Sal; Thursday, 16 March, 2023

When I originally booked the trip almost a year ago I’d booked a night in an airport hotel so that I could have a relaxed start to the day prior to a mid-morning flight. Then a couple of months before I was due to fly TUI changed the time of the flight from 10:30 to 08:40 and downgraded the plane from a 10-year old Dreamliner to a 25 year old 767, fitted out with the maximum density of seating you can get in, and adding in an extra stop in Boa Vista, adding 90 minutes to the flight time to enable a crew change.

I was quite thankful that at least the journey to the airport in the morning was a relaxed 30 second walk, aided even further by having been able to drop my bag off the night before.

I had a smooth journey through the airport and down to the gate where we boarded within about 10 minutes of the time they had advertised and we ended up getting away almost on time, fuelled by a series of lies from the crew that this had been a last minute plane swap and they had been up all night coordinating the changes, which is amazing given the emails from two months previously that set out in full detail what would happen.

The plane was possibly more uncomfortable than I’d even feared, with no recline in the seat and in the case of my seat on seat back pocket, so I had to hold everything during the two take-offs and landings and could only slightly relax once I could put the tray table down.

Just shy of 7 hours after leaving Gatwick we landed on Boa Vista, some 45Km south of where we should have been landing, for a crew change and then, after a reasonably quick turn around, we headed back exactly the way we’d come form 45Km to Sal where we eventually landed just 15 minutes ahead of the time I was originally due to land when I’d booked the trip a year ago.

The journey through the airport in Sal was very smooth and efficient with the eGates letting me into the country in about the quickest I’ve ever made it through an eGate, though that speed was hampered by my bag being one of the last off of the plane.

Through the airport and out onto the transfer bus, which promptly served every other hotel on the southern end of the island before ending at the one I was staying in, nearly an hour after leaving the airport.

Thankfully I was checked in quite quickly and got into my room to dump luggage and make it over to the restaurant for the afternoon snack service before it closed at 5pm. A quick snack later and I headed back to my room to change into my swimming trunks and headed to the pool for a quick swim in waters that were considerably warmer than the hotel pool a few weeks earlier in La Palma.

Swim over I headed back to my room for a shower and to relax before heading back to the restaurant for dinner and following that a night cap in the bar before turning in for a well deserved early night.