Heading for the sun

Tuesday 05 Jan 2016

London Gatwick to Tobago

The alarm woke us shortly after 5-o-clock and, after showering and packing, we checked out of the Holiday Inn at 0545.

It was a very short journey to the South Terminal at Gatwick and we drove straight to the passenger drop-off point where the meet-and-greet car company representative met us at the curb. After a handing over the car keys and unloading our luggage we were quickly in a lift up to the departures area.

As we'd already checked in on line, the bag drop process was painless, made more so by the lack of any queues. Unusually, our had baggage was weighed at the counter.

Security was also extremely quiet and we proceeded to the departure area very quickly. As we hadn't eaten, we decided on a 'proper breakfast' at the airport and very tasty it was too! I can't remember the last time I had bacon and egg for
breakfast!

We bought two copies of the Daily Telegraph, not because we wanted 'his' and 'her's' copies, but because they came with a free litre bottle of water. Cost of newspaper with free water £1.40, cost of bottle of water £1.89. The only glitch was that I had to make two seperate purchases!

Time passed quite quickly and at 0800, our departure gate was posted on the board and we wandered along to gate 15. Here, we were checked into the departure lounge and immediately onto the aircraft, an Airbus A330-300 . We had
window and aisle seats in row 61. We pushed back at 0900 and were airborne by

0910. Our flight was due to take 8 hours and 40 minutes to St Lucia. As I write
this, we have no idea how long we wil be on the ground there before we make the
short hop to Tobago.

The flight route from Gatwick took us due west passing to the south of Winchester, north of Bournemouth, across Dorset and Devon before heading out into the Atlantic from the north Cornish coast. Although it was cloudy, it was possible to see the ground most of the way. Now, there is seven and a half hours
of ocean views to look forward to!

The seat is quite narrow, but on a positive note, my knees don't touch the seat in
front! On board, there was a bottle of water, a pair of headphones, a pillow and a
blanket on the seat. In flight entertainment appears to be fairly comprehensive with movies and TV programmes to watch and games to play. There is also my
favourite, geek that I am, the flight map! Not long after take-off, we were given a menu for the flight and a landing card for Tobago. A short while after that, we were offered a choice of free drinks and a bag of pretzels. Then hot towels appeared, all very civilised.

Lunch was served after about two hours with a bean salad to start followed by a
choice of chicken breast with mustard mash, meatballs with spaghetti or paneer. I managed meatballs without any disasters! Pudding was a salt caramel and chocolate ganache with cheese and crackers to finish. This was washed down by a can of Tiger beer!

After 8 hours and 40 minutes, we landed in a slightly overcast St Lucia. It seems we shall be here for about an hour. Despite the cloud, it is 30C.

Well, we thought we'd be on the ground for just an hour, but it seems that a passenger has disembarked here in St Lucia that should have continuing on to Tobago! The crew have counted and recounted the passengers on the aircraft several times as have security staff from St Lucia, but we are still missing one passenger. The aircraft cannot continue until that person has been identified and their baggage removed from the aircraft. As I write, everyone on the aircraft has had to produce their passport to be checked against the passenger list by ground staff. We've been here for neatly 90 minutes already.

Finally, after nearly two hours we are on our way again. There was no explanation
given except to say the problem had been 'resolvedWe barely got the top of the climb out from St Lucia before we started our descent. Our route takes us due south to Tobago.

After a 25 minute flight we landed in Tobago, the temperature is 30C. As the aircraft was already more than half empty, it didn't take too long to disembark. There are no ramps here so steps are wheeled up to the aircraft for passengers. Inside the terminal, we queued for immigration for a while and by the time we'd done that, the bags were just arriving on the carousel. There was another slightly chaotic queue for customs and then into the frenzy of taxi-drivers, tour guides and a variety of hawkers that frequently fill the arrivals areas of holiday destination airports.

Having declined all offers, with some difficulty, we found out where the Sixt car rental depot was and set out for it with our baggage trolley. We didn't get far before it was explained to us that we couldn't take the trolley that far! Far turned out to be about 200 metres and the Sixt car rental depot a bright orange building situated in the garden of a house next to the cargo terminal.

Having collected our car, a Nissan Terio, something I've never heard of, we set off for our apartment. I stopped back at the airport for a tourist road map before we left the area. After finding our way out of the airport we managed to find our way on to Milford Rd, the main east/west road across the south of the island. Turning left onto Shirvan Rd we headed for Bucco, a village on the northern side of the island about 15 minutes drive away.

It was a bit of a struggle to find the Tranqil apartments, but I finally recognised it from photos I'd seen. Our host, quickly sorted us out and showed us around before we headed to the local mini-market for essential supplies. One thing missing from the store was any fresh fruit!

Next stop was dinner right on the beach at Bucco. The Deck is quite a classy restaurant serving a mixture of local and international dishes. We opted for Caeser salad for Lynn and curried crab and mini dumplings for me as starters and a goat curry for Lynn and a shrimp curry for me. The goat curry had quite a few bones in it whilst the shrimp curry had a lot of large prawns in it, bargain. This wasn't a cheap restaurant, but as it was the first night and we were tired from travelling, we decided it was ideal. After the recent weather in UK, it was very nice to sit outside and hear the waves gently running up the beach just below us.

And so to bed, a/c on tonight so we sleep well!