From Bocas onto our first weeks in Bermuda

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Before we headed out

As usual we continued to enjoy Red Frog with our walks. The weather had been quite rainy so many of the walks were in the rain, under the trees.

John took up harvesting coconuts, they are so delish!

We saw our version of Tarzan on the beach again. And we ended our time in Bocas with a lovely evening and South African friends aboard their boat for dinner.

The challenge of getting home:

The 1st stage of our journey to Bermuda was the flight from Bocas airstrip to Panama City. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. We check in and then as we were check by immigration we were faced with a problem. Basically, we had been misinformed by the harbour authorities that we had 6 months in Panama, apparently that was false information. We only had 3 months, we were 3 months overdue to leave.

And they take this very seriously….we had to go into a tiny room with a female officer who took all sorts of weird info from us. Like, my mother’s name, (she’s been dead for 30 plus years) my height, weight, just such random info. They also needed the same crazy info from John, so that by the time we finished our plane had long gone. On the plus side the authorities were very nice and we were put onto a later flight.

In the city we had a good evening and restful night. We enjoyed breakfast and headed to the airport, everything going very well…..until we sat on the plane on the runway for over half an hour. This put us back by half an hour for our Miami flight. Miami airport was hellish. It was Spring Break weekend, festivals were on and the crowds in the airport insane. We had to get through Immigration, walking up and down those ridiculous long lines, stewing as time was passing. Then we had to get to baggage claim, (yes, even on connecting flights), where our bags were not found. We were told to go through without our bags, but the lines to pass via the safety checks had signs saying a 2 hour wait. We tried every which way to get ahead, we did all we could, but when we got to the gate the plane had left 10 minutes previously. And I found that my glasses were missing, somewhere in security???

But, I managed to find some magnifiers to make do with

To cut a long story short, we got rebooked for the next day and found a airport hotel, but we had no clothes, toiletries etc A very sweet receptionist at the hotel supplied 2 tooth brushes and packets of paste. The hotel was fine for sleeping at, but very basic so the next morning we headed to Miami airport to spend the day before our 6:42pm flight. In the airport we were able to find some basic toiletries, hairbrush, makeup and at last we felt half decent.

In Bermuda, back home:

We had been assured our luggage would be in Bermuda waiting for us. Well after the flight we found, nope, no luggage, and they weren’t sure where it was located. It’s about then that you realize how much one relies on getting your bags ~ clean clothes for a start would have been nice. It was 11:00pm when we arrived at Langata, everyone was asleep, so we made do with what we could find tucked away. The next day AA still had no luggage news so we went off to Hamilton and purchased some only in Bermuda expensive necessities. Back home we walked in the door and what met our eyes, but our luggage! Apparently it had been to Charlotte, sent to Bermuda and delivered to us. Life was good!

Week 1

Our first week was spent with a few morning walks; walks to the dunes with Winter. She’s Chrissies very sweet dog who lives upstairs.

Of course seeing family, was a priority, they were all working or in school, but some visiting was managed.

We started some chores, for example Ruben had his power washer going around the walkways and porches, John behind and in front moving whatever needed to move.

I cleaned and tidied cupboards, and all the areas our guests get into. Plus I had to empty our big walk-in cupboard for the carpet cleaners. As doing this entailed emptying a large cedar chest I found the old family bible.

This time I carefully went through it and was amazed to find it had listed births, marriages and deaths going back to the 1800s.

On the 1st Saturday we met up with our son Gavin and his two youngest Lily and Evie at Warwick Long Bay.

We had Quest, Mason and Winter with us, so there were 3 adults, 4 kids and a dog.

We started at Warwick Long Bay, close to where we live and headed along the rocks, bays, trails and dunes towards Horseshoe Bay. It was a really fun outing that the kids led at a quick pace.

They loved to climb as many rocky slopes as possible, run down and back again along all the trails, chase butterflies in the open spaces, hiding from each other and us.

Dash along the beaches, chase the surf and of course get splashed was fun too, Winter running right into the waves.

By about the time we reached the Bay Grapes on the dunes behind Horseshoe Bay they did show signs of slowing down so that the stroll back was at a sedate pace.

I am sure they all slept well that night!

Week two

John started the scraping, chipping and patching of our front wall. There was a nasty crack and he was determined to start the painting, but first the preparation had to be done.

I was trying to get on with the general maintenance, but my allergies were giving me hell which made cleaning difficult. However we both had made progress by the week’s end.

May’s Mermaid party

May’s party was on that Saturday afternoon at Gavin’s house. Off we all went with our fingers crossed that the fine weather would hold for the afternoon.

And what a lovely afternoon it was…. May had several friends attend,

there were most of her cousins, uncle, aunties, grandparents, and others there.

The children had fun on the fun castle, enjoyed water balloons, riding bikes, playing on the swings and slide while the adults watched. It was a colourful, fun mermaid party.