Day One

We got up at 3:30am and left early for the airport for our trip to St. Croix. The previous day, Buzz and Jonathan had been unable to get through the airport to catch their flight, so they'd had to be rerouted through Chicago and hadn't arrived on island until 10pm. I was determined that Daniel and I would make our flight.

The skycap who checked our bags was not a good start, though. He cursed and slammed his fist on his computer, but that didn't make it work any better. Eventually he went inside to print our boarding passes and the ticket for our checked bag. When he came back out, before he gave us our ticket, he growled something about a tip being customary. I had prepared a tip for him, but it had taken so long to get our bag checked, that I had quite forgotten.

Other than that, our flights were uneventful. We hooked up with Alyssa and Anna in Bradley and stayed together in Miami. Chad was supposed to join us, but he'd had mechanical difficulties and wasn't scheduled to get in until later. It was a bit bumpy coming in (as it always is during the afternoon), but then we were on the ground in St. Croix.

Buzz met us in the airport with a rum drink he called a "chiña colada" (that uses orange instead of pineapple). We drank our drinks and waited for our bags to come off the conveyer and then headed to Cottages.

After a refreshing swim in the ocean, and watching some folks (under a permit) excavate a turtle nest, we were sitting around computing when there was a commotion. Jonathan had injured his foot and needed to be rushed to the clinic. We bandaged his foot up and Buzz took him off with Alyssa helping to keep Jonathan calm.

After a couple of hours, they returned and we all resumed our original plan and went to the Lost Dog for dinner. We were pleased to see the Dr. Emery original still recognizable by the foosball table. After several beers and several pizzas, we returned to Cottages, with equilibrium having returned to our adventure.