Hi Everyone,
Thanks for the responses to my Newbie Itinerary questions pre-charter. Now it's time for me to report out on how it all went. On the trip was DH, DS11, DS14, and myself.

Day 1
We started out with a 5:50am flight out of BOS, connecting JFK, landing in STT early around 12:40ish. Everything with the flights went off without a hitch and we were at the restaurant above the ferry terminal with time enough for Painkillers and snacks before the 2:30 ferry to Tortola. I should note here that we flew Delta Comfort + which included free adult beverages. DH found himself sitting next to a couple who were part of another party who were also chartering for the week. Needless to say, the party started before we had even landed on STT!

We boarded the ferry and sat up top to enjoy the view. The manager (owner?) of the restaurant was selling beers and waters to ferry passengers. We were happy patrons of this service! We were so happy, we didn't really care that the ferry left about 45 minutes late. Oh well, island time - right?

We are big STJ fans and the ferry ride was like the "greatest hits". There goes Trunk, then Cinnamon, then Maho and Francis... Before we knew it, we were in Soper's Hole for a quick stop and then on to Road Town.

We were still happy to just be on the ferry absorbing Vitamin D so I had forgotten the horror stories I read about day trippers spending in line at customs. This resulted in us being one of the LAST parties through customs. We waited for over an hour in line. At this point, after being up since 3:30am, I started to get really grouchy and say things like "we're never coming back here". Seriously. Island time? Grrrrr. We finally made it to Conch Charters at about 5:00pm.

Our water toys from Last Stop Sports were on the boat as ordered. Our provisions from RiteWay were not. I looked at their website for a phone number only to learn that the provisioning department closed at 5:00. I left them a message. I checked with the folks in the Conch office and they said RiteWay deliveries were usually late on Fridays. We went to dinner at the Pub right at the base keeping an eye out for someone looking to make a delivery but we did not connect. The next morning I called when they opened and they resent the delivery. It was not 100% accurate but the only misses were for minor items. The most notable mistake being that we had to use mango juice in our painkiller mix all week instead of orange juice. Worse things have happened to me, for sure.

I will back up for a moment to note that we had booked a 40 foot monohull with Conch sometime late last summer. About a month before our charter, I received a note from them asking us if we would like to take advantage of a complimentary UPGRADE to a Lagoon 440. Well heck yeah, why wouldn't we want to do that??? Maybe because we had never sailed a catamaran, that's why. I made sure they knew this and they promised a long check out for us, which we did receive.
Honestly, this upgrade saved our week. More on that to come in future posts.

That's all for now. It's a busy re-entry into the real world but I'll try to keep the posts coming fairly regularly.