We were feeling a little anxious about all the various Covid protocols and leaving PolePole alone on anchor overnight. Returning to St Barts from Puerto Rico requires the French Attestation form to be filled out, which needs a compelling reason for reentering St Barts. We were uncertain wether returning to our boat was compelling enough. Rowan asked our little charter airline if it would be ok and they said it was all up to the Prefect (mayor equivalent, I assume). So Rowan decided to pay the Prefect a visit in person first thing this morning, luckily he was in his office. He couldn’t have been friendlier and said we had a perfect excuse to return, we just needed a form from the Harbour Master showing our boat was here. The harbour master also insisted we have someone look after the boat. Very relieved all was looking good, Rowan popped into the delicious bakery to get croissants for our breakfast and enough to butter up the young dread locked French youngsters in the boat next to us (who we will ask to keep an eye out on the boat while we are away).
I had remained on board cooking breakfast, and washing all our bedding which we had managed to spill our morning cuppa all over. Rowan arrived back beaming from ear to ear - all sorted. He sat down looking forward to breakfast, when I asked about the form, he suddenly realised he had only returned with croissants! He had thrown the form away with a map showing where the Prefect’s office was. Poor chap had to return to the harbour and like a forlorn homeless character, had to rummage through the bin to find the form! Luckily it didn’t take long. So we are committed now, we were very close to cancelling the whole thing last night. Not only are we embarking on this trip for our 3 month USA Esta entry stamp in our passport (required by us to sail into USVirgin Islands), Rowan had also planned to meet a very successful US Hedge Fund manager, who lives half the year in NY and the other half in Puerto Rico.
With our bedding all washed and dried, our overnight backpacks packed we got to the airport thanks to our taxi driver who we are seriously chummy with now, I suspect we are his best customer in ages. The airport is minute, the runway starts a few yards beyond the traffic round about at the top of the hill and finishes in the sea! Only long enough for small planes. There was only one other passenger on this 10 seater charter plane. A wonderful flight over both the BVI and the USVI.
Runway into the sea
amazing cliff formations on the side of the runway
All was going well until US customs, where we were sent to the Secondary room. From our bitter experience entering California all those times, this room is known to us as the ‘Room of Gloom’, because it was always full of intimidating ghastly, job’s worth, kind of swinging dicks, who get their kicks from intimidation and stretching our patience. It brought back bad memories of waiting endlessly for no apparent reason. The only other person was a woman wrapped in a blanket balling her eyes out in front of two security men swaggering around with belts dripping with all sorts of weaponry! This had the potential for derailing our dinner date with the investor John, who Rowan has never met before - this guy is seriously successful and Rowan is feeling honoured to be meeting him, he doesn't want to keep him waiting. I know I’m going to be way out of my depth. However we shouldn’t have been so gloomy as a new customs official was called, he was ever so cheerful and happy all was in order (because we had not been in the UK since November, how can they still have the UK on their red list!).
With no luggage we thought we would be breezing straight out. But no such luck, even though customs had checked our PCR test, we now had to go through another Covid inspection. As our phones were not working we could not download the online form and had to face long desks of endless staff dressed in hazmat outfits. Even though they could see our printed PCR test (and by the way, thank god the results came through in 24 hours as our antigen tests were not acceptable!) they needed to register us on a system, Rowan and I got separated, I luckily got the only English speaking person, Rowan just blagged his way through it all. I had a crazy scenario where she couldn’t enter my home address as UK, the system rejected it so she finally put it down as Ukraine. I was obviously a bit alarmed at this, she assured me it was no problem! I was a little flustered, Rowan was through and we were running late for dinner, of course on reflection her system would have accepted ‘United Kingdom’ not UK. Too late she let me go, and somewhere on a Puerto Rican gov website, I am down as residing in the Ukraine!
We finally got a taxi under false pretences as they only take cash, and we didn’t have any. Rowan contacted John to ask him if he could pay, but we got to the restaurant and there was no sign of him. Our taxi driver began to get rather irate waiting. We finally managed to persuade the restaurant to give us cash on our credit card, crisis averted. No sooner had the taxi left when John walked in, he was delayed as he too had no cash and had to go and find an ATM. We had warned him we would be in boating clothes, so he pitched up in shorts and flip flops, which put us all at ease. Turns out he is a keen surfer and on the surface appeared very laid back. He went to the loo and Rowan commented he had a limp, he told us when he got back, his flip flop had just broken, what a laugh, not at all what I had been expecting!
It was an amazing menu, one of the top restaurants in Puerto Rico, but very relaxed. I had chicken liver pate on their homemade sour dough with guava jam and crumbled cashews, really scrummy. My main course was a pork belly and fish spicy broth with kimchi rice. Seriously the tastiest thing I have had in ages, even after our gourmet Japanese meal. So strange to have 3 days in a row of delicious different food, after all our pretty standard meals out. John was very intriguing, his mother a Sicilian Italian and father Irish, what a combo! He was born in the States but travelled extensively, after Ivy League Uni he went and worked on the West coast of Africa for two years helping develop renewable energy projects over there. He lives over 2 hours away in a remote corner of the island, with his wife and their first baby, 6 months old, which is why they didn’t join us. He is heavily involved with preserving the area from big resorts and keeping it a surfer’s paradise. He dropped us off at the airport hotel, I felt sorry for him embarking on a two and a half hour journey home over the mountain in the dark.
Comments