PICTURE EXTRAVAGANZA

A laundry day that doesn't suck

Chloe viewing the dessert menu at a restaurant

Sev multi-tasking

YOU'VE BEEN SELECTED??

I’m not sure how it happened, but the two most nefarious teenagers, namely Connor and Severin, notwithstanding the fact that they had just spent six hours terrorizing passengers, chickens, small birds, and byways while waiting at the previous airport, miraculously procured TSA PRE-CHECK status at the airport in Puerto Rico.

Put that one down as one of the greatest mysteries of the universe, next to what happened to Amelia Earhart, who shot JFK, and where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.  None of these are as perplexing to me as the pressing matter of just how in the heck Severin and Connor got selected for TSA Pre-Check.

We arrived at the airport in Puerto Rico at the miserable hour of 4am hoping to beat the crowds.  This plan didn’t work.  At all. 

After hefting all our luggage through the US Agriculture inspection, minus our carry-ons, for some common-sense defying reason, we headed to the security checkpoint to find an epic Disneyland-like line.  A line without the promise of a thrilling ride mind you.  This line moved, or should I say, didn’t move, at a snail’s pace.  And snail pace would be a generous description given the fact that a snail actually moves.  From the end of the line we watched Severin and Connor bound gleefully to the vacant PRE-Check lane and within minutes they were both deemed satisfactorily innocuous without so much as removing their shoes or offending liquids.  It would be another hour and a half before we  would reunite with them.  We would spend the next 90 minutes in a cattle line up as we waited to be stripped of all our belts and shoes, pocket change, and any residual dignity, then argue with an official, and in Chloe’s case, submit to a less than massage-like pat-down. 

The way I see it, these boys were selected and picked out like a blind taste test with arbitrary results.  Not unlike the Mexican checkpoint I went through years ago where you were instructed to push a button which commenced green and red flashing lights until a few seconds later it arrives indiscriminately on one of the colors; red you get screened, green you do not.  It was mind boggling to know a tattoo riddled thug could push the button and fortuitously get a green light and go right on by the screening point, while a nun, if given the red, would be searched and inspected like a drug mule.

But somehow these boys both pulled the mother of all green lights and got the Pre-Check.  Did the airport not know this would leave them with two impish boys unattended by adults?  I was sure the antics at the last airport would have gotten them on some airport naughty list.  And yet they were free to roam, unescorted, while Chloe, not much different than a nun, had to submit to a pat-down.  To add insult to injury, once we made it through, we arrived to find two bored boys giving us the look like, ‘what took you so long?’

This arbitrary fortune is a unique way to keep our country safe--though I'm not sure reliable or effective--that said, our capricious boys sure didn’t seem to mind.

OUR APOLOGIES TO THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT

I would not be surprised if our latest airline antic gets all Skillmans permanently banned from sitting in the front row of any commercial airline.  Though we meant no harm the damage was done. And really, to offer as an excuse, I think we were slap happy tired from our recent fiascos at the dock and taxi ride, not to mention our six hour wait at the airport.

The first flight of our four-leg journey home was late in the evening on a small little airline from the island of Tortola into Puerto Rico.  It was a fairly small plane that held about 25 passengers.  Somehow Mark, Connor, and I scored the roomy seats in row one—a fortuitous arrangement for us, though it turned out not so much for the poor flight attendant.

The young flight attendant was super nice and outgoing.  We stowed our bags, buckled our seat belts, and settled in for the short hop over to PR.  He then shut and latched the heavy plane door and unfolded his seat and belted himself in.  From his jump seat, he was facing towards Mark just inches away, sitting knee to knee.  Of course being in such close proximity to the attendant, Mark couldn’t help making some random remark to him.

The curious thing is, neither Connor nor I remember exactly what Mark said.  The only thing we remember is that whatever he had said, it was corny and we began to laugh.  We weren’t laughing at what Mark said, we were laughing at him, embarrassed that he would say such an well-worn yarn to the poor guy who had probably heard the joke a million times before. 

