Saturday morning I showed up at the Boise airport with my little VW Jetta full of gear. It took three trips for me to haul all of the communications gear to the airline check-in desk. I brought my personal waterproof and durable laptop case, with a Toughbook laptop, a satellite phone, a SPOT satellite beacon, and all the connectors I needed for my cell phone and the other personal communication devices. Less than 12 hours after I was given the order to go, I was on a plane. My childhood as a military brat taught me how to travel quickly. My father was an US Army light fighter, and many times he woke me up in the middle of the night to pack his equipment when he was called out on an alert. That experience is paying off.
I had a lot of satellite communication equipment with me, a beacon, phone, and 10 foot dish. Sadly I decided that I did not have room to bring my ultra light weight HF radio. That would have been a lot of fun, and been a good backup communications device. I did not even bring a hand held VHF radio, since I did not know anyone on Saint Martin, so I had no idea who I would talk to. And it would be another piece of equipment that I would have to try to keep track of.
Incredibly there was no problem at all traveling that day. Amazingly the TSA did not demand extra screening. I expected extra security screenings because I bought a one way ticket the night before. None of my seven bags were lost. There were no delays. And I did not miss any connections. Saturday evening, less than 24 hours after I bought the tickets I was in the Caribbean, less than 60 miles from Venezuela. The most difficult part of the trip was leaving the airport in Bonnaire with my seven bags. Five of the bags were heavy pelican cases packed to within half a pound of 50 pounds. By the time I collected all of my bags, there were no luggage trolleys left.
I asked a customs officer to get me a luggage cart, because I could not go outside the security area to get one myself. I ended up waiting 10 minutes for a cart to be brought back in. Once I got a cart, I stacked all seven bags up on the cart, and the stack was taller than my 6'5" height. I was pushing the cart, and peering from side to side trying to avoid hitting anyone, or anything. The last thing I wanted now was to drop and break an important piece of equipment or run into someone.
As I exited the arrivals area, I did not look like your average tourist. They had snorkel fin bags, large sun hats, and big smiles. I looked like I was supplying a squad of people with communications gear. My contact on the island, Dave, spotted me instantly.
Dave brought me to a guest house so I could drop off my bags, then we went out to eat with is family. I am always impressed with how humid much of the world is, and how dry Idaho is. Before I left Idaho, I was getting tired of the dry smoky air. It seemed like half of Oregon and a quarter of California was on fire. The smoke was collecting in the treasure valley that Boise and Nampa sit in. We had not seen the sun without a heavy smoke filter in a month. That night the moist warm air of the Caribbean was wonderful. I ordered an Uruguayan dish Chivatos. It is a sandwich with ham, melted cheese, lettuce, on a bed of fries. I was hungry, and wanted to eat well before going to a disaster area. My plan was to eat Clif bars for the next few days.
That night I slept well, maybe too well.