Woohoo and we're off

Well, just a few moments snatched between work duties (and yes I did do those first) and all the last minute details involved in getting ready to go. I've topped up the minutes on my cell phone, copied the message (en espanol no less) from daughter # 1 to her Cuban family, found a spanish translation of the antibiotic I'm taking to them and made sure I have all the phone numbers for when we are on the ground.

One of the lighter moments in our preparing for flight is that our e-tickets came with my age as 29 and the shore captain's as 23. It was flattering and tempting to try to travel with those documents but unfortunately the passport photos and faces themselves would lead to troubles I fear.

As well as last minute packing, I spent the day doing all the last minute things that need to be done and which aren't any fun but are less fun if you come home to them ex. emptying garbage, running the dishwasher through, putting away the laundry. I also cancelled the newspaper and made arrangements for the dogwalker,left a long note for the prodigal son with respect to watering flowers, feeding of animals etc. So a full day before it was time for the shore captain to drive me to meet my ride at the intersection.

The shore captain is concerned about the strong winds which are forecast (and appear to have started already) but hopefully we'll make it out to Toronto. We're on a really tight schedule so if there is any kind of delay we won't make the connection to Cuba. Fingers crossed. I am being picked up here at the door as my shift ends and whisked away to the airport with very little time to spare so it'll be a long day by the time we arrive.

We will be returning on February 26th but yours truly will be coming back to do a night shift so it may be a few days after that before you're caught up on the blog. And for all those who have wished that we have a good time...that is not going to be a problem!