{"id":6513,"date":"2017-01-31T07:16:04","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T12:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=6513"},"modified":"2017-01-31T07:16:04","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T12:16:04","slug":"were-back-in-tortola-32-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=6513","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re back in Tortola. 32 years later.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, we made it, we\u2019re aboard Pandora in Tortola and all is well. \u00a0The sun is just about to peak over the eastern end of the harbor here in West End and it\u2019s going to be a beautiful day.\"\"I have to say that I am pretty pooped as yesterday was a very LONG day.\u00a0 On Sunday we winterized the house and, of course, set more mouse traps.\u00a0 In fact, I have set so many traps set that we now have a \u201cmouse dedicated\u201d jar of peanut butter.\u00a0 Brenda saw me \u201cdouble dip\u201d the knife into that jar at least once and\u2026\u00a0Well, let\u2019s just say that I won\u2019t be using THAT JAR to make sandwiches any time soon as it’s now indelibly marked “mouse contaminated material. NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION”. \u00a0Ok Brenda, I’ll go along with that.<\/p>\n

After the final bit of water was blown out of the domestic water pipes and the thermostat turned down, our next door neighbor Janet drove us to the airport. We had decided to stay at a hotel on Sunday because there was just no way that we’d be able to get the house ready and make it to the airport in time for an “O dark 30” flight yesterday. \u00a0Conveniently, Janet has parents up near the airport and offered to drive us to our hotel.\u00a0 Thanks Janet for being a good neighbor.<\/p>\n

Our final act before leaving for Tortola was to meet our friends LeaAnn and Garrett, who came to our hotel room to join us for a light supper of cheese, crackers, soup and, of course, wine.\u00a0\u00a0 You know, all the basic food groups.\u00a0 LeaAnn is Brenda\u2019s oldest and best friend.\u00a0 Well, to be clear, she\u2019s not Brenda\u2019s \u201coldest\u201d friend but she has known her the longest, since she was 8 years old.\u00a0 That\u2019s a VERY OLD friend and it seems is getting older by the day, but we won\u2019t think about that right now, will we?<\/p>\n

Anyway, we had a great time and it was a nice way to toast us on our way\u00a0for the rest of the winter.<\/p>\n

Airport hotel or not, we still had to get up at an obscene hour to catch our 05:50 flight. \u00a0But we made it and now we are here and \u201chere\u201d is just beautiful<\/p>\n

A lovely view greeted me today as I had my first sip of coffee.\u00a0 \"\"And a pelican stopped by to say hello.\"\"I am dragging a bit today so\u00a0I decided to make 50\/50 coffee.\u00a0 \u201cWatch out Brenda.\u00a0 Bob\u2019s had caffeine!\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Hopefully, it won\u2019t be too bad.\u00a0 The problem is that when I drink “real” coffee the feeling that I get isn\u2019t particularly good, unlike our son Christoper who says that “coffee makes him normal”. \u00a0 \u00a0For me, I get the same sort of feeling that I had the first time I tried to work up the guts to call Brenda the first time to ask her for a date when we were Juniors in High school. \u00a0 I was really excited but felt a little queasy.<\/p>\n

And speaking of Brenda, which I do from time to time, and the title of this post, the whole \u201c32 years and we\u2019re back\u201d thing, it was about this time all those years ago that Brenda and I were last in Tortola together.<\/p>\n

I have to say that it really hit me as we landed at Tortola’s Beef Island yesterday and all those memories came flooding back. \u00a0 Brenda was pregnant with our son Christopher, the “normal with caffeine Christopher”, our second. \u00a0She was pretty far along and we decided to head away for a week because we were pretty convinced that once we had two children WE WOULD NEVER GET ANOTHER VACATION ALONE AGAIN.\u00a0 Happily, that turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration and I can\u2019t believe that we are finally back here again after all those years.<\/p>\n

Lucky us. \u00a0Lucky me!<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019d better sign off for now as the caffeine is kicking in and I am having trouble typing.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty excited too but my stomach isn\u2019t quite as queasy yet as the first time I summoned up the nerve to call Brenda.<\/p>\n

If I have a second cup. \u00a0I might have to join these two fisherman working the shallows with a throw net. \u00a0Yes, a bit random perhaps but I have to use up all that energy. \u00a0\"\"Yes, pretty excited. \u00a0It\u2019s good to be back in Tortola together again after all those years.<\/p>\n

What a spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, we made it, we\u2019re aboard Pandora in Tortola and all is well. \u00a0The sun is just about to peak over the eastern end of the harbor here in West End and it\u2019s going to be a beautiful day.I have to say that I am pretty pooped as yesterday was a very LONG day.\u00a0 On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6518,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions\/6518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}