Bareboat sailing day 1: British Virgin Islands, BVI Marina Cay

We flew to and spent the night in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Friday. We had an amazing dinner and took a late night stroll on the beach. I would love to go back and spend more time in Puerto Rico, it was gorgeous. Very early Saturday morning we arrive at the airport via cab. He drops us off at American Airlines, but our flight was on Cape Air. After walking about a mile we managed to get checked in for our flight on a Cessna 402! I put my scopolamine patch on the night before so I'd be ready in case things got bumpy. It was a beautiful flight with amazing scenery, and surprisingly smooth.

Our 9 passenger plane!

We made it to Beef Island Airport on Tortola, BVI, but one bag didn't. No biggie, because we were picking up our friend from the airport that evening… The cab that we ordered through our charter was waiting for us, and after an exciting 40 minute cab ride on the wrong side of the road we arrived at Horizon Yacht Charter at Nanny Cay Marina! It was just as pretty as we remembered. We checked in with Horizon, completed more paperwork, paid the rest of our money, and picked up the "boat phone". The boat wasn't ready yet, so we took a stroll through the marina to the beach to wait. Forty-five  minutes later we were on our boat, "Shortcut" a Bovaria 35 foot monohull.
Our instructor, Julian arrived while we were unpacking. He was an older gentleman originally from England who had been teaching sailing for over 30 years and spent two years sailing around the world. Now he's on our boat certifying us in ASA 104? Wow, we were excited to have someone with so much to teach us.
After our provisioning (groceries we ordered ahead of time) showed up three hours late we were finally off sailing! Our first destination was Trellis Bay to pick up Maria. We motor sailed to make up time, and made it there in about two and a half hours. We anchored in the bay, took the dinghy, and made it to the airport in time to be there when Maria came out of security! We grabbed our bag, headed back to the boat and motored over to Marina Cay where we anchored for our first night. We got in some snorkeling, but the water was pretty cloudy. We cooked spaghetti on the boat and then went to shore to check out the live music.
A very successful first day!

A live conch shell