Cruise: Part V

Cruise: Part V. "Vee." Or Five. However you feel like pronouncing V. I left off with my wild night at Senior Frogs. From there, my pocket journal jumps ahead almost a full day (because I had a very busy day!).

Entry Date, Thursday 11/22. Day V. 6:40am

Ricardo is a drink server on the ship who keeps popping up. He's a very chill (not pushy) guy and says "Hey" instead of "Drink?" He strikes up conversations and knows my name. I blame him for being buzzed and a prune... 4 full hours in the hot tub. 4 mai tais. Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm trying to decide if I should go eat and/or sleep. I really want to do both at the same time...

I met loads of people in the hot tub today. Debbie works in a school. We chatted about the state of the education system and "kids these days." She has two kids who are on the cruise (supervised by her husband, currently; I asked). She tried to out "hot-tub" me and failed after 2 and a half hours.

Michael seemed to be about my age. We talked about the ages of the women/girls on the ship. We laughed about there being nothing but teenagers in the lounges, even after hours. Michael was with a large group of people who were attending a wedding on the ship. I asked him if he could hook me up with any single bridesmaids. He said there weren't any. I wonder how that is even possible... He said his cousin (the bride) was the last of all their friends to get married.

I also met Jeff and his sister Jessica -- they were a blast -- a mom and daughter, two elderly couples who were cool, and some other fun folks. When you are in the hot tub for four hours, you meet lots of people.

Lots of fun before the marathon hot-tubbing: I let myself wake up when I was ready. No alarm. Put on shorts and a plaid shirt. I wore a straw fedora (man, I wish I could have brought more hats...). I had breakfast on the aft deck as usual. It was a beautiful day with beautiful views!

This is the passage way that the ship floated through... Doesn't really seem big enough for a huge cruise ship... also, how deep is it there between those two pieces of land?

Some beaches and that crystal clear blue water!

The last two pictures are of a resort called Atlantis. People on the cruise were raving about it. A lot of people on the cruise spent the day there. It was pretty costly to do so. There is a very cool water park there and a huge aquarium. I'm a big fan of aquariums. I like looking at cool-looking fish and sharks and things.

After breakfast, I went into Nassau to do some shopping. Too many people, upon learning that I was taking this cruise, asked me to get them "something." "Sure!" I'd say, but I had absolutely no intention of buying anyone anything or, even though it was suggested multiple times, sneaking remnants of sea life (shells, silver dollars, sand, etc) back through customs.

I was, however, excited to shop for my niece, Lily. I thought I might be able to find something unique for her in the "straw markets." The straw markets were incredibly unpleasant places to shop. There were booths on top of booths on top of booths with obnoxious islanders at each booth yelling at you to look at their wares. Every single step was another person, "You want this? Look at this. Come, you buy this." No thanks. No thanks. No thanks. No thanks. I felt like a recording.

I picked up a couple things that seemed like cool gifts, when I found exactly what I was looking for. Yup. You guessed it. A straw hat. It wasn't a fedora, but it has a hand designed butterfly on it in purple and pink.

The hat, was hanging in a corner booth and when it caught my eye, I got a big smile. I wondered how much it might cost. I thought about the size and determined that it would most likely fit Lily.

Then it dawned on me, "I've been standing at this booth long enough to have all these thoughts and no one has asked me to buy anything." I glanced to my left and saw a lady sitting in a chair off to the side of the booth. She was weaving some ribbon together. I watched her as she worked for a moment. I wasn't quite sure if the booth with the butterfly hat belonged to her or not, so I didn't say anything. I pulled out my wallet to see how much money I had and examined the hat more closely to see if it had a price on it.

It was then that the weaving lady said, not "you buy that" or "I have this," she said, "Hello there." I was shocked. I asked her how much the hat was. She said 13 dollars and added that she can put a name on it. Now, when you are buying things from pushy annoying people, you have no qualms about trying to get them to give you something for much less than what they want to sell it to you for. However, this lady was so polite, that I was more than willing to buy it for full price. However, I didn't have 13 dollars in my wallet. I spelled L-I-L-Y for her, and told her I needed to go to the ATM and would be right back. When I returned, she was finished with the name. I asked her how much it would be now that she put the name on it. She said 13. I gave her 15 and asked her to keep it.

I found a great gift and was glad to be done with the straw market. I went back to the ship, put on my swimming trunks, and headed back into Nassau. I got on the water taxi that took me from Nassau to Paradise Island. At Paradise Island, I walked about three miles to Cabbage Beach, a free beach, located nearish to Atlantis.

By now, it was afternoon and the weather had went from sunny and beautiful to breezy and partly cloudy. I had to set a rock on top of my towel, shirt, and sandals to keep them from blowing away. I wish I had brought my camera to the beach, but was afraid of it being stolen, so I left it in my state room. I had my wallet, with my ship ID/room card and my driver's license in a clear waterproof bag that was slung loosely around my neck.

