Back in Grenada...

Here's the latest update. I made it back to Grenada after some difficulty in catching a connecting flight in Trinidad. I left LAX close to 11 PM Monday night and landed in Miami, connecting at 10 AM the next morning to Port of Spain in Trinidad. We landed there shortly before 2 PM and of course my flight to Grenada took off at 3 PM so there was little hope of clearing immigration and customs then checking in with the small airline to make my connection. They had 3 immigration officers working the booths in Trinidad and of course we had 300 passengers that needed clearance so the pace was agonizingly slow. I was doing my best to keep calm and stay on "island time" and because of one very cool airport employee I was able to slide through ahead of everyone else. I retrieved my check in bags and ran to customs where I was treated to a thorough questioning and inspection which resulted in another lost twenty minutes. By the time I ran across the airport and arrived at the Liat counter to check in it was 2:45 PM and no one was there. I was told it was too late but that I could get on the 8:20 PM flight that was going to Barbados but it would be stopping first in Grenada. This seemed reasonable until 6 PM when the counter finally reopened and I was treated to a very unfriendly chick who informed me there was a 180 dollar penalty for changing flights. I took a deep breath and said WHAT THE F***!!! Actually, that was only on the inside. I calmly asked her why and she stared blankly. I'm not sure the screening process when Liat hires employees is very thorough. After refusing to pay for something that wasn't my fault she finally decided to tell me that it was 180 Trinidadian (TT) dollars which equals about 31 dollars U.S. so I just paid. I was sent back and forth four times between agents for various crap and finally just prior to printing my boarding pass I was informed that it would be 480 dollars for my "overweight" bags. It ended up being an additional 79 U.S. I hate Liat. Normally you are allowed two bags for check in, each one can weigh up to 50 lbs and both of my bags were under the normal allowance. Of course the douche bags at Liat allow a TOTAL of 50 lbs for your two check in items. Whatever. Ok I'm done venting. I finally touched down in Grenada about 10 PM Tuesday night. I got a cab back to the yard and spent a few hours trying to fall asleep. The worst part was that I slept very little on the flights because I was fortunate enough to be seated next to some mutant and her freaky demon spawn that chose to scream for 5 hours on the first one. But hey, everyting irie mon...

I spent all of yesterday working on the boat and finalizing preparations to go back in the water at 3 PM. It was actually pretty cool because everyone here in the yard stopped by the boat at some point during the day to welcome me back. I was really hurting yesterday from the jet lag and the fact that my internal clock is still 3 hours behind on L.A. time. I tried to go to bed early last night but just tossed and turned. Today I was up first thing with the electronics guy and followed that by putting the sails back on with the guys from the sail shop. I'm catching a quick break due to rain, I'm just hoping we can get everything done by tomorrow. I imagine I will be asleep by 7 Pm tonight as I am still dragging ass from the traveling and the visit.

Just want to say thanks real quick to everyone who helped me out during my trip back home, you made things so much easier. I had a great time seeing everyone. I got to visit with my aunt and see that strength in her that I wrote about so I know sometime in the future she will be able to visit me on a boat whereever I am. I watched one of my best friends get married and had a great time at his wedding seeing a bunch of the firefighters I used to work alongside. I got to hang out with my nieces and even had Brianna spend the night with me at Josh's house during which we went to Chuck E. Cheese and I'm still not sure who had more fun, Josh or my niece. Overall it went by too fast and I'm sorry that I couldn't see everyone. Quick story from my trip. I went to my bank which is a local firefighter credit union. The ladies there have always been top notch and have always been amazing putting up with my insanity. They are terrific. So I stopped by to say hi with my niece. We went in, caught up with the girls and then one of the ladies asked me if I knew my debit card had been suspended. I said no but that I hadn't been using it for awhile, pretty much doing only cash. She said she locked it out because there were some unusual purchase attempts made and she was pretty sure it wasn't me. I asked what it was and she sheepishly asked me if I had tried to buy a Russian wife online. Yeah. Me. BUY A WIFE!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Sorry. I laughed and everyone else did too. Of course my best friend Jeffro had to be standing right there when she said it so I can only imagine how this is all going to play out. She laughed and told me she knew it wasn't me because it originated in Iraq (the attempted purchase) but she wanted to check because they know how crazy I am and who knows if I decided to go over there. Out of curiosity I asked how much they tried to use. 1200 dollars U.S. That's it. Apparently that's all it takes and you too can wed a lovely ex-prostitute from Mother Russia. I had just gotten a bunch of cash to take back with me and I joked that I had enough to buy 4 wives and still have enough for dinner at Hooters. So anyway, as for now there will be no wifey arriving Fed Ex to Rum Boogie anytime soon, I still have to see what the girls look like in Colombia, I hear it's 6 to 1 girl to guy ratio and that 4 of those 6 are close to a 10, one cruiser told me that if a family has 4 daughters that 3 of them will be smoking hot, sounds like the world I wanna live in...