Flight of Fancy - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 103

Soon we were airborne although it felt more like air-buffeted. The word “turbulence,”
bandied about so freely by pilots and flight attendants, barely did our situation justice. We
not only dipped up and down dramatically, we also shuddered from side to side.
We were beside ourselves, both literally and figuratively.
Flying over water is the least stressful part of any flight for me. Yes, I know it's illogical
but, in the back of my mind, I always believe the plane can ditch into the sea without any-
one suffering injuries that a reasonably competent plastic surgeon can't tidy up in an after-
noon or two.
But once we reach land over Fajardo (the port town on the eastern end of the big island)
I'm on red alert.
And sure enough, about halfway between Fajardo and San Juan (a fifteen minute trip),
we hit turbulence so violent it made me nostalgic for the summer breeze I'd naively char-
acterized as turbulence a few minutes before.
Suddenly a very loud alarm went off. My fellow sufferer whimpered like a puppy. Mi-
chael even deigned to lift his gaze from his magazine. The radio crackled with emphatic
instructions. The pilot shouted a few words in response, then banked the plane very sharply
to the right. The luggage in the back of the plane slid sideways with an ominous growl,
then slammed into the wall with a crash.
I practiced my breathing techniques so hard I'm sure I fractured a couple of ribs.
“What's going on?” Michael asked the pilot.
No response.
“ ¿Qué pasa? ” he tried again.
The pilot answered in Spanish. It was obvious that Michael didn't understand.
“He said they won't let us land in San Juan,” the nervous man more or less screamed.
“We're going back to Fajardo.”
I loved this guy—compared to him, I deserved a Purple Heart.
Seven minutes later we were on a very shaky approach to the elongated driveway that
passes for the Fajardo airstrip.
Even so, it looked like heaven to me. At least it qualified as terra firma .
The touchdown was sporadic, meaning that we bounced up and down two or three
times before actually remaining earthbound.
Rain pounded the roof of the plane. A drop actually landed on my forehead as we taxied
to the miniscule terminal.
We stumbled off the plane and ran into the building. “Where's the bar?” I asked.
“There isn't one,” the nervous man said.
“Got any drugs?”
“I did,” he admitted through a crumpled smile, “but I took them all.”