Up from Atlanta…
We left Nevis with plenty of time.
You have to take a boat from Nevis to St. Kitts, which is where the airport is. The country is made up of two islands, Nevis and St. Kitts. As I say, we left Nevis with plenty of time, and even though the boat to St. Kitts was a half hour late in leaving, we still had plenty of time.
Then, shortly after we left port, the boat turned around. We were going back to Nevis. It was Sunday, and a church group, all dressed in their Sunday best had missed the boat. So we were going back.
Now time started to get tight, but in the Caribbean, no one gets too upset.
“It’s the Islands, mon”.
Fair enough.
We drove as fast as we could to the airport, and were there an hour before departure.
Actually, not an hour, but rather 58 minutes.
“The flight is closed”, said the guy behind the American Airlines desk.
“You’re kidding”, I said, tapping my watch. We’ve got an hour to go.
“No mon”, he said, “58 minute. You are two minutes late. The gate is closed”.
“Tell them they have to come back tomorrow” said some woman behind the desk, in a lovely lilting Caribbean accent.
“Tomorrow mon” said the guy at the desk.
I stared in disbelief. Suddenly, St. Kitts and Nevis had become Switzerland.
“It’s not possible”, I said. “It’s only two minutes!”
“Two minutes is two minutes mon” said my new friend.
The prospect of spending another day on St. Kitts was not all that terrible, except we had to be in DC at 9am the following morning. We were starting a VJ course for 40 Travel Channel employees. They, like everyone in the company, are passing through the bootcamp. And many of them were coming in from Travel Channel offices in Atlanta.
So we booked on the only other flight out of St Kitts, to NY, and then grabbed the last flight from NY to DC.
Made it.
And today, we start an intensive in-house bootcamp for yet another tranche of Travel Channel staff.
We’ll keep you posted.
Rosenblumtv 