To say the waves were huge would be an understatement. Some of them were cresting at two stories high. The beach itself was a steep decline, as far as beaches go, to the water. This made for a wall of crashing waves at the bottom of the decline. The surf from the crashing waves ran up the steep beach with such intensity that people weren't going in past their knees.

I, despite seeing this, ran right into the surf. I went as far down as the next guy was. The push from the surf was incredible and nearly threw me off my feet. In fact, it pushed me back up the beach, my legs unintentionally running in the direction that the surf was pushing.

No one dared contest the wall of crashing waves. The closest I saw anyone get was a good twenty feet up the beach from where they were crashing. I saw a few guys in a group start to inch their way down a little bit closer. I joined them. We didn't really talk to each other except to say "Whoa!!" Sometimes, one of them would fall and get pushed with the surf up the beach. One guy always stayed further up the beach to keep an eye on the others as they got closer and closer to where the waves crashed. At one point, a super waved crashed into shore and the ocean rushed up the beach into us as high as my waist. Instead of running with the surf up the beach, I dug my feet into the sand and leaned into the ocean. Almost instantly, another wave, that was hiding behind the crest of the first one, crashed and rushed up the beach. I let this wave push me off my feet and float me about 10 feet further up the beach. I was able to land on my feet and keep my balance. But, it wasn't the push of the surf that was dangerous. It was the pull of the undertow from waves like the super wave that took me by surprise. Because I was further up the beach, the undertow wasn't too intense. I dug my feet into the sand and leaned backwards toward the beach. One of the guys that I was near, however, didn't. He hadn't floated up the beach like I had and was further down. As soon as the surf started to rush out to sea, the next wave pulling the water back down into itself, the guy next to me lost his balance. Now, I can admit, I'm not a large guy. This guy was easily three times my size and his feet went out from under him so quick... he disappeared into the surf except for arms and legs flailing about. As I was holding my ground further up the beach, he was sucked straight into the next oncoming wave. The wave hit this guy dead on and all you could see were arms and legs. Somehow, he got a foot hold and was able to face back up to the beach. He half rode the wave, half scrambled up the beach. Everyone looked at each other like "whoah..."

Of course, I wanted to do it...

I worked my way closer and closer to the crashing waves, making sure I was close to the group of guys. Eventually, they gave up and walked out of the surf. I didn't want to risk my life without the potential of someone, in the very least, seeing where I get sucked out to sea to inform the coast guard of where to begin looking for my body; so, I started working my way parallel to the crashing waves down the beach to where a family was wading in and out of the surf.

While working my way through the surf, I didn't see the second super wave until it was too late.

When it hit me, I lost my balance instantly. I tumbled through the surf like a, um... thing that tumbles really easily through surf. I was deposited, oddly enough, in a sitting position about fifteen feet up the beach from where I was. The undertow tried to bring me back but only succeeded in pulling loads of sand up my swimming trucks.

Those who were watching me must have seen a big goofy smile on my face. I laughed out loud and started to stand up.

But, something wasn't right...

Something was missing.

I started to feel around my chest and neck as my eyes grew very large with the realization that the waterproof pouch that held my wallet, including my ship card and driver's license (both needed to get back through customs and onto the ship), was no longer around my neck. I quickly looked to the surf that just rushed up the beach. I looked left. I looked right. I saw nothing.

What am I going to do, I thought. I'm going to be stuck in the Bahamas with nothing but my swimming trunks, sandals, shirt, and a towel... FOREVER!

Just then, a kid (maybe about 12 years old), says "Hey, is this your wallet?" It was my wallet in it's waterproof pouch. Phew... I thanked the kid a million times and might have called him a hero. I wanted to give him a hug. He said he saw the wave take it off of me and saw it rush back to the ocean in the surf. Then it got pushed back up the beach about 20 feet away from where I was sitting there laughing at myself. He was able to snag it.

I asked the kid his name. Jared. Jared and I found out that we are on the same cruise ship. I promised to buy him a drink (a soda or juice!) back on the ship.

Thank you, again, Jared.

I secured the pouch around my neck AND arm this time and played in the waves a little bit longer. The sky became dark with one huge black cloud (I could see blue skies further away), and it started to rain. I decided to call it a day, as I was getting somewhat hungry anyway, and tried to dry myself off. The wind was whipping even worse and sand was sticking to me everywhere.

I decided to grab a taxi right at the beach instead of walking to the water taxi. It ended up costing the same. I showed my ship card and license to the customs guy and quickly walked back to the ship.

I grabbed a hot dog for lunch poolside (the rain had stopped already and the black cloud had passed) and then hopped in the hot tub. Ricardo spotted me and said, "what's up James?" I told him about the beach and told him I needed a mai tai. As he walked away to get my drink, two of my fellow hot tubbers, whom I had met before, laughed that "he knows the single guy's name!" Thus began my hot tub-a-thon.

There are two more journal entries from this day, which -- if you want to be technical -- belong in this posting. However, they are both rather long and this posting is already long enough. So, I'm going to stop here for tonight and throw the next entries into Part VI.