guy, grrrrr.....

But even for  my dad and his eccentrics, this was a new one for Danny and I.  We stood at the ticket desk for the optimistically named Air Sunshine in the Puerto Rico International Airlines, where the kind desk agent once again asked me for my weight.   After stumbling it out my brother was asked the same and both the checked and carry on bags where weighed.    Finally the question needed to be asked.

"Um? ok, how big is this plane?" "Ten". TEN?! Well ten if you count the pilots.

Come on...

The tail art was optimistic too

With that Danny and I were issued our boarding pass and told to procede through security.  I would like to point out that I used the singular, boarding pass.  There was one.  For both of us.  And it was hand written.  To say I had my doubts as to if TSA would accept its validity was an understatement.

Danny shares my dubiousness 

And so we approached the check point.  Two important notes should be made right now.  First, I always get stopped at TSA.  Always.  Inevitably.  They need a counter to what ever dude in a turbon they are patting down to prove they are not profiling so they pull the most American looking chick out of the crowd.  Me.  Second important point is that this was July 5th and I had not taken a shower since I set off a few hundred fireworks.  As an expert in check point procedures I knew it was common to check for explosive residue on passengers.

God bless America 

Our boarding pass was accepted and we proceeded through after only a single raised raised eyebrow.  After going through one of the new scanners I am convinced is going to give me cancer, I was once again randomly selected for additional screening.  Uh oh.  The swab of my cloths went into the little macine and my brother and I shared a nervous look, and just as images of being thrown into a windowless back room flood my mind, it came back safe.  Not that I want to be shipped off to Cuba, what exactly is threshold to make those scanners light up?   This was apart of my evening.

Thank you Mr. Chris 

After a few hours soaking up the AC we met at the Air Sunshine desk and walked out with the other 2 passengers.  Now I can not put to fine a point on this, Danny was taller then the plane fuselage. He also needed to sit in the center because 1) it was the only place tall enough for him to fit and 2) they didn't want him unbalancing the plane.

Danny and the plane.  He later put it in his pocket and took it home as a pet

While I'm not a nervous flyer, there is a vast diffrence between 747 sky beast and a Cessna grasshopper.  For one, the pilots are not separated from the passengers.  Instead they look like they are driving a car.  This impression was reinforced when the pilot left his window open as we taxied out to the runway, closing it as we began to move down the runway.  As we lurched skyward dials started to spin, and I was distracted from my fear for the next five minutes trying to figure out what each of them did.

Window open, elbow propped out, is this a plane or a road trip?

Small planes, especially older small planes, don't take off in a straight line.  Instead tend to shimmy and shake.  As we climbed up past two-thousand feet they flicked off the AC and the plane noticeably picked up speed with a roar of the the engines.  Once we leveled out around six- thousand feet the pilots began to relax and talk to each other.  This was fine, except when ever they let go of the wheel the plane drifted to the left.

Focus! 

Skimming over the islands at six-thousand feet is amazing.  The whole chain is laid out in broad strokes of land, water and sky.  We dodged clouds as we took a right turn between the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.  If we didn't dodge the clouds the plane would rocket from side to side, and up and down. We crawled up the south coast of Tortola before the runway came into view through the front windows.  As we came in low, the air was turned back on and the planes engines pitched higher.

Within moments the plane was on the ground and we spilled out onto the hot tarmac and retrieved our luggage from the compartments in the wings, before walking across the apron to the terminal.

We lived!

Now you may ask where on earth my parents were through this who adventure.  They were aboard an American Airlines plane with two big engines that did not get louder when the ac turned off and fit 40  passengers comfortably.  Like I said, Pratt Family travel planes are strange and complicated.  As a side note, Air Sunshine was Dad's second choice.  Mom talked him out of his first choice which was a three hop puddle jump tour across the Caribbean from Antigua to St Barts To Beef Island on Liate Air.

For all of my griping over my Dad's travel planning choices, I find myself doing the exact same thing. I spent days agonizing over which Eurorail pass to get, a time investment that eventually led to me realizing that Croatia and Slovenia where considered one country as where Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands and a savings of several hundred dollars.  I accept that I inherited the crazy, and I look forward to reading my own children's blogs about how I made them take a pneumatic tube to the moon instead of the worm hole I was on.  But for now, I will just wait to see where my Dad's next rickshaw, donkey cart or raft takes us.

Literally can't wait

The Vagrant Gypsy Life

As many of you know I recently graduated from UCLA.  Approaching me with the speed and agility of a freight train is work, bills, comutes, and general monotony.  However, I'm going to ignore all of that until October and go travel the world for a bit.  I am starting this little blog so that if your interested, or find me entertaining in the slightest, you can keep up with my comings and goings. 


I am naming this blog after a line from my favorite poem "Sea Fever" by John Masefield.  Nearly all of you know a few lines from it, namely "And all I ask for is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by", but have not read the rest of it.  

Sea Fever-John Masefield 

I must go down to the seas again
to the lonely sea and sky
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking
And a gray mist on the sea’s face,
and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
That may not be denied
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying
And the flung spray and the blown spume
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy life
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way
where the wind’s like a whetted knife
And all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick’s over.

For a young girl who dreamed of the ocean, pirates, Narnia, and what ever great adventure was over the horizon, the "Call of the running tide" has always been a drum beat in my head that could not be silenced, punching up my wanderlust to 11 on clear winter days or that first hot day that signals summer is right around the corner.  For a little bit I am going to answer the call and embrace the gypsy life and see how it all turns out.  


I hope you enjoy following along, I know I am going to enjoy going.