~Andy Voss, Class Of 2024

It was three in the morning on December 21st, and my family and our friend’s family woke up in the hotel ready to leave for the airport because we were all going to the Virgin Islands to be on a boat for a week. After almost missing the bus to go to the airport, we arrived at the airport. We quickly checked out our bags because, luckily, there was no line. Then we went through security, and then, when we thought we had all made it through, I got stopped while going through the body scanner. When I thought I was in trouble, they just told me to go back into the body scanner, and I was clear. Before arriving at the gate, we stopped to get some food for the plane. 

Once we arrived at the gate, we began thinking about all the possible things that could have gone wrong that morning and the things that could have gone wrong during the trip. Let me tell you, we did not have a positive mindset going into this vacation. 30 minutes went by, and our plane finally got to the gate, so we went into the plane. I got to my seat where I was sitting with my sister, and that’s when she told me that we were going to be going over the Bermuda Triangle. Then I said, “Why does that matter?” and then she said, ”A lot of accidents happen over there, and it’s pretty much cursed.” After she told me, I was a little nervous until the speaker came on because the flight attendant was telling us how the trip would be three hours and 45 minutes to St.Thomas and told us about the safety precautions. After that, I felt a little safer. 20 more minutes went by until we took off, and from my experience, it felt like a smooth lift-off. It was so smooth that I fell asleep after we took off. 

When I woke up, there was an hour left in the flight, so I just put my AirPods on and listened to music until we landed. Once we landed, I immediately felt the warm air and the hot sun, and I knew this was going to be an amazing trip. After we walked into the airport, we waited for our checked bags to come out of the conveyor belt. Then we got all of our bags. My sister made me carry her bag because it was too heavy for her. So being the good brother I am, of course I carried it. After that, it felt like a straight walk out of the airport and into the taxi. The taxi took us to the docks, where we’re going to take a water taxi to the British Virgin Islands, but before crossing the border, we had to clear customs. That’s where the people who work at customs have to check out passports. Surprisingly, it was pretty fast because our captain told us that it usually takes a long time to clear customs. 

After we were dropped off at our hotel, one of the hotel workers was so kind as to give us a tropical drink that didn’t taste that good but looked cool. At that point, we thought luck was on our side. We brought our bags to the room, and right when I saw the room, I was excited for this trip. It was so spacious, and it just felt comfortable. Later that day, we get a nice dinner, then go to sleep and get ready for the next day, where we are going to get on the boat for 7 days at about 12 p.m..

The next morning I woke up at 9 a.m., but once I found that out, I just went back to sleep and stayed in the room with my brother until we were closer to arriving at our boat. I woke up again at 10:30 am, and that was at about the same time as my brother, so we got changed and went to this coffee shop where we both got coffee. It definitely didn’t taste like the coffee in America, but it still wasn’t that bad. After, my brother and I met up with the rest of the families, and we just sat by the pool waiting for the boat. A couple hours later, it’s like 2 p.m., and all we know is that the owner of the boat said it would take 1-2 more hours. 

After finding out the bad news, we decided to go to the beach nearby and just relax. Let me just say we were at the beach for four hours and still have no update on the boat. Then, as a group, we built up the courage and called the owner of the boat, but when we talked to him, he didn’t give us any updates. All we knew was that we probably wouldn’t get the boat today. At that moment, the parents realized that we had checked out of our hotel and didn’t have a place to stay that night. 

We rushed back to the hotel, where the hotel manager came up to us and asked, “Are you the Voss and Yardelry (the last names of our family friends) family?.” “ Of course we answer yes, and that’s when she said, “You guys need to take a water taxi to this island, where a taxi driver in a white van will pick you up, and his name is Zaine. Zaine will take you to a hotel that is closer to your boat, so you can get on it tomorrow.” We still had some questions, but we knew we had to trust her. She also mentioned the name of the owner of the boat. 

