Good morning. You fools were expecting an update from Tortola and that’s where you’ve gone wrong! We both checked the flight loads again this morning. 18 seats open. We had felt confident enough in those numbers to book a hotel. We arrived back at Miami international around 8:35am. Security was relatively painless and we battled the long hallways and aimlessly meandering crowds that Miami seems to have as its trademark. We stopped briefly at the Turkish Airlines lounge, but it was very closed-in and sad and I ate an underripe banana before leaving disappointed.
We arrived at the dungeon of American Eagle gates just as the flight to Tortola started boarding. It went quick since there were less than 50 people on the plane and we approached the desk to say we were standby. There was one other standby with a lower priority and we were asked if we were willing to split up since there was only one seat left. I beg your pardon? Weight and balance restrictions apparently. As someone who not only flies planes, but flies that exact plane, needing to takeoff or land with 17 open seats is absurd. You can always figure out ways to get more people on. In my entire captaining career, I only ever had to kick three people off of an already FULL flight, which involved a short runway out of Jackson Hole during a snow storm, carrying extra fuel, people with large ski equipment and heavy bags, and Jackson is a high-altitude airport requiring extra power to clear the mountains. I initially thought I’d need 7 open seats on that occasion, but recalculated to make it happen with just 3. To be required to leave with 17 open seats is bananas — lots of underripe bananas. Anyway, we surrendered our seat to the standby below us who probably breathed a massive sigh of relief and that was that.
We were stunned for a minute as the gate agent asked us if we’d like to be relisted on the next flight. Since there were no other flights to Tortola today, that was an easy no. We’ve done this dance in Miami two years ago. This airport and its operations cannot seem to handle the slightest complication in flight planning. It’s like the Newark of the southeast. I asked Nicole about Bonaire. It was supposed to have left already, but was delayed. I listed us as we power walked to the gate and checked in there — immediately getting seats together in the back of the plane in row 32. We boarded a flight to Bonaire about five minutes after leaving the gate to Tortola. Very normal. As Nicole said, “We got on a flight to Bonaire like it was a city bus.”
After receiving a few compliments on my avocado man t-shirt (inspired by René Magritte and designed by Nîcole), we settled into our seats and immediately got to work on recalibrating our trip. Rental cars canceled and rebooked, flights switched, and most mercifully — Mary Beth, the lady who runs the hotel we had booked on Virgin Gorda was extremely accommodating and basically said whenever we get there (if ever) was fine. She used to be a flight attendant, so perhaps she could sympathize easier than most.
It was a two and a half hour flight down to Bonaire, sitting just above Venezuela. During the flight, Nicole had an idea. She saw a flight going from Bonaire to St Martin this evening at 635 pm. That would put us in good striking distance of Tortola. Furthermore, the standby options out of St Martin to Tortola looked grim on any date, so I used some points to secure us confirmed seats there from St Martin. If we had stayed in Bonaire until the 19th as originally planned, the flight schedules would have required us to fly from Bonaire to Curaçao to St Martin to St John to Tortola and would take 12 hours to accomplish (assuming seats were available). The cost to do that would also have been $4200 for normal people.
Upon arrival in Bonaire, we were supposed to pay the entry tax of $75 per passenger, but transiting is free so tough toodles to the government of Bonaire. This did cause quite a bit of pushback from the customs officer who was picking a fight with us over transiting. We said our final destination was St. Martin, but he insisted that our final destination was Tortola which was scheduled the day after. To which Nicole said, “Then by that logic, the United States is our final destination since we’ll eventually go there.” Aware he had lost the argument, he still tried to get in one last word about us not understanding his point, but before he could finish his sassy retort, we took our passports and walked into Bonaire.
We picked up our compact manual pickup truck (because that was the cheapest option). It is indeed compact. Our big bags went in the truck bed and we got cozy with our backpacks in the confined cab with no backseat. We started driving south without any true destination. We made a few stops along the way because we saw some flamingos. The airport is also named Flamingo International. They seem to like this area. It is very salty and dry.
We eventually made our way to Willemstoren, an old lighthouse on the coast. There were also various ruins nearby that made for some good scenery with the bright blue of the ocean. There were also the remnants of the old slave quarters. They were exceptionally small. No en-suite or kitchenettes for sure. There was zero signage or information to describe the site and it was only because I had read a little bit about them before we arrived that I had any idea what we were looking at. Apparently at least two would share a hut and up to six would be crammed in there. They worked in the nearby salt mines, and prior to the huts would have to walk seven hours from town to the salt areas. How sweet of those slave masters to accommodate them in such luxury. (Sarcasm if it wasn’t clear)
We then drove through the main town and eventually pulled over at a pizza restaurant to get some much needed hydration, and obviously a pizza. From there we went straight to the airport. The Avis employees, rather perplexed by our flight situation, said they’d hold our reservation until after our flight left in case we needed to extend a day at no cost. Very cool. As it turned out, we had no issue getting seats to St Martin on Winair. And while a large number of open seats doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything (as we learned this morning), the 40 open seats on an ATR that seats just 48 to begin with was more than enough. This flight operates just once a week, and perhaps that is too often based on the lack of customers. But at least for today, it proved to be an invaluable tool.
Because there were so few of us on the flight, Nicole and I actually had our names called to board. The previous boarding announcement was entirely in Dutch, so that’s our excuse. With all of us onboard, the plane took off 30 minutes early. It was just under two hours up to St Martin as we watched the setting sun. I booked a hotel through id90, Nicole updated Mary Beth, and all the pieces seem to be coming into place again. We touched down in St Martin at a time that avoided the throngs of American or European tourists and breezed through the usually chaotic airport. We got a taxi to our hotel and sat outside to listen to the rain pass through as we sat down and relaxed for the first time in a while.
passports & pepto bismol 