A Journal, with Pictures

Sat­ur­day was a day of “option­al side activ­i­ty” such as snor­kel­ing, con­tin­ued site see­ing and shop­ping or just hang­ing out. The weath­er was a big top­ic since a trop­i­cal dis­tur­bance had moved into the Bahamas and the Keys mov­ing in our direc­tion. It was over­cast but warm, with the trade winds pick­ing up. We relaxed, chat­ted with oth­ers who chose to hang out, had lunch again at Sip Sip and did a lit­tle more site see­ing. There was a recep­tion at Valen­tines resort in the evening. Every­one obvi­ous­ly had enjoyed their stay and were a lit­tle bit sad to be leav­ing so soon. Joyce and I then had din­ner with the “orga­niz­ers”, Joe, Nan­cy and Jim at a restau­rant called The Land­ings. The food and com­pa­ny were great and we had a fine evening. We were all packed and had done every­thing to get ready for tomor­rows depar­ture, so it was bed time.

We woke up to the sound of rain, heavy rain and talked to Flight Ser­vice and filed. The dis­tur­bance had moved north but we could skirt the real bad stuff and get to Fort Pierce safe­ly. We left the hotel in the rain, took the fer­ry to North Eleuthera in the rain and arrived at the air­port in the rain. When we cleared cus­toms and they pulled the plane up the rain stopped and ceil­ing lift­ed. We left at 9:30 climbed to 3000 feet got our clear­ance, climbed to 8000 feet through mod­er­ate rain show­ers and clouds, got between lay­ers at 8000 feet and asked to stay there. We were in and out of show­ers to Grand Bahama Island then out of the clouds and land­ed in Fort Pierce with a visu­al approach on time at 11:00. We cleared cus­toms, refu­eled, grabbed sand­wich­es to go, and were in the air at noon and home in Hilton Head by 2:00, in the after­noon in time to see the end of the golf on TV and have din­ner with friends.

It was a fun trip thanks to Joe McMonigle, Nan­cy and Jim knowl­len­berg for all their hard work and all of the atten­dee’s who joined us from all across the US and Canada.