As the flight attendant stood and reached for the microphone, Connor and I looked at each other and began to laugh harder.  As he began to read the pre-flight instructions, he looked over at Connor and I trying to muffle our laughs and struggled to remain composed.  Connor and I then both bit our lips as we tried to be serious and focus on his instructions.  But when we looked up at the flight attendant his eyes widened and his mouth began to contort in a silly grin as he tried to choke back his own laughter.  This made Connor and I bite our lips harder.  All three of us began holding our breath in an awkward attempt to stave off an impending deluge of inappropriate laughter.  Our faces reddened and our resolves for maturity weakened.  Suddenly and horrifically, we were all overtaken by the giggles. 

Both Connor and I looked at each other in a wide eyed panic, knowing the situation was about to escalate into the uncontrolled.  What made it all the worse, and admittedly added to the absurdity, was that our flight attendant had a live microphone now broadcasting his contorted chuckles.  He suddenly turned his back on the passengers futilely attempting to repress the ambush of giggles that had overtaken him.  With his back to us, he gave the impression of a lead singer of a rock band as his shoulders shook up and down and his body contorted while holding the microphone up high. Only this was no concert. 

Safety instructions don’t sound imperative nor important when they are read under the strain of laughter.  I’m sure the passengers behind us were confused about the plight of our poor flight attendant, perhaps wondering if he was having an epileptic fit of some sort as his body twitched under the strain.  Sadly, what he was experiencing was a pernicious rash of childish laughter that refused to abate.

Finally, both Connor and I buried our faces, pulling the neck of our shirts to our forehead like frightened turtles.  There we stayed until at last the poor guy was able to gain composure, turn and face the passengers, and read the cautionary instructions with enough feigned dignity to mask his plight.  Only twice did he let out a chortle, passing it for a cough to those unaware, then finally he finished his public safety announcement.

Having that portion of the flight wretchedly completed he sat down, strapped himself into his seat, and the plane took off.  Connor and I timidly peaked our heads out of our shirts and gasped for fresh air.  It took another ten minutes of flight before we were all able to look at each other again.

Luckily the whole moronic episode was quickly set to rest.  As we were all situated just inches away from each other, we found the proximity conveniently close to profusely apologize to him—mostly for the lame comment by Mark, and of course, for our childish outburst that could have been the cause of his career setback.

Thankfully he was cool about it and we enjoyed a long conversation about his world travels over the course of the remaining flight.  Connor and I dutifully kept our promise to not look at him during the final approach announcement.  His final broadcast came off without a hitch, his career now restored.

Chloe thought he looked Robert Downey Jr.

We, however, may never get to sit in the first row of any flight again.  But we blame Mark for that.

New Pics!! AIRPORT ENTERTAINMENT

After our harrowing taxi ride to the Road Town Airport on Tortola we had about six hours to kill waiting for our flight.  Chloe sat and read a book and played games on her ipad... 

...but this was not enough amusement for the boys. 

This poor little island airport was about to be overtaken by two teenaged boys in search of entertainment.  They had no trouble inventing a wide variety of boredom busters.  

Entertaining activities included: chasing chickens, indoor small bird watching, and flying paper airplanes.  

A solid hour was spent trying to locate the four power outlets hidden at the terminal from which to charge their battery-diminished devices.  One was found in the most random and death-defying location perched precariously over a second story balcony.  

Next came the hunt for the coveted secret internet passwords so they could get some wi-fi.

Later, from the location of the upstairs power outlet the tossing golf ball sized paper wads commenced.  A rain of oversized wads rained down from above much to the vexation of nearby passengers.  

After wearing out their welcome inside the airport they took to the streets outside where they invented what should be added to our ever growing list of exciting new x-games sports—Jumping 3^rd world street gutters.  In this endeavor, Sev had a minor set-back and returned to the airport with a slight limp and had to change his shorts.

Sev wouldn't jump again for the video

Apparently he had only one good pair of shorts left

and he was wearing them!

