The End of a Remarkable Journey

What a week it has been. Beautiful Harbour Island, meeting new family, launching a couple into a new life together, playing with an engaging 7.5 month old. Hard to see it end.




The island seemed as sad to see us go as we were reluctant to let go of a wonderful week in "paradise." I've never seen what could be described as torrential rains before, but we experienced them along with crashing thunder and a lightening strike to our house, which is located on the rise above the beach. It poured. And poured. Enough to spout from the gutters.

I was glad that Reggie was coming in his taxi to take us to the dock instead of relying on a caravan of golf carts. I didn't want to start out this journey soaked to the skin.

We had an amazingly smooth ride across the bay to Eleuthera on the water taxi. I was also thankful for the full canopy, which kept us relatively dry. After we were loaded in the taxi at Eleuthera, our driver got in a spirited argument over who was there first and deserved to take us to the airport... a six-passenger fare is nothing to take lightly.

We arrived at the airport to find everyone who had planned to leave earlier in the day waiting for the airport to reopen and resume service. We almost had our first wedding party reunion. I was glad Ryan and Anna had left the day before and weren't caught with us. Anna's grandmother, who bought the family house on Harbour Island, told me she had spent the entire day there before without ever getting off the ground.

As is common during these storms, the lights flickered more than once, and a generator could be heard coming to life before they came on again.

Ours was the second plane out, delayed more than a couple of hours by the bad weather. It was good to be airborne, but I read the safety instructions twice since I was the only one sitting at the exit window over the wing of the plane.

The aquamarine that you see in this photo is the ocean, and the darker images are on the sea floor (clouds are white).

Sleeping is the best choice on this flight, and Grandma Weber and Carson were the only ones who crashed.










We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale just minutes before our connecting flight to Houston was scheduled to leave, but it was also delayed. Terry was just thankful to have landed and be heading toward customs. We were all glad it wasn't raining out on the tarmac. The Weber clan barely made that Houston connection, the last flight out. We flew south around some storms in the Gulf, but had time to eat together in Houston before splitting up for our Seattle and Portland flights.

I actually got into PDX half an hour early. We left Houston about 15 minutes early and evidently made up more time in flight. I was surprised since we taxied so long on the ground, I thought we were driving part of the way.

It was a long day. Over 21 hours after I got up in the Bahamas, I was home in Vancouver. Amazing that it can even be done in a day.

All in all, it is very good to be home.

You can see more pictures of the trip here.