Sunday, February 27, 2011
It is still windy, but now it is a bit squally and rainy to boot, not much incentive to get going and head into Nanny Cay in preparation for storing the boat and returning to Europe, but I need to do it. I still need to reconfirm my flights today and will take care of that while I have internet connectivity. I am using my Ubiquiti Bullet external antenna raised up to the port spreader, it does get an excellent signal but oddly enough I get a bad connection to the Last Resort (300 feet away) but pick up a better signal from Marina Cay, about 1 mile away, but such are the vagaries of Wi-Fi. WHAT A MESS! I kept on changing my return flight segment from Antigua to Frankfurt on Condor airlines around and managed to irrevocably and irretrievably mess up my flight and now the return leg has expired. The airline was kind enough to state that they will refund me the “fuel surcharge” costs now that I’m no longer taking their flight, but only upon written request and it might take some time to refund. I called up the airline via Skype earlier this morning to confirm my flight for tomorrow and got the good news from them. The flight is sold out from Antigua to Germany (the German operator wouldn’t talk to me about this, I had to call a US Toll-free number as the new ticket originates outside Germany) but they did offer me a seat on the flight from the following Monday, but that would be far too late for my commitments in Germany this coming week. I spent 4 hours on the web and on Skype trying to find an affordable flight departing in the next 2-3 days and met with no success at all – either one-way prices of over $2000 with more flight changes and stopovers than I wanted. One itinerary, over $2000, wanted to me spend 2 overnights to get to Germany! I now have one option open on United Airlines using my hoarded frequent flyer miles and am awaiting confirmation that they will fly me out this Thursday. And since the saver awards and the economy awards are not available I can say good-bye to many, many miles. For dinner I motored the dinghy across to Saba Rock, with a thriller in my backpack as I expected Sunday night to be dead. I was surprised to see the place packed to the rafters, it seems that the BVI Kite Jam was here tonight and the crowd was young and energetic and the band was doing a great (and loud) job.
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