A new start....

Well after so many months of waiting and all the trials and tribulations of dealing with work permits etc we have finally arrived on Tortola Island, BVI!!!

After a marathon 22 hour journey from London Heathrow to Miami, then to Puerto Rico and finally to Tortola, we arrived at 11:30 pm on Thursday evening feeling somewhat dazed and confused. Contrary to what we had thought, the immigration and customs people at the airport were very friendly to us. A colleague of Lisa met us at the airport and kindly took us to where we are currently staying - Prospect Reef Resort - which is about a 5 ish minute drive to Road Town.

Friday was spent being given a tour round the island by a colleague of mine and then having a lovely lunch at "Charlies" (with a good glass of cold chardonnay to wash it down). We drove around a bit in our hire car and then went on to consume some more wine in the comfort of the "watering hole" which is a South African run wine bar here on the island. We have already met a whole bunch of people and realised that the world is indeed a small place as we have met a few people already who knows people back in the UK we know.

After a lovely dinner at "the Cab" or Le Cabannon to give it its full name, Lisa and I finally crashed out again.

We woke up very early and excited this morning as we had our first dives scheduled with Blue Water Divers who are based in Nanny Cay (pronounced Key) which is just a short hop from where we are staying. It was great to be back in the water after a year and give all my new gear a test drive. We did 2 dives - Angel fish reef and then Pelican Rock. The clear highlight was being chased in a circle by a beautiful green turtle - simply unbelievable!!

This evening we have our first party to go to at the Cab. It is supposed to be a 70's party but we have simply not had the time to try and find outfits - oh well!!

It is clearly going to take a while to get used to island life, but even after a few days I think I will fit right in. Living in natures little secret, working in a job I enjoy and being able to live and healthy lifestyle really feels like the right decision to me!

Enough barking on from me though, but I did think I should point out some interesting facts we've learned already:

1) you can drive from one side of the island to the other in pretty much 30 minutes.

2) cars here are left hand drive but you drive on the left hand side of the road!!! All rather confusing...

3) there seem to be more chickens on this island than humans.

4) when ever you walk into a room or meet people you must ALWAYS say good morning, good afternoon or good night (not good evening) depending on the time of day.

I will endeavor to write more soon!!!

The final countdown

Well we have finally got a leaving date - 27th August!!!! I can't quite believe that our tickets are booked and pretty much all of our paper work is now sorted. In almost 2 weeks time, Lisa and I will be sitting on a plane at Heathrow heading to the British Virgin Islands. Unfortunately for us, we are being routed the long way so we have to fly London - Miami - Puerto Rico - Tortola. I reckon that after 18 hours on the go, we will be in much need of a rum cocktail or 3! Thankfully for us, Tortola even has its own rum distillery...... oh joy of joys.

As we now know when we are leaving, we're currently tackling the last hurdle: PACKING! When we first started thinking about what to take with us, we really didn't think that there would be that much. But now we have boxes strewn all over our flat and it really is becoming a bit of a challenge to decide what we want /are able to bring with us on the plane (2x 23kg each) and everything else that has to be shipped. We will get there, eventually, but for now it is back to the growing 'to do' lists and ensuring that we get everything sorted in time. Thank god Lisa is a project manager and used to arranging the seemingly impossible otherwise I think this whole process would be a disaster!!!!!

While things seem totally chaotic now, I believe it will all be worth it once we get there to start the next chapter in our lives......