A Day of Waiting

Alright. Where was I?

Oh, yes, we were stuck overnight in a cottage on a dock that was on the verge of flooding.

Surprisingly the dogs didn’t mind. We just had to hold them back from diving in.

We set the alarms early and crossed our fingers the 7:30am boat would be up and running.

It wasn’t.

We arrived at the boat place at 7:15 and were told the morning boats were a no-go. The new plan was to try again after lunch time. They recommended a spot nearby for breakfast and sent us on our way.

The breakfast spot ended up being a local hole-in-the-wall that didn’t look like much on the outside, but was cute and cozy on the inside. I had the veggie omelet with a side of tomato slices and dry wheat toast.

After that we had nothing to do, but wait.

Luckily we were able to pick up a free WiFi signal from the boat place that allowed the hours to tick by a little quicker (I also got a good amount of work done).

Around 11:30 we got more bad news. The boats were locked down for the rest of the day. That’s when panic started to set-in. Do we give up and go home? Do we wait it out another night? Do we find another way onto that damn island?!

My dad talked to manager after manager before he found someone that gave him an answer he liked. A competitor of our current boat company had slightly smaller, sturdier boats that were still shuttling people back and forth. They had some spots open on their 3:00 pm boat and were more than happy to bring us across. Sold!

Our boat company was amazing. They refunded our money, extended our rental another night at no charge, and allowed us to stay on property (with the free wifi and ac) until our 3:00pm departure time at the competitor’s site.

So we broke out the games and counted down the last hours before we were on the island.

I pulled out the sandwich ingredients around 1:00 for lunch.

We also had grapes, carrots sticks, and hummus to munch on.

Unfortunately, just as things were looking up, we got some sad news. Josh and Adena weren’t willing to risk not being able to catch a boat ride back to the mainland on Thursday (they HAD to be back to Chicago/ Los Angeles on Friday – no wiggle room allowed), so they decided to stay behind and head back west a day early.

We’ll miss them, but we all understood their decision. 🙂

We said good-bye, wished them both luck (hopefully we won’t have to wait until January to see them again!), and headed to the other boat’s dock.

This boat company had been running shuttles all day (and the day before!). They told us the water was rough, but they hadn’t had any problems and were running on schedule. We had high hopes this was our ticket across the water!

Apparently the fact that they were still running was even newsworthy.

(They caught some video of Maddie pacing back and forth before boarding. My pup is famous! 😉 )

We unloaded the car.

(Packing light is not a gene that runs in my family.)

Took hold of the precious cargo.

And boarded the boat.

We all braced for the worst – high winds, rough waves, and lots of rockin’ – but what we got was a semi-calm ride that could have been any other day (Debby Downer or not).

I’m not sure if it was because we had a great captain or because of all the build up, but the ride over wasn’t bad at all. It went quick, even the dogs didn’t seem to mind it.

When we arrived on the island, it was like we could all breathe again. We were here! We had made it! Yay!

And the beach had never looked better.

Right, guys?

Paradise. 🙂

We unloaded the groceries, checked out the beach, and Dad started on dinner.

Burgers for all.

And Ashley made a celebratory “We made it!” cake for dessert.

I think this pretty much sums up the rest of the evening. 😉

It’s vacation time!