“It’s Your Captain Again…”

We have arrived in Grenada.

I was hoping to have a quiet week at work, and it mostly was, aside from a few heart attack inducing moments that were unnecessary. Nathan is currently experiencing the calm between jobs and since calm is a word that’s never been uttered at my job, to get away mostly unscathed is a success.

Our main goal for Friday, November 17th was to stay awake until boarding at 11:05 PM. We had our typical Friday evening dinner of pizza with sausage and far too much garlic to make the red-eye to JFK comfortable. The airport shuttle picked us up at 8:15, and the ride to the airport, the TSA screening (No TSA Precheck past 7:45, what!?) and the boarding process all went smoothly.

The flight to JFK was quite bumpy but I managed to get two hours of sleep. We arrived at 5 AM to the bustling JetBlue terminal and had to maintain our upright posture until 9 AM when we were to board our flight to Grenada. Breakfast was at an airport restaurant whose menu pictures and descriptions far outperformed the actual breakfast. At least for mine anyway. I do not recommend airport eggs benedict, and yes, I understand the fault was all mine for not realizing where I was.

Boarding time arrived and after three gate changes and one ‘flight delayed’ false alarm, we boarded pretty much on time. We had the most diligent flight attendant who policed the overhead bin space with vigor. (“Who bag is dis”?!)

Of course, we were all boarded, in our stifling, no air movement, sweaty box when the pilot got on the PA and told us the airspace to the south of us was closed and there would be a delay in taking off…Our 9:50 departure had been pushed back to 1 PM.

Sweaty and tired, unshowered since Friday, now is the time you hope to just fall asleep and wake up when the flight is over. We never did find out why the airspace was closed, but it miraculously reopened so we could take off around 10:30.

The flight was two movies long, and with a lot of turbulence. The kind of flight where they keep the fasten seatbelt sign illuminated for longer than most bladders will allow.

Besides the turbulence, the flight was pretty uneventful, and we landed in Grenada roughly an hour late. Standing in line for customs and immigration was rough, but there were no hassles, and we left the airport, hopped in a cab, for the very short ride to our AirBnb.

After we got settled in, we walked to the nearest commercial area to scope it out and have dinner near the water.

The waitress was a lovely local woman who was excited to give us tastes of two local rums. The first, and her favorite was Rivers Royal, and it was smokey and smelled like molasses. The other was Clarke’s Court, and it was a little cleaner on the palate.

I expect more local rum tasting in my future, if nothing else, to experience it for my work homies!