{"id":1692,"date":"2017-12-18T15:03:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T19:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/normpyle.com\/2017\/12\/18\/island-shopping\/"},"modified":"2019-09-01T11:27:58","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T15:27:58","slug":"island-shopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kneedeepinit.com\/island-shopping\/","title":{"rendered":"Island (S)hopping"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Famous Mamita!<\/p>\n
Remember when our friend Mamita said we were \u201cisland shopping\u201d? It’s true, that’s what we’re doing, hopping and shopping. Maybe we’ll find the perfect place, and maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll end up in Detroit. Bazinga, maybe not!<\/p>\n
But we’ve now made it to our next stop in the Caribbean, and it’s been a bit crazy before and since! We said we’d be going an hour and a half away, but things changed (remember \u2013 tranquilo, amigos, go with the flow). The original plan was a one hour boat ride on the Utila Dream Ferry (the cheapest option), an air-conditioned high speed catamaran cruiser. Because of political strife on the mainland (that got very ugly), the ferry system had altered their schedule from a 4X\/wk schedule to daily, which allowed us to take it. This was to help islanders get around even while parts of the mainland were shut down. Then, as suddenly as the timetable changed to daily, it went back to 4X\/wk and not on the day we needed to travel.<\/p>\n
The Ferry – it runs some days, and not others<\/p>\n
Next thought: a smaller boat (with a larger price tag) that is used for charter trips around the island, to the mainland, between islands, etc. called the Lady Julia. So we set up that 1\u00bd hour jaunt about a week out. Then a cold front came through with some very strong winds, steady rain, high seas, etc. The front was going to head on out before departure, but it made us realize that boats were not as reliable as planes even with just the normal rainy season weather that comes in. Boats have to deal with the weather the whole 1-1\u00bd hours, and can’t dodge storms much at all. Planes OTOH, are only in the air a few minutes and can steer around squalls (we did a little bit of that on the way into Utila). At this point we were down to the last few days, we had no plan, and nobody around here thought that was weird at all. It was Sunday, we were leaving on Wednesday, but we didn’t know how we were doing that. Perfectly normal!<\/p>\n
So we decided it was going to be a plane (the most expensive option), but we were still hauling around those oversized duffels that we mistakenly purchased a year ago. That 4-seat Cessna we flew in to the island was so very tight that we didn’t want to repeat it. Because of that, we ended up on a 5-seat Piper (Cherokee maybe? – I really don’t know planes). Still a single-engine but with low-wings (vs. the high wings of the Cessna). We actually had room for our bags, dogs, everything, although we did have to sit facing the tail which makes for difficult photography. As soon as we booked it of course, the big ferry changed course and went back to a daily schedule! But we were booked at that point, no regrets!<\/p>\n
Maxwell calmed down after a while. So tranquilo!<\/p>\n
The next challenge came at 8 am when the tuk-tuk taxi came to get us. Two large rolling duffels, two medium duffels, two carry-on size backpacks, two dogs in carriers, two adult humans later, and we were off. We didn’t plan to start these adventures with those 2 extra medium duffels, but the size limitations on the big bags forced our hand. We had to buy them at the last minute when we discovered the Caribbean size limits for the large bags. Our new plan (plan – such a funny word!) is to dump them and downsize the XL rolling duffels to a L size, and pack them to bursting. We’ll see how that works out but if we can, we would then be able to move ourselves without help. Anyway, it was a tight squeeze but our driver Alejandro knew how to pack and shortly we were bouncing down the road with bags stacked everywhere. I’m holding onto bags to keep them from bouncing out & down the road, and also holding onto Maxwell the dog who is making a bit of a ruckus. He was pretty nervous during this period as he is during any transition, but he hung in there and the next thing you know we were at the airport.<\/p>\n
Safety Review Complete – let’s fly!<\/p>\n