Nasty weather came in for us this past Thursday and Friday. Thursday we managed a few fish and Friday was blowing 35 mph all day with clouds we didn’t make it to the water at all. We did go trick or treating though. I should have taken more photos but trust me pirates were the theme. Cash was a shark and Patsy a princess.
Saturday improved greatly in terms of visibility. We still had wind but the sun was shining and bonefish could be spotted. Frequently you were casting up wind into shallow water. Cruising fish were often willing to grab the Pink Mini Puff, a favorite fly on Abaco.
Sunday I ran to the airport were my rod tube was supposed to have shown up. Of course no one at the Continental Connection desk had any idea about were my bag was, or who I was, or how to look up my claim, which was now a week old. In fact all the computers were down as well as all the phones. The chick at the desk did manage to order herself breakfast on her cell phone while I was standing there waiting for her to find me another form to fill out.
All week we had been calling Continental Airlines trying to find out what had happened. The story of the lost rod tube is this; as I am boarding the plane the same desk clerk who had just checked us in, and all our bags to Marsh Harbor Bahamas says, “I can gate check that for you” like she is trying to help us. Now “gate check” to me means you pick up your bag when you get off the plane right at the door. With all the wheel chairs and strollers etc.. But what the clerk does, (the same one that just checked us in to the Bahamas) is puts a Oaxaca Mexico Bag Tag on my bag and sends it on the plane. So most of my luggage is on the right track but the rods are going to central Mexico, come on! In addition the clerk does not give me a claim ticket, she says, “I will take care of it for you”. During our travels to the Bahamas we stop in Houston and in West Palm, I am nervous about my bag because it wasn’t at the door in Houston the first stop after Portland. I check with baggage claim in Houston and with Continental and of course they assure me my rod tube has been checked through to my final destination. At that point I am hopeful but nervous. I don’t find out about the Mexico tag for several days, talking to literally 17 different people on the phone, relaying the story and the description of the bag at least as many times.
Finally this Sunday while the chick at the desk is ordering her bacon an eggs I ask the Pilot who has just come in on a small Continental plane if he brought any luggage, he says yes just a few pieces. I get him to take me to customs and baggage claim which are the same room, were I’ve been already on several occasions and I find my rod tube. I have to give the folks in Mexico some credit for sending the thing back through the system I fully expected all my rods to be on eBay.-CD
