I escaped from island life for ten days, returning to Ontario to visit family and friends.  Saying farewell to heat and humidexes that were both in the high eighties, I was relishing the idea of slipping on a cozy sweater, track pants and thick socks.  I was lucky to only have two boats and two planes on the trip home and both modes of transportation were relatively calm and stress-free.  I flew WestJet direct from San Juan, Puerto Rico.  There were television shows and movies available on the screen on the back of the seat and munchies to purchase, so I was nice and comfy.  

The doors of the airport in Toronto slid open and the cold, fresh air felt great.  I sucked it in, along with the exhaust fumes from cars waiting for passengers, found my rental car kiosk and within minutes was bopping down the highway to Christmas music blaring from the radio in my SUV.  It was late at night and I was hungry and Tim Horton signs beckoned.  I was home.

My daughter, her husband and my 3-month old grandson were waiting up for me after my hour-long drive to their place.  I stuffed some cheese and crackers in my mouth, sipped some wine and cuddled that baby; it was a great beginning to celebrating the Christmas season with my loves.

Before I could whistle the 10 Days of Christmas, I was driving back to the airport, sad from my goodbyes but happy with new memories. 

My first flight went well although a ten-month old baby sitting on her mother’s lap beside me, hit her head on my tray table and cried.  Eek.  I arrived in Miami with several hours to spare and took my time peering into shops and calmly waiting thirty-minutes to get  some Pizza Hut pizza.  I knew I had a very short time between my next flight from San Juan to Tortola.  I asked the airline clerk if I could get a closer seat on the flight and she moved me up a few rows.  I was  wedged between a large lady with long hair and a younger guy who kept making the sign of the cross, head, heart, shoulder to shoulder.  Eek.  I squeezed in and took a package of red licorice out of my purse and proceeded to munch away while the large lady flipped her hair all around like a stripper doing a pole dance. 

We landed in San Juan.  I walked with the throng of passengers towards the baggage claim, all the while watching the minutes tick by.  When I saw an airline lady, I asked about my next flight.  “Do not wait for your luggage!  Go at once to the ticket agent and then through security or you’ll be spending the night at the airport!”  Eek.  She pointed out my route, out the front door, past the post office, up the escalator, yada yada yada.

“You have to run fast!” said the next agent I encountered.  “The gate has closed!”

And so I ran, or rather walked very fast, down a very long hallway and then another and then another.  A frenzied gate agent asked if I was Virginia as I raced down the last hall.  I was escorted very quickly out onto the tarmac and into the plane.  I kept my gaze to the ground as I walked past seated passengers who must surely have been aggravated waiting for ‘one last person to arrive.’

We took off.  We bumped.  We swayed.  We dropped.  I took long, deep breaths.  I broke out in a cold sweat.  I focused on an ‘exit’ sign.  I fumbled for the vomit bag.  But, I made it and the pizza stayed down. 

It felt good to step onto land although my stomach still churned.  I was to enter the British Virgin Islands on a spousal work visa and had a FedEx envelope full of official papers.  But, there was apparently one paper I didn’t have and I was ushered off to wait in a stifling office until Steve could ‘rescue’ me.  My husband was located on the other side of the door and came in to set me free but the men in blue kept my passport until I produce the necessary documents.  (It's been three days and I am still without my passport.)

Then:  no luggage.  My case chock full of gadgets and gizmos and Christmas gifts was still in San Juan.  We filed a missing bag report and headed out into the night air.  A gust of wind almost upset my already teetering balance. 

“The boat is waiting,” our taxi driver told us.  I popped two Gravol and squeezed Steve’s hand, the same one I’d be white-knuckling shortly.

“It’s gonna be rock and roll tonight, “ said the captain of the small boat.  “The ocean is wild.”

I closed my eyes and cried without tears.  I am afraid of the ocean.

We started off slowly and I watched the harbor lights grow smaller.  There were just three of us on the boat and the captain gunned the motor.  For the next forty-five minutes we not only rock and rolled, we skid to the left and to the right.  Several times there was nothing but space between the boat and the sea.   We tipped, we bumped, we banged.  I can unequivocally say that I have never been so frightened in my entire life.

With one hand I had hold of the front of Steve’s shirt, with the other I clung to his trousers.  At one point I squeezed his hand so hard that his wedding band was indelibly ground into his finger.

I did not speak other than the intermittent  moaning of my husband’s name. Steve tried to reassure me that we’d be okay but at one particular airborne moment, Steve swore.  Loudly.  With him scared, my fear exacerbated.  I tried to focus on something other than the massive whitecaps swirling at the back of the boat.  I pictured my baby grandson’s face and his drooling smiles that have recently appeared.  That helped but also brought tears.  What if I never saw him again?  What if this was the end?  It couldn’t be!  I hadn’t had long enough here!  I had to see my children again, laugh with them, hug them, love them.  I moved into survival mode.

If I was thrown overboard or if the boat capsized what would happen to my body, other than the inevitable soaking.  Could I surface?  Would I surface?  I’m not a swimmer although I can get from one side of a small pool to another but this was a churning Atlantic ocean for God’s sake.  But if I was determined to live, and I was, could I save myself?  I really thought that was unlikely.

 The captain mentioned a few times that this or that channel was worse, but that it would settle down.  And after almost an hour, we reached the dock in one piece, physically anyway.  I wrapped my arms around myself on the walk back to our room, met our puppy Hopi at the screen door, picked him up and fell on the bed with him and cried. 

But we made it.