A First Look from Tortue Villa

The happy vacationer has returned! And what do you know? I had a wonderful time! I have to say I'm more than a little embarrassed at how I worried and whined before the trip. It was, as I had suspected (and was continually assured), all for naught. I have tons of pictures and stories, and hardly know where to start(Sort of like the pile of coconut and salt water smelling laundry still staring at me from my bedroom floor). I guess the best place to start is at the beginning.

The morning I flew out of RDU was a little stressful (read shaking hands, nausea and hyperventilation), but I downed my pharmaceutical courage along with my orange juice and felt equal to the task of getting myself on the plane for the first leg of my trip( Raleigh to Charlotte). Again, I felt a little silly once on the plane ;we were no sooner in the air than the captain was announcing our landing.
What?!
Did I fall asleep?
These pills are great!

I met up with my travel companions, the kids of the other couple sharing the house with my parents, and until we had to board our flight we killed time with morning Bloody Marys and a lot of catching up. We were a motley group boarding that flight; I had popped another xanax, and was looking forward to being poured into my seat for the duration of the flight. Excessive pill popping? Perhaps, but I was taking no chances. I just made sure my peeps knew to make sure I got off the plane and pointed me in the direction of baggage claim once we landed.

We landed in St Maarten at 4:15, and should have had plenty of time to catch the 5:00 ferry to Anguilla, but the best laid plans and all that. Baggage claim took a life time, and by the end we were laying bets as to who was going to be shopping for new underwear. Then we hit some crazy traffic jam on the way to the ferry (of course) and we missed not only the 5:00 ferry, but the 6 and 6:30 as well. We did manage to catch the last ferry heading to Anguilla at 7, so by the time we got through customs and loaded our luggage into the two cars waiting for us (along with a celebratory Carib beer) it was pitch black. I had to wait until the next morning to check out our view.

It was worth the wait. These were all taken from the veranda off the living room of our villa, I don't even know if I can put into words just how gorgeous(breath taking,really)it was(do you hate me yet?).



I'll be writing more about the week's happenings and posting more pictures as well. There is just too much to put into one post! But for now I'll leave you with one more picture. This is a view of our villa (we're on the top floor) from the beach below.