Captain’s Log: Airplane Mode

Woke up at 5 a.m., got the boat ready to sit alone for a month, and was off by 7 a.m. for a 3 p.m. flight. Caught a ride to the airport with a couple of other boaters — about an hour in the car — watching the morning mist rise off the jungle. Great folks, great sailors, and great chat the whole way down. Arrived about six hours early for my flight, Krispy Kreme and my favorite Rockstar Energy Drink in hand — breakfast of champions!

Bonus at PYC Airport: there’s a Priority Lounge pre-security. Normally, you can only enter three hours before a flight, but they let me in early. It was looking like a good day for the Bri-Guy!

After three hours of free coffee, sandwiches, yogurt, and nachos, I checked in at the Avianca desk and moved through security to the Amex lounge near my gate. Now it was free brownies and cappuccinos. The flight was on time, about an hour and packed, but I paid for the exit row — and would you believe it, the two seats next to me were the only empty ones on the entire plane? I was living like a king, sprawled out watching Stranger Things. What a day!

The first leg stopped in El Salvador — where, three months ago, I’d left my watch at a security checkpoint on the way up. My mom gave it to me for my birthday. I contacted them, and they’d held it for me — three months later they still had it. Unbelievable. Life really was looking great for Briester!

Then… it happened.

A security checkpoint to get on the second flight at the gate. Three hundred people. One scanner. Everyone taking off shoes, belts, hopes and dreams. It was like watching evolution run backward. By the time I reached the front, I was barefoot, sweating, and spiritually broken.

They called pre-board. I am not exaggerating — forty-three wheelchairs rolled up like a NASCAR pit crew reunion. Maybe a Salvadoran senior tour? I don’t know, but it took so long I started to believe we’d just live there now. People were forming micro-communities, trading snacks, and making eye contact like war buddies.

Once I finally boarded, I spotted my seat — and my destiny. There she was, a lovely woman of generous proportions in the middle seat, the armrest raised and not going down. I slid into my aisle seat, half in, half out. She smiled warmly, the kind of sweet that disarms frustration, and we both glanced hopefully at the open window seat beside her. Maybe, just maybe, it would stay empty.

People kept filing in — a slow-motion parade of backpacks, pillows, and emotional baggage — and then… a pause. The flight attendants began closing overhead bins. Could it be? Twice in one day? Hold Fast was smiling on me!

Nope. Then came the window-seat guy — the human embodiment of “oh, come on,” the second-to-last person to board. The final piece of the human Tetris puzzle. The three of us were packed tighter than a family-sized burrito, united by circumstance and armrest diplomacy.

Now, look, I don’t own an airline. It’s not my job to decide who pays for what or how many seats exist in this cruel geometry experiment. One thing is certain: I should not have to suffer for just showing up as a paying customer. I actually paid a hundred more for an exit-row seat. The reality is we have long since become cattle for the airline industry. I remember when I was a kid, we would dress up to fly — meanwhile, the guy two rows up from me is wearing a sleeveless tank top. Still, it is what it is — not the first time I’ve been miserable on a plane, and definitely not the last. My back was writing angry letters, though, by the time we landed.

As we were taxiing, a conversation sparked with my seatmates. They asked where I was from, and I told them I’d been sailing around the world. That got some smiles, some wide eyes, and a few curious questions. I love those moments — retelling the odyssey one storm and one sunset at a time; I almost relive the moments.

Once we hit cruising altitude, my new window-seat friend was out cold, snoring like a Harley in neutral. It wasn’t just a snore — it was a full symphony, complete with brass section. At first, I was genuinely concerned for his health. But as the minutes went by, it was so absurdly loud that it crossed over from annoying to surreal — if it hadn’t been so comical, it might have driven me insane.

Then the lady next to me cracked open a Whopper mid-flight. The smell rolled through the cabin — a greasy, nostalgic perfume of fast food and regret. A man across the aisle was watching a movie with his wife, no headphones, full Dolby Surround. Six rows up, a random cabin light flickered like a rave strobe sevaral rows down, as if Poseidon himself was DJing our descent into madness. The plane was otherwise pitch black — except for one overhead reading light. Just one. The entire cabin asleep, and the single person with their light on was directly behind me, drilling daylight into the back of my skull. Of course. Because why wouldn’t it be?

Somewhere over Guatemala, I realized I was no longer on an airplane — I was on a Greyhound bus with wings. I was a hostage of gravity and Burger King. If someone had opened a bag of Doritos, the oxygen masks would’ve dropped just to get it over with. When we finally landed in L.A., the cabin looked like the aftermath of a music festival. People stumbled into the aisle, eyes glazed, hair matted, dragging themselves toward daylight. I expected the flight attendants to hand out thermal blankets and whisper, “You survived.” The plane smelled like despair, fast food, and victory.

Still, I got my watch back. And in the grand cosmic ledger, that somehow made it all worth it. You start the day feeling like James Bond, and end it like the last survivor off the world’s slowest clown bus — phone dead, dignity gone, and brain permanently stuck in airplane mode.