Later, Sev made an imaginary friend out of Connor’s skim board...

...while Connor was delighted to discover that the hand dryers in the public bathroom worked well as a substitute hair dryer.  Connor seemed a bit out of sorts not having fashion hair while on the boat.

Checking out of the British Virgin Islands by boat cost us seventy-five cents for all five of us to sail out, but here at the airport, we were taxed $100 to depart via air.

I guess it was a small price to pay considering the chickens the boys traumatized, the birds they scared, the internet they sapped, the people mauled by paper airplanes and paper balls, not to mention the power grid sucking amounts of electricity we parasited. 

I’d say we got our money’s worth in entertainment.

At long last it was time to board the airplane.

New Pics! CHECKING OUT: DRAMA ON LAND AND SEA

We got up this morning and motored our way back to svOrion’s home harbor in Manuel Reef.  We had a simple day ahead, or so it seemed.  The plan was to motor in to the harbor, tether the boat to its designated slip, toss our bags on shore, a few loads of laundry into the marina’s laundry mat, and as it finished, the cycle in the dryer, we would all take a real and luxuriously hot shower, before heading to the airport. 

Once again, bringing the boat in to its slip offered Mark a chance to hone his piloting skills and the kids and I the chance to use every deckhand skill we’d practiced before setting sail—and, as it ended up, a few we never practiced, nor anticipated.  Parking would prove a dubious affair which would leave a captain cursing, a deckhand stranded on the dock, another jumping ship into the murky disgusting bay, and two females woman-handling fenders like an old fashioned video game of pong.

The slip where the Orion belongs is narrow--narrow being a generous word.  And the marina itself lies in such shallow waters that bringing your boat into the dock should be yet another extreme sport featured in the X-Games.  Red Bull sponsorship should be awarded to any salty captain that can successfully do this while staving off 20 knot crosswinds and not hitting any neighboring boats--or the dock for that matter.  Unlike the massive and intimidating dock in St. Thomas' Charlotte Amalie where parallel parking is the norm, this small local dock requires boats to be BACKED IN to its narrow little slip.  The procedure which roughly resembles wiggling ones heft into a girdle after you’ve hit a buffet.

The way in is as narrow as a small alley.  On the starboard side where you will be backing in there are boats closely clustered together.  And off to the Port side, the sand rises into a shallow shelf that sits just .2 feet from the surface (yes, that was “point-two”).  

Mark’s job was to motor in the constricted waterway past his slip, turn on a dime around his mooring buoy, then carefully back the boat into the dock without hitting the sailboats on either side.  The boys were at the bow of the boat with the hook ready to grab the mooring ball’s loop.  Our first and significant problem arose when they couldn’t find the loop because there wasn't one there.  In a perfect sequence, there’s really only about ten seconds to grab the loop with the hook and thread the port and starboard lines through in order to successfully tie the boat securely in the front to the buoy.  Otherwise, in this case, we ran the risk of drifting through our slip and into the boats on either side.  Which is exactly what we began to do because there was no loop to thread our lines though.  

When our first attempt to leash ourselves to the mooring ball was thwarted by the marina's disrepair, Chloe and I proceeded to ward off the boats to our side with the fenders like a game of pong on its most slowest and most beginner setting.  In a controlled effort to keep the boat from swinging any wider like a dashboard hula girl, Sev jumped onto the doc from the aft of the boat to secure a line.  The result was stranding Sev on the doc as Mark decided the best thing to do was to motor back out into the wide bay and try again.  As we pulled away from the dock, it was sort of sad to see our comrade on dry land as we motored back out for a re-do.  Especially since it meant we had just lost a very helpful and needed deckhand.  

As we did so, the hook Connor was using fell overboard and started to drift into the mangroves.  This hook was essential to a successful operation “Land-ho”.  The water was murky and strewn with green algae which became spludgelike kryptonite, dulling the keen reflexes of our normally fearless deckhand Connor who would have normally lept into the water and recovered the hook.  On this errand he hesitated, probably out of fear of contracting some incurable rash.  But without that hook Mark’s chances of acquiring that Red Bull Sponsorship and our getting safely docked was doomed. 

