I am always the last person on a plane.

We are in the midst of the Caribbean 1500 cruising rally – the fleet was entirely at sea as of last night, which I confirmed via the internet after I had spent 8 ½ hours in the car driving home from Hampton – and I had to get up today at 6am to send the fleet the weather report for November 12. They never got it, though I hope some of them got the message that they would not over the SSB. Thanks to Tim, the tech guru from techyach.com. And the SSB shore station.

I am airborne now, and will see Mia tonight if I make all of my connections. Speaking of which, Mia’s travels only ended last night after three days in the making. She left Stockholm on Wednesday, spent a night in London, boarded a flight that lifted off three hours late, spent a comped night in a resort on Barbados (where Matt Lauer filmed the Today show yesterday morning) and then took a tour of the Caribbean, flying out of Bridgetown and stopping in Antigua, St Kitts and St Maarten (in that order) before finally touching down at Beef Island in Tortola late last night. It has been nearly two months since we have seen each other not on a videocamera or in a photograph.

I will never understand while people herd themselves like cattle trying to get on an airplane. What exactly is the point of standing in a crowded line with a large backpack so that you can stand in an even more crowded line inside the flight tunnel thing, and finally sit in a crowded seat uncomfortably while you wait for everyone else to board the plane. As the last person aboard, they shut the door behind you and taxi away from the gate almost before you can fasten your seatbelt This is the way to fly. And I did touch the outside of the plane with my right hand as I stepped aboard. Thanks for that Katie D.

We flew over the mouth of the Delaware Bay and I could clearly see Cape May and the canal we went through at the beginning of our trip this past summer. And the beach we ran close in on when my dad and I delivered the J-37 down from Connecticut (to this day I still remember how to spell that word from what I was taught in grade-school – ‘connect-i-cut’. Neat). From high up it actually does look like you can save some time by going through the canal. On the chart and on the water it would appear otherwise, but I do not now think that is the case.

These new headphones I bought at the airport were worth every penny. I cannot believe I went the entire summer and fall using the old Apple headphones that we found in the laundry in Baddeck. They had been through the wash. I had to swap the left for the right, because for some reason I could not hear correctly if they were in the proper earholes. Weird.