We took the short water taxi over to the taxi, where we went into the van with a guy named Zaine. We didn’t know him at all, and during all this moving around, we had to move all of our bags. Once we got into the van with Zaine, we began to ask him questions. Like, where are we going? What happened to our boat? Who’s paying for our hotel tonight? Every answer Zaine had was, I don’t know. At this point, everyone was a little scared; we just thought of the worst, like if we’re going to be kidnapped. 30 minutes go by, and Zaine gets a call. Once he gets off the call, he tells us that we are picking up our new boat captain. 

At this point, everyone is so confused. We’re in the car for another 45 minutes. We still don’t know what we’re doing, and we’re just going through these towns that, from my experience, look pretty sketchy. Finally, the van stops, but just to pick up the captain, we were already squished in the van, but now we were even more crammed. The last 30 minutes in the van were pretty much just a Q&A with our boat captain, Rion. The only thing we got out of that was that the owner of the boat made a mistake, the boat is stuck in customs, and the owner will be paying for our hotel and dinner that night. The last thing he said before arriving at our hotel named Sebastian’s was that we might not get a boat at all. 

It wasn’t the nicest hotel in the world, but I still had a positive attitude, while my sister was scared for her life. Even though the hotel wasn’t the best, the dinner we had was actually really good. During dinner, we thought about all the things that could have happened to our boat while being at customs, like they could have stopped it because it had illegal stuff in it or they didn’t have the right paperwork. There were endless possibilities. That night was a hard night to sleep. 

The next morning, everyone was pretty sad. We went to breakfast, and we were just creating our own memories on the boat with our imagination. After breakfast, I don’t want to name names, but some people were una and in a bad mood, and at one point, girls went their own way and boys went their own way, and we just explored the island. Once everyone had time to clear their minds, we reunited as a group, and that’s when my mom got a text from the captain saying that we might have a boat, but our hopes weren’t too high. 

We kept exploring the island until we found this beach, where we hung out, and it felt like a great time. While everyone was having drinks, my mom got another text from Captain Rion saying that the boat was going to be ready in the next two hours, but we heard that before, so yet again, we weren’t that excited and confident that it was going to happen. We just kept having a nice time at the beach. Then the most surprising thing happened. The captain told my mom that the boat was ready, and this was in less than 2 hours. He already got us a taxi, so when we thought our bad luck was turning around, a car bumped into our taxi, and we had to wait in the taxi without moving for 30 minutes. That was a buzzkill. 

Eventually, we got to the docks where our boat was, but when we got there, the captain said that we had to wait 30 minutes because our boat wasn’t there yet, and everyone was furious. Then we made a plan that some people would search for our boat because we knew the name, so after ten minutes we actually found it, and it wasn’t that bad because even though the captain wasn’t there and he was getting food for the boat, he still let us go in the boat and hang out there. So after all that cancellation that felt like an eternity (even though it was 2 days), it was a trip that I will always remember. We were still in the boat for five days, where we visited the island, went to different and unique beaches, went snorkeling and swimming, went horseback riding, got to jump off the boat and into the ocean, saw the sunrise and sunset, drove around in the dingy, and even got to hang out at all the different and popular bars. It was such a great time and experience, and it made it even better having our family friends there. But when we thought nothing bad could happen, we found that on our last night, we realized that our Dinghy was stolen. Captain Rion was furious and looked all over for it, but it was gone. 

Once it was time to get off the boat, we had such a good connection with Captain Rion, and it was like there were never any problems. We finally got to know what happened to our original boat. It got taken away because the owner of the boat checked into the British Virgin Islands and went back to the American Virgin Islands without signing out, so when the boat went back into the British Virgin Islands, it had to get stopped, and the owner of the boat was ultimately fined a lot of money. We got off the boat. We still had half a day where we stayed at another hotel, had dinner there, and just went back to all of our funny memories. 

Our trip back to White was very smooth, and luck was finally on our side. We said our goodbyes to our family friends and went back home, where I had to get ready for school. This is an experience that I will never forget. I met a lot of new people that I won’t forget, and I already want to go back because it was such a nice place to just relax and live life to the fullest.