Connor gave me a look, as close to cussing I’ve ever seen the boy, then, in an attempt to insulate himself from the mire, he deftly untied the sea kayak and sent it into the water.  Unfortunately it overturned as he did so.  With this he shot another look of exasperation.  And if this little drama had been drawn for the cartoon network, the top of Connor's head would have been sketched exploding off with steam coming from his ears.  I was certain Connor would make the sign of the cross before throwing himself into the repulsive bog, but he did not.  With tightly squished eyes and downturned clenched mouth he submitted to his fate.  In he went and as fast as he could manage he swam to the mired hook, snatched it and quickly perched himself safely in the kayak.  There he proceeded to paddle, sludged slightly in green, and made his way to the defunct mooring ball and waited for the boats return. 

As Mark motored out of the narrow sea lane, the starboard side of the boat ran aground in the .2 feet of water.  Luckily aground in our case meant a soft sandy bed, and not a boat damaging reef, but nonetheless we were aground.  Mark said something unintelligible and then used the two engines to wiggle us off the sandy bed.  

Sev, still at the dock was watching his fellow crew, Connor in the kayak, Chloe and I on deck, and Mark swinging the boat.  There Sev remained, frustrated and unable to help (although maybe he was laughing at us).  

Once we made it to deeper waters, Mark ever so slowly made a u-turn and headed back to the narrow alley to approach our mooring ball where Connor, with hook stowed onto his plastic vessel, was waiting for us, ready to thread our mooring lines through a makeshift eye he would jury-rig by knotting the slime covered rope at the ball. 

I am happy to report that our second try was met with precision success.  Connor skillfully looped the two bow lines through his improvised eye, tossed them to me up on the deck where I quickly secured them to the cleats.  This gave us tension and a strait lineup to allow Mark to slowly back the boat to the dock where Sev stood.  Connor wasted no time getting himself to the dock and out of the fray before I made it to the stern.  I tossed more lines to the dockside but Connor was so winded he missed all three of my throws.  Sev pushed him aside and caught the lines on his first try.  Today was Connor's turn to arrive back at the boat thoroughly exhausted.

At last we were perfectly situated on the doc and Mark was able to stop the engines for the last time. 

When taking any sailing class you learn this grave fact:  that there are two types of sailors:  ones that have run aground and ones that haven’t YET run aground.  Before arriving on the dock Mark was a member of the latter group and 10 minutes before our sailing adventure ended he officially joined the club of the former. 

With that we thought the drama was over…but there would be more.  Although not without a nice calming lull in the form of a nice pay shower and two loads of laundry at the marina.

After the docking fiasco, Connor above all, was most looking forward to a shower.  Washing away the crusty layers of sailors grime was like taking a mud slicked truck to a coin operated car wash.  A two-week layer of salt, sand, and petrified SPF swirled down the shower drain and soothed the tension of our recent docking drama.  There is nothing like a hot fresh water shower from a luxuriously fixed showerhead bolted to the wall to ease your reluctance to come back to shore. 

Little did we know our calm nerves were about to live on the edge once again.  This time it would be in the form of a taxi ride to the airport.

 Freshly showered and bellies full of burgers and Roti’s, we called for a cab to head to the airport.  Compared to the nerve-wracking fiasco hours before at the dock, our next wild adventure appeared innocuous at first, arriving in the form of a nice Toyota Land Cruiser and a tiny island man who would drive us to the airport on the other side of the island.

Our soft-spoken Jamaican driver stood no taller than Chloe.  His big white toothy grin creased his face as he greeted us and crammed all our bags and dive gear into the back. Mark took the roomy spot up front, which left the four of us to burrow tightly into the back seat.  Each of us a bit envious of Mark's room spot, though our envy would only last momentarily.  The old man climbed into the drivers seat, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel and we headed out. 

