Thursday, January 29, 2009

1:00 if by Land; 2:00 if by Sea

I keep thinking that someday I will run out of stories and I will have to stop this blog. In a way this has happened. Things that last year were crazy and new have become common place. Things that would illicit wonderment then, now seem ho hum.

Today is a good example.

I had a preservation meeting today in Salt Cay. This is a small island nine miles from Grand Turk. A five minute, seventy dollar plane ride. Yesterday I bought my ticket, leaving on the 10:00am flight. This is a good time to make a flight. This is also the only flight.

Needless to say, I went in to the museum this morning, had one conversation too many, and left for the airport only 25 minutes before the flight. Now, need I remind you, this is only a five minute flight.

9:40am. There was one staff member waiting on five people in front of me, all who had nothing important to do evidently. Time clicked away in slow motion. At five till, I took my ticket and ran over to the gate to see if I could just get on the flight.

9:55am. “That's your flight right there, leaving,” (Cut to: a plane zooming off the runway five minutes early).

I had missed the flight.

I drove to Oasis Divers to see if they had a boat going to Salt Cay. No, a Royal Princess docked at 10:00. Drove to Grand Turk Diving. Smitty is out with divers. Drove to Blue Water Divers. Jesse is out with divers.

10:20am. Received phone call. “Hello, this is Candy. We noticed you are not on the plane?”

10:30am. Received phone call. “Hello, this is Candy. Smitty is at the side of the Osprey. Can you get there in five minutes?”

Now, I want you to picture this. I was going to Salt Cay today to be interviewed on camera for a video documentary on Salt Cay past, present, and future. I was dressed up. I went to the Osprey and proceeded down to the beach. Smitty was waiting in a small dive boat, a flat bottom skiff. I jumped on.

The 35 minute boat trip to Salt Cay was not bad today. Swells were only between three and four feet. This is enough, however, for the boat to become air born. Wave, crash, splash. Small spray until we reached the end of the reef and open water. Then large swells and large splashes.

By the time we got to Salt Cay I was soaked. Not regular soaked. Super soaked. This is all I'm saying. It is 7:00pm right now and my underwear is still wet.

The boat captain was wearing a wetsuit. No big deal to him. I did make one good decision. I put my good shirt and my papers into the dry box. I least I would have a shirt to wear.

Anyway, I got to Salt Cay. I sat through a preservation meeting with the director of the National Trust, the District Commissioner, the Salt Cay developer, and several stake holders, discussing the lack of national preservation standards. At 2:00pm a crew filmed my comments of why Salt Cay should be preserved. A few minutes later I had a piece of Key Lime pie at Debbie's restaurant. At ten minutes to 4:00pm I started getting nervous that my ride back to the airport did not show up. Debbie gave me a ride.

4:10pm. The plane was late, making me still more nervous about being stuck on this even smaller island.

4:25pm. Caught my five mintue flight back to Grand Turk.

2 comments:

bryanhitch said...

Look, nothing common place about any of that. Not boring, not mundane, not lackluster, not normal, not routine. Keep writing for those whose lives are all of the above.

bryanhitch said...

And your titles are even clever.