seaangel
Guest
As promised I am writing a trip report. Hope it is informative, not too boring and I will apologize now if it is lengthy. I tend to like to share as much as I can.
Friday 6/9/06: After work, I had some last minute errands to finish getting ready to travel. Our plans were to all meet at a local Mexican Restaurant(the owner went on the trip with us, she was in my basic certification class, but that is another story). We met at 7:30pm for dinner and to load our luggage and dive gear into a trailer being pulled to Charlotte in the morning. Charlotte is a 2 1/2 hour drive from home for us. Plan was to meet up share rides to Charlotte.
Sat. 6/10/06 3am Alarm goes off, yuck I did not sleep well. Tossed and turned, kept trying to think of how I could make my carry on less heavy. Never came up with any ideas. Rolled out and took a shower, made coffee and got ready to pack up my carry on's in the car. Something made me stop and look at the mail that had been put on the counter. An envelope from DAN caught my eye, I knew my dive insurance was ok as I had just renewed it and had the new cards. I opened it and much to my dislike found my dive gear insurance had expired, I really don't recall getting a reminder. Oh, well couldn't call and did not have time to get online as it was now 4 am and I had to be to the house of our trip leader in 15 minutes, I rode with their family.
We left at 4:40 am to meet up with the other cars that were all caravaning together with us. 5:30am finally we are on the interstate, everyone is excited and talking the whole way. Time flew by and before we knew it we were at the airport. Now the fun, unload the luggage and gear, check in. I had my two bags piggybacked and strapped together, made it easy to pull through the lines. Lines were really long too! So long at the international check in for US Airways that they split us and sent half of us to the domestic counter. Big problem, there they were tryhing to check us in as to Antiqua and then we would have to re-check there to Dominica. Problems, only a 45 min lay over which they said was a minimum one and we would not have time to clear customs, immigration and make the flight. I was told to be firm that I had to be checked all the way to Dominica, and after about 35 min of being persisitant and a PIA to the agent we finally got it. Ok, things are looking better. We went off to have breakfast and wait to board. The flight to Antiqua was good, they gave all the group free headsets for all the problems we had getting our bags checked.
Antiqua, man it was warm, hot is not even a good discription. We had our own escort through customs and immigrations, did not seem to be any real problems. Boarded the Carbbian Star, and began sweating, it was really warm on that plane. We were about to get going and the pilot came over the intercom and said we were delayed because they had detected a problem with the hydrolic system. Not a good thing! Even with the doors open it was hotter than a sauna, meanwhile they worked on the left side hydrolic area on the prop and wing. LOL, the maintenance crew finally sprayed WD40 on the areas and whalla we were ready to go. I was still nervous, I prayed the whole 35min flight and little did we know that some of our luggage and gear was taken off during that time due to a weight problem. So, when arriving in Dominica and making our baggage claims there were about half of our group missing either all or part of their baggage.
Vans were there and ready to load us up to take to Ft. Young Hotel. We had 5 vans, in all one carried just baggage. The 2 hour ride was fun for the first hour, and then as it got dark it became long, winding, bumpy, HUNGRY, thirsty etc. The hotel was ready for us though, took us into the conference room for an orientation, Rum Punch!! and check in. Ken from the dive shop rearranged our dive time Sunday for 1pm to allow time for those without gear to get it on later flights. Sonja from the activities desk served us RUM PUNCH, was helpful with all kind of things like getting us extra keys. She had the restaurant manager bring us menus, take food orders so we would not have to wait once through check in.
Dinner was very good, steak or chicken. I had steak and 3 rum punches. Went to my room and crashed. All of my baggage made it, so I was set and could even sleep in!
See next thread for Day 1 dives.
Cindy
Friday 6/9/06: After work, I had some last minute errands to finish getting ready to travel. Our plans were to all meet at a local Mexican Restaurant(the owner went on the trip with us, she was in my basic certification class, but that is another story). We met at 7:30pm for dinner and to load our luggage and dive gear into a trailer being pulled to Charlotte in the morning. Charlotte is a 2 1/2 hour drive from home for us. Plan was to meet up share rides to Charlotte.
Sat. 6/10/06 3am Alarm goes off, yuck I did not sleep well. Tossed and turned, kept trying to think of how I could make my carry on less heavy. Never came up with any ideas. Rolled out and took a shower, made coffee and got ready to pack up my carry on's in the car. Something made me stop and look at the mail that had been put on the counter. An envelope from DAN caught my eye, I knew my dive insurance was ok as I had just renewed it and had the new cards. I opened it and much to my dislike found my dive gear insurance had expired, I really don't recall getting a reminder. Oh, well couldn't call and did not have time to get online as it was now 4 am and I had to be to the house of our trip leader in 15 minutes, I rode with their family.
We left at 4:40 am to meet up with the other cars that were all caravaning together with us. 5:30am finally we are on the interstate, everyone is excited and talking the whole way. Time flew by and before we knew it we were at the airport. Now the fun, unload the luggage and gear, check in. I had my two bags piggybacked and strapped together, made it easy to pull through the lines. Lines were really long too! So long at the international check in for US Airways that they split us and sent half of us to the domestic counter. Big problem, there they were tryhing to check us in as to Antiqua and then we would have to re-check there to Dominica. Problems, only a 45 min lay over which they said was a minimum one and we would not have time to clear customs, immigration and make the flight. I was told to be firm that I had to be checked all the way to Dominica, and after about 35 min of being persisitant and a PIA to the agent we finally got it. Ok, things are looking better. We went off to have breakfast and wait to board. The flight to Antiqua was good, they gave all the group free headsets for all the problems we had getting our bags checked.
Antiqua, man it was warm, hot is not even a good discription. We had our own escort through customs and immigrations, did not seem to be any real problems. Boarded the Carbbian Star, and began sweating, it was really warm on that plane. We were about to get going and the pilot came over the intercom and said we were delayed because they had detected a problem with the hydrolic system. Not a good thing! Even with the doors open it was hotter than a sauna, meanwhile they worked on the left side hydrolic area on the prop and wing. LOL, the maintenance crew finally sprayed WD40 on the areas and whalla we were ready to go. I was still nervous, I prayed the whole 35min flight and little did we know that some of our luggage and gear was taken off during that time due to a weight problem. So, when arriving in Dominica and making our baggage claims there were about half of our group missing either all or part of their baggage.
Vans were there and ready to load us up to take to Ft. Young Hotel. We had 5 vans, in all one carried just baggage. The 2 hour ride was fun for the first hour, and then as it got dark it became long, winding, bumpy, HUNGRY, thirsty etc. The hotel was ready for us though, took us into the conference room for an orientation, Rum Punch!! and check in. Ken from the dive shop rearranged our dive time Sunday for 1pm to allow time for those without gear to get it on later flights. Sonja from the activities desk served us RUM PUNCH, was helpful with all kind of things like getting us extra keys. She had the restaurant manager bring us menus, take food orders so we would not have to wait once through check in.
Dinner was very good, steak or chicken. I had steak and 3 rum punches. Went to my room and crashed. All of my baggage made it, so I was set and could even sleep in!
See next thread for Day 1 dives.
Cindy
