Thursday, June 21, 2007

10 Days and counting till Roatan

Okay, so the wetsuits, flippers, masks and BCD still fit, but will they all fit in our luggage. With all the new homeland security and travel regulations www.tsa.gov including not allowing
more than 3 OZ of any specific liquid in your carry-on, we have to rethink what we check in and what we can carry with us on board the aircraft. Having worked in the airline industry for a dozen years we lived by the premise that if you could not carry it on with you, it just was not worth taking (this due to the oft stand-by position we were put in). So even a 2 week trip to Europe, including semi formal dining out wear fit in our overhead bin. We became masters at layering, rolling and wrapping our clothes in intricate patterns around one another in order to limit creases and wasted space.
We used to carry our regulators (fragile as they are), bottles of water (to hydrate), creams (to ward off the dry air in planes), medicines and for me a couple of 187ml bottles of champagne to imbibe and enjoy once we arrived at our destination. None of these are now allowable and so the entire issue of packing no longer becomes an afterthought but an intricate engineering problem, that will take us the next 10 days to resolve, not unlike the time it took us to solve the Rubik's Cube.
The open suitcases will be perched on the bed while we calculate, position and re-position everything we are taking with us in such a way that not a nook nor cranny, neither a millimeter is left empty. We are thankful that we are staying at Fantasy Island Resort on Roatan, where scuba diving is the norm and focus of the day and dressing up means putting on pull on shorts, a T-shirt and flip flops, while Polo shirts, belted shorts and shoes would be considered formal wear.
So off we go to try our hand at our first day of packing.

1 comments:

Julie said...

You WILL LOVE Roatan! And yep you really do not need anything more than shorts, tees, flip flops and bathing suits. And your dive gear. IF you are there on a Sunday YOU MUST go to the Hole in the Wall for Sunday afternoon brunch and drinks. You go to Jonesville and take the only road all the way to the end. Park in the gravel lot on your right and stand on the dock. Someone from the houses will call them for you. Arrive no later than about 1:30 or 2 as it is a very small place - think dock with a hut. Port Royale is one of the local beers and pretty good. We also like Salvavida beer. Gias in French Harbor is also pretty good. If you go to the fuego website www.fuegodelmar.com they have some pretty good reccomendations for restaurants as well.