5-13: Getting There

Yvonne & I looked forward to a leisurely trip to Marsh Harbor, the main city on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas. Our flight would take us from Orlando to Nassau and then a short puddle jump hop to Marsh Harbor, where we would load our gear onto our vessel for the week and subsequently spend Friday night aboard. Our flight didn’t leave OIA until 2:00 PM, arriving at Marsh Harbor close to 6 PM.
The leisurely part never materialized for me, with several last minute office fires requiring my attention erupting. It seems I spent the morning on the phone or the Internet, even getting documents sent to me where I could receive and review them at the airport prior to getting on the plane. But all eventually seemed to work out and we boarded our flight.
I moved to Florida about 6 months before the advent of the Shuttle program in 1981. I thought I’d seen shuttle launches from every conceivable point of view……… from night launches which lit up our lake (John’s Lake), a launch from KSC and even one from the VIP area. But I was wrong! We were treated to a totally unique perspective. With only 2 remaining launches, we saw Atlantis lift off from KSC from the vantage point of our 727 at 27,000 ft. What a view. We could see it below us --- contrail streaming – for a moment. Before we knew it, it screamed (figuratively, not literally) above us, veering north all the while. What a sight!
Once we landed in Nassau, we had about a 2 hour layover before boarding our twin engine prop for the short flight to Marsh Harbor. Yvonne & I apparently got there first but we knew that a large contingent from North Carolina would be on this leg with us. But before any of our old friends from NC arrived, three young folks came up and introduced themselves. These, as it turned out, were all friends/co-workers of James Murray, one of our skippers. These three, James, Teresa & Kelly, ironically all from Orlando, recognized this year’s edition of the Admiral Jimmy’s fleet polo shirt, whiich I wore for recognition purposes. ‘Turns out Kelly is to be the Skipper for one of our fleet, the Grand Cru. We chatted, compared notes & got acquainted until the NC contingent arrived, probably another 10 to 12 strong. For the next hour everyone chatted with no apparent recognition that, at best we hadn’t seen one another in a year (or more or many more). More than a few were total strangers. ’Yet something had already occurred. Acquaintances, to total strangers, bonded almost immediately, joined only by the memory of (or anticipation for) trips such as our upcoming sail.
We landed in Marsh Harbor, marshaled our luggage, commandeered 3 taxi vans and made our way to the docks. After schlepping our bags to our boat, the Crookshanks, we concluded the evening with a very nice open-air marina side restaurant, “Snappas”.