#spillthebeansonlove - Chapter 38 I hear Guapo talking with someone in Spanish. I can make out about 50% of the communication, and for the most part it sounds pretty favorable. He hangs up, and with some pep in his step walks up to me, puts his hands on my shoulders and says, ‘it’s all taken care of.’ What’s taken care of? Did we get a refund, a bigger boat? Did you call Mother Nature and work something out,’ I ask? ‘We’re flying over there tomorrow morning at 10am,’ he says. ‘What?! I thought all the helicopters were sold out and the commercial flights booked,’ I remind him. ‘We got a plane,’ he says as he kisses my forehead. ‘We got a plane? Like to keep?’ I question. ‘Yeah, my cousin is going to let us use his plane. We’re all set,’ he says. ‘Well this opened up about twenty more questions for me to fire off. Does this said plane come with a pilot, is this a working plane? Where are we getting this plane? Can we all fit in this plane? Is this plane bringing us home? Guapo smiles and says, ‘yes, the plane comes with a pilot, yes, it will bring us home, and no we cannot all fit in the plane,’ he says. ‘Oh…I see,’ I say. Guapo takes a few steps and does a dramatic turn-around…‘And that’s why we got two planes babe!!! Come on!? Do you think we would leave someone behind,’ he jokes. You literally just made one phone call and secured two planes for 12 hours from now? ‘Yep.’ He says. I look around to see if we’re being punked. I’ve experienced some pretty magical moments in life, but this one was next level. ‘We’re going to Bimini!’ I have only been on a small plane like this one other time in my life and I enjoyed it, but truth be told I was pretty nervous. I just keep telling myself that if Guapo's cousin uses this plane every week, it should be fine. We arrive at the little airport, cortaditos (little Cuban coffees) in hand, and we meet our pilot. A young guy using this gig to gain his flying hours while enjoying living in Miami. I like him, I had a good feeling about him. He was excited to fly us from Miami to Bimini. In fact, so excited that he decided to take us on a little detour to do some island hopping from above. We get situated in the plane. Guapo in the backseat, I’m in the front passenger seat. We put on our headphones and before you know it, we were flying high above the big open ocean. Below us, the colors of blue and turquoise swirled and intertwined as if involved in a sensual dance. Ahead lie nothing but clear skies, and endless possibility. We enjoyed an aerial tour of Miami and the coastline and then we made a pitstop to go check out the private island of Cat Cay. The grandeur of the private estates, yet the calm of the island’s seclusion formed a perfect dichotomy aka...heaven on Earth. Eventually we made it to Bimini and waited for our friends who were about 30 minutes behind us in their plane. We went through the tiny customs office, where one person was working...adorable. We jump in a 2 minute taxi, then a 15 min boat taxi, where we are warned to keep our limbs inside the vessel due to a large amount of sharks, then one more 2 - minute taxi and we arrive at our resort. The island is small and quite underdeveloped, so the resort is one of the only major buildings. There are however quite a few conch shacks on the island so that’s exactly where we headed. It was time for lunch, so we jumped in our rented dune buggie and decided to eat like the locals, fried conch, and conch salad it was. Conch isn’t something I would typically order, but when it’s the island specialty, and the only thing on the menu, it’s what's for lunch. It was fresh, seasoned perfectly, and absolutely worth 2 planes, 2 taxis, a boat a dune buggie. We washed it down with a local beer and took a big deep breath. After all the planning, all the doubt, all the worry, we were here. Me, Guapo, his two friends and their two kids. Now it's time to sightsee, soak up the Bahamian sun and...relax…