On My Way Home…Necker Island #CMRB2017 (6/6/17)
I meant to blog each day but somehow our schedules were so full that there was never a good time to sit down and write. This also presented some challenges in terms of time for conversations and thinking. I had been looking forward to both and had, in fact, been counting on both. Yesterday I made the choice to not attend some sessions to get some space and time to think. I concluded that I need to make room for yoga and daily meditation. Life is not always going to give me the space to think so I need to find other ways to clear my mind. I also need to build in time to ‘be’ and not just ‘do.’ My natural MO is ‘to do.’
Marion and I decided that we needed to go into every pool on the island this morning and proceeded to do so after breakfast. My boat to Tortola was leaving at 10:30 AM and my bags needed to be packed by 9:30 AM so we started with main pool and hot tub (I didn’t even see the hot tub until yesterday).
We had walked to the main house for breakfast and needed to get back to our room to pack so we walked back via Richard’s house and the temple pool. We did a quick dip there, took a photo and moved on to the Bali Lo pool near our room.
I quickly packed and grabbed a bottle of champagne and two glasses and hopped into our pool after popping the champagne. Yes, it was only 9 AM but it was our last day and we needed a last bit of Necker champagne before we departed.
Our next stop was at the beach pool and along the way had to make a golf cart switch. Apparently ours needed to get into engineering so we ended up with one without a speed governor which Marion and I both agreed was a bad idea (due to drunk golf cart driving, they limit the speed of the guests’ carts). The governor saved us on more than one occasion as we were driving wildly around the island (ok, really just me since I was Marion’s chauffeur). So, equipped with champagne, a speedy buggy, and 30 minutes we continued to the beach pool. There are, in fact, two pools there. One is smaller and warmer and was where we ‘danced’ in the water in our beach costumes (flamingo and swan floaties) earlier in the trip. We took our pictures and moved on to Bali Hi to a pool that neither of us had been in since we had only learned of it the day before.
This also gave us an opportunity to check out the rooms there and the one on the cliff was by far the best. Justin and Westin from Austin had this room which was just amazing (except for the two snakes Westin saw during her stay there).
On our way to Bali Hi, we went by the ring-tailed lemurs and one of the staff was feeding them bites of her apple. We were able to get close to the mamas carrying their babies on their backs. They were adorable and so greedy when it came to the apple.
We headed back to our pool for our final free minutes before I needed to get down to the boat to head to Tortola for the first leg of the Necker-Tortola-San Juan-Miami-SFO trip. This was a fabulous way to end my time on Necker Island. Leaving friends, new and old, is always difficult especially when some live halfway around the world. It was only ‘bye for now’ but still left me in tears. Fortunately they were quickly dried by the wind as we sped to Tortola in the speedboat. The sky and scenery were beautiful and it didn’t hurt that there was a bottle of champagne in the boat so we had a final Necker champagne toast.
And then when we arrived in San Juan and sat down for some lunch before heading to Miami, we were joined by other folks who had flown in on other flights. Before we knew it there were 9 of us back together. As we all struggled to stay awake for our next flights, we were able to get a bit more time together…Marion even showed up. After some last hugs, we departed San Juan.
I’ve left time over the next few days to ruminate over the last few days and begin to act on some of what I got from the trip. This will include beginning the draft of a proposal for Virgin Unite (I need to be audacious!) and some yoga. And it will most likely not include any alcohol (I need to ruminate, not marinate).
But the visits with some of my new and old friends won’t be completely over. A few folks will be in town on their way to other places and we all plan to get together. I have a helicopter flight favor to return when Brook is in town. And Adam promised to come through on his way back to Australia, too. He may get a flight…I haven’t decided yet if he is worthy.
