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

Mothers choose adoption out of love...

If she wasn't choosing adoption, we would never become parents…
When we tell you that we are matched with an expectant mother, please do not get upset if we don't answer all of your questions. Out of respect for our future child(ren), there are some things that will forever be between her, us, and our child.
You will ask us why she is placing, and then you will likely judge her for it. How can she give up her kid, doesn't she know how to prevent a pregnancy, etc? I don't blame you. I thought the same things when I was trying to get pregnant. I can't get pregnant and this woman is just giving her child away. How can she do that? It obvisouly hadn't occurred to me that if she didn't choose adoption, then some people would never become parents. Fast forward to accepting my inability to ever carry my own child. Now the only way for ME to become a mom is for someone to chose adoption. I am now embarrassed to admit my initial feelings, and I regret my original, uneducated thoughts of women who chose adoption for their children. I was only thinking of my own pain and suffering with my inability to get pregnant. I now cringe every time I hear the phrase "giving up a child" children are NOT given up in adoption. They are lovingly placed for adoption by an expectant mother and/or father who want their child to have what they don't feel they are able to provide. There are many reasons that adoption is chosen, but whatever the reason, remember that they could have chosen abortion. Instead, they chose life.

Remember that when people choose adoption they are:

• putting the child's needs before their own by placing their child with a family that can give them things they can't
• making a positive choice and blessing someone by making them a family
• giving them more not giving them up
• being strong enough to plan ahead for the child's future
• telling the adoptive parents that they trust them enough to care for their precious baby