Part 5: Leaving Paradise can be Hell
For us, one of the prime attractions of Grand Turk was its remoteness. Despite the role Grand Turk played in the Space Race and its status as the capital of the TCI, not to mention the widely-held belief that Columbus' first landfall in the Americas was here, it's not an easy place be get connected with the rest of the world. Part of Grand Turk's appeal to us became part of the predicament in which we found ourselves as we tried to get home on Saturday.
Saturday dawns a pretty crummy day in paradise. Not only is it departure day, but I am awakened at about 5 a.m. to pounding rain and roaring, unrelenting wind. By 8 a.m., daylight reveals a flooded mess and no sign of the weather abating. Three cars got stuck just trying to get through the entrance of the Arawak, their wheels falling into a giant mud-filled hole just beyond the cattle crossing. The storm was keeping people and supplies from reaching their intended destinations, and knocked out cell phone and overseas phone service. The Oklahoma group departed around 10 a.m., as planned, and since we didn't see them come back to the resort, we were confident that despite the weather, we would be able to fly out as well. But, not wanting to take chances, I called Lynx to check on our flight, which they confirmed to be at 3 p.m.
We finished up our packing and finished up the last of our food for lunch, then cleared out of our room by the noon checkout time. We bided the last bits of leisure time on the island at the bar, then headed for the airport, leaving our rental car in the lot, with keys under a floor mat. By 1 p.m., we were lined up at Sky King's counter, finding ourselves behind the Arlington newlyweds we'd met on the Gibbs Cay trip. Rick went to the front of the line to make sure we were in the right line for Lynx, and was told that Lynx had come and gone (which would be consistent with a fax they sent me months ago, but inconsistent with a half dozen contacts we had with Lynx since that time, including confirmation calls during this week).
Concern took over, and we started trying to get more information. I purchased a $20 phone card from the Cable & Wireless machine next to the pay phone, and tried to call Lynx, but to no avail the card wouldn't work and I couldn't even get an operator. (Once it became apparent that the card wouldn't work, and was only valid in the TCI, I gave it away to someone who had just lost $5 in the very same machine.) I went back to the Sky King counter and explained my dilemma, and that moved the agent to call his own operations office to get more information; he told me that Lynx was making a run to Mayaguana and would be coming back to Grand Turk. I asked whether we should check in, but he put us off, saying things were about to get very busy for Sky King and he needed to clear that up first.
BUSY was an understatement, as herds of schoolchildren descended on the airport, complete with musical instruments (steel drums, etc.), costumes and luggage galore all delivered to Grand Turk as part of "Education Counts Week" and needing now to be delivered to their home islands in the TCI. The noise and milling about were numbing, not helping our mounting concern as we tried futilely to call Lynx on the available pay phones which didn't work. I even walked around the terminal with cash, asking other travelers to use their cell phones, but cell service was still out.
By 4 p.m., an hour after our scheduled departure time, concern was turning to desperation. The only international carrier into Grand Turk is Lynx, and that is only once a week! I finally corralled a Sky King employee and, with a $5 bill, got him to let us use the office phone. But that was pointless all I got was a recording that said that Lynx's office had closed at 2 p.m. We finally prevailed on the Sky King staff to give us a definitive answer, and they finally conceded that Lynx was not coming, at least not until their next scheduled arrival the following Saturday.
NOW WHAT?? We called the Arawak and told Annie we were stuck and asked if she had a room. She told us to come back and she would take care of us. And that she did. On an island where hotel rooms are few (maybe 100, tops) and tourist season was peaking, she gave us one of the nearly-renovated Arawak rooms, a shoulder to complain on, and not a little bit of help. While I got on the phone to cancel our Ft. Lauderdale hotel room (penalty: the full night's tariff) and our US Airways flights for first thing Sunday, she and Rick got us booked on the 6:15 a.m. Sky King flight to Provo, with the hope that we might catch Lynx there (they fly to Provo more frequently than to Grand Turk). As a back-up, I also made reservations on the American Airlines flight from Provo to Miami. From Miami or Ft. Lauderdale would be an unknown, since we'd lost our US Airways flights, but we'd be better off trying to get home from any of these places than staying in Grand Turk.