The curious thing about this British Island is that while driving on the left is the rule, the cars are distinctly American built with the steering wheel situated on the left as well.  That allows the front passenger to sit on the bustling side of the car nearest the center line of the road.

Mistakenly, we didn’t take the incident that occurred a mere ten seconds into our ride as a ominous sign of things to come.  As we departed the marina parking lot a car was jetting into the entrance and had no plans of slowing or using his side of the road.  Our driver’s turtle-like reflexes under-reacting to the near miss should have forewarned us.     

We drove on and discovered he was a friendly chatterbox who continued talking unaffected despite the near collision, only pausing to remark that the offending car and its driver seemed to be in an rush—a modus-operendi our island driver had never found himself in. 

“Rushed he must be. Silly it is.” He said.

The kids promptly nicknamed him “Yoda”.  Though I thought he was strait from the pages of Eat, Pray, Love—as if Katut, the medicine man had been reincarnated as an island taxi driver.

We drove on unaware that the reining theme of our ride to the airport would be white knuckles, shallow breathing, and silent prayers.  At a snails pace we threaded through the coastal traffic past trinket shops and hordes of crispy red cruise ship passengers.  All the while, our driver happily conversing with Mark up in the front street with one hand on the wheel and the other making sweeping gestures as he talked.

Then, like the gradual progression of light that comes as if a dimmer switch is being turned to full brightness, our driver got an idea.  He then merged unhurriedly onto a steep side street.

“A better way this is. Much faster we will go and prettier it is.” he pronounced.

The Land Cruiser banked sharply onto a narrow unkept road that arched high into the hillside.  Using the line divide more like crosshairs in a gun scope, instead of a separation of life and death as it was designed to be, we climbed the hillside like mountaineers seeking a lofty precipice.  All the while, Yoda continued his friendly conversation with one arm gesturing and pointing and the other carelessly perched upon the wheel.  Most of the time his gaze was turned in Mark’s direction, looking ahead only when a car careening towards us would come into his peripheral view. 

The road was an abbreviated version and missing in parts, hemmed by a crude rusty guardrail that seemed stitched by an unsteady hand.  As we climbed up using the centerline as a tether, cars would occasionally and alarmingly appear around blind corners rushing towards us.  Yoda would slowly align himself in the proper lane seconds before oncoming cars rushed passed then resume the center as if using it to read brail.  This happened repeatedly but Yoda was unconcerned.  No matter how harried it got, he never paused the conversation nor his hand motions.  

Mark, perched on the right and precariously close to the rushing oncoming traffic lifted his right hand and placed it on grab handle.  I was sitting just behind him on the right as well and quickly made sure my door was locked so as to insure I wouldn’t fly out of the car and into the center lane during the jerking wild turns that ensued.  This was not our first fray on wild untamed roads so we took it in stride.  The kids however, unaccustomed to 3^rd world roads, had become wide eyed and unnerved. Severin put his palms together in prayer-like fashion, Connor began hugging tightly to his backpack, and Chloe did both. 

Our driver could barely see over the dash, though he wasn’t often looking in that direction anyway.  Most of the time he was turned in Mark’s direction engaged in idle chatter.  

I began laughing at the kids and got my phone out to document their crazed reactions.

As Yoda promised, the view at the top was striking.  Through the open widow, the ocean and sand glistened down below.  But what struck the kids most was that it was waaaaay be-low and the kids didn’t want to look.  

Now that we had reached the top they realized we would now be descending steeply down the other side.  It was another harrowing ten minutes as we veered down the steep hill dodging traffic that suddenly appeared around sharp corners.  Along the way, two cars, impatient with our unhurried decent passed us on a blind corner.  This sent the kids to Devcon 1. 

Notice only ONE HAND on the wheel

Roads aren't that wide

With two harrowing adventures in a single day, one on land and one at sea, we were happy to arrive at the airport intact. Our kind driver “Yoda”, unaware that his teenaged passengers had desecrated his backset with copious amounts of nervous sweat, gave us a cheerful send off then went on his way.

So much for the refreshing shower at the marina.