7am Friday morning the alarm wakes my beautiful girlfriend Dasha and myself up to the start of this epic adventure.  The first job, get 5 Cabarete transplants, Laurel Eastman, Pete Richardson, Sean Hibbs, Dasha Dugina and myself with tons of gear to the BVI’s.  After a few hours of packing the troops all meet up in front of Cabarete Real Estate Office in Cabarete, Dominican Republic and start loading huge board bags, busting at the seams with toys for the trip, on top of a very old, rough looking mini van taxi for the 1.5 hour winding road over the mountains to the Santiago airport.  This is a great warm up for a week on a sailboat.  If you don’t get carsick going to Santiago from Cabarete for sure you will be fine on a 38-foot catamaran in the BVI’s.

“Did anyone double check the straps and knots the driver used to tie our gear to the roof?”  First stop 15 minutes into the trip to retie the roof straps and ensure our gear gets to the airport with us.  Second stop, pee break/ work on the taxi, which now smells like propane and won’t start.  After a few more bathroom breaks and a drink breaks we arrive at STI airport ready to fly!!!

Remarkably we all get our gear checked with no extra baggage fees.  The kite gods are with us and for sure this will be the best trip ever!!  After a short flight to Puerto Rico we met up with Pete Cabrinha and Shannon Best.  A few hours later and some slight flight confusion (Dasha and myself some how ended up on a flight 1.5 hours after the rest of the crew and Pete’s kite bags where lost) we all arrived safely at Nanny Cay Maria and Resort on Tortola just in time for the welcome dinner and party put on by BVI Kite Jam and the BVI tourism board.  We had great food, great people and a wonderful start to the event. I couldn’t wait to wake up the next day and see what everything looks like since we arrived in the dark.