Needless to say, we were frazzled at this point, but glad to have at least some plans made. We headed for the Arawak's bar to chill, and enjoyed a few drinks, the company of some buzzed locals and expats, and yet another green flash sunset. By now, our tale of woe was well-known, and we had the consolation of a last-night conch chowder dinner. We went to bed at 8:30, knowing we'd sleep little, with a taxi arriving to pick us up at 5:30 and no alarm clock to get us up. I actually dozed off, but Joanne from the restaurant rang us at 9:30 p.m. to get us to check out tonight, since no one would be around to take care of that so early in the morning.
Both of us slept fitfully and got up at 5 a.m. We were ready to roll 20 minutes later, and the taxi came just as scheduled. We checked in at Sky King ("Oh, we know about you two"), but when we tried to pay for our tickets with a credit card, we couldn't because lightning had taken out the phone line. So I pulled out the last of our cash and peeled of 7 of my remaining 8 $20 bills to pay for the ticket. Yikes! At least the Sky King flight was on-time, short, and pleasant.
At Provo, we checked in with Sky King to see about flying with Lynx to FLL. The agent said Lynx was due in today, but they were unreliable and she couldn't assure us that they would arrive, and if they did, whether they would honor our ticket or even whether there would be room on the flight. She advised us to get on the American flight to MIA if possible. And so, we lined up at AA, in this thoroughly new, modern airport which replaced a more typical island-style one a few years ago (we got to know the old airport all too well during our 1993 visit after being stranded on Provo because of a massive blizzard on the East Coast the weekend we were to return home). We paid for our tickets (at same-day prices), had our bags hand-inspected, went through security, and sat in the departure lounge for just a few minutes before boarding.
The PLS to MIA flight was not full, so Rick and I claimed a row to ourselves on the 757 jet. We took off right on time, getting an eyeful of Provo's incomparable Grace Bay beach. Then over the Bahamas and the otherworldly waters of the Bahamas Bank, and finally landing in Miami, my least favorite airport (and one of the reasons we chose to fly Lynx). We cleared immigration, collected our bags, cleared customs, then went up to the main terminal to line up with US Airways in the hopes of finding a way home.
The line at US Airways was long, so we bailed out and headed for a pay phone to call their toll-free number. There was no hope of re-booking our original FLL-CLT-BWI itinerary, as all later flights were full, so our only choice was to re-book an entirely new set of flights and pay the $100 change fee on top of that. Flying out of MIA would have set us back an extra $1500 (ouch!), while flying out of FLL would cost less than half that. So, we went in search of a way to the Ft. Lauderdale airport. No one in the airport had a clue as to whether there was a shuttle between the airports, and of course we didn't know any better, so we rented a car from Hertz and hit the road.
The drive to Ft. Lauderdale was an easy one, but what awaited us at the airport was ugly: lines at US Airways and other airlines (and security) snaking through the terminal, looking all too much like the nightmarish lines we endured just before Christmas at BWI. It seems that every college student on the planet was returning from a spring break cruise out of Port Everglades. We sucked it up and got in line, and it took a mere 50 minutes to check in, and another 15 minutes to get through security a cakewalk compared to our Christmas ordeal. We finally made it to Philadelphia, where we switched to a flight to BWI, and finally got home at 8 p.m., thoroughly exhausted and having lost in a day-and-a-half all the benefits of a week's vacation (not to mention paying an extra $1,500 in hotel rooms, airfare, and car rental). Thank god for plastic.
After a good night's sleep on Sunday, our rage and frustration have settled down, and the good feelings inspired by the lovely island and inhabitants of Grand Turk have taken over. Would I go back? Perhaps, but I don't know when. There are a few more islands on our "To Do" list, as well as a few which get return visits again and again, so it may be years before Grand Turk gets back in the queue. Would I recommend it for others? If you are a diver, absolutely; if not, then with reservations, because like Abaco, Grand Turk is full of treasures that only certain types of self-contained travelers will appreciate.
Update:
On our return home, we started conversations with Lynx to see about getting compensated for our troubles; on Tuesday after our return I sent them a long letter and copies of all of our receipts, expressing a fervent hope that they will make us whole. After a few days, they finally agreed to refund the full round-trip fare we paid. Although this is not the full amount of what we paid to get home, it was close to the extra amounts we paid to get as far as Ft. Lauderdale, which is techically all they were obligated to do. I decided this was good enough, and made a claim to our travel insurance carrier for the balance. As of mid-April, we have received the Lynx refund and await a response from our insurance carrier.
