After almost two years after we booked the trip, the day finally arrived for us to depart for our 16 day adventure to the South Pacific. We would be spending two weeks diving in Palau and Truk Lagoon.

At 4:00 a.m. ET on Saturday morning, our friend, Jared, arrived at the house to take us to the airport (now that’s friendship, if you ask me!). As we were checking our bags, we learned that our 5:43 a.m. flight was now scheduled to leave at 6:42 due to “crew sleep legality issues.” We made our way through security and decided that even though we had a short layover in Houston, we would still be able to make our connection provided we landed no later than 9:00 a.m.

A little after 7:00 a.m., our flight finally departed Norfolk. We were at the gate at 9:15 a.m. and were told they were expecting us and if we ran, we might be able to make the trek from the B terminal to the E terminal. We felt like OJ Simpson as we weaved and bobbed through the airport. We arrived at our gate at 9:30 – we had 5 minutes to spare! We made our way to our seats and settled in for the 7 hour 15 minute flight to Honolulu.

Once in Honolulu, we were told we had about 45 minutes to get off the plane and stretch our legs. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and met the rest of our group (Jon B. – who organized the trip, Ian, John, Terry, Pat & Mike). As we were standing around the boarding area, we noticed that the cover on the starboard side engine had been removed and the ground crew was beginning to work on it. Not a good sign. A few minutes later they announced we would be changing gates and planes and now leave about an hour later than originally scheduled. Fortunately, they also announced that they would hold the flight from Guam to Palau for us. This was great news, as you can imagine…although we had all agreed that being stranded in Honolulu or Guam wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

We departed Honolulu a little after 3:15 p.m. local time on Saturday afternoon. Seven hours later we arrived in Guam – It was 6:45 p.m. Sunday night!  They did, indeed, hold our 6:50 connecting flight to Palau and we all made the flight.

27 hours after we started our journey, we found ourselves in our very large hotel room at the Cliffside Resort in Palau ready to get some sleep. Amazingly enough, our luggage made the journey as well. It was a long trip, but we could already tell it was well worth it.