I have back-dated my belated cruise blogs, and have checked the box to keep them from showing up out of order.  This seems to prevent them from showing up in my friends' Friends pages at all, so anyone who is curious should search my blog for the "cruise" tag.  I will be posting two a day until I catch up.

If anybody looks and can't find them, please let me know!

Our final day at sea was a little disappointing, as it rained all day.  This meant that the water slide and miniature golf were closed, and that a particularly large number of passengers tried to squeeze themselves onto the aft deck, where a retractable roof allowed an approximation of sunning around the "Adults Only" pool.  (I use the quotation marks advisedly; the restriction was ignored several times over the course of the cruise, particularly on this rainy final day when the other pool areas were less attractive.)

Still, it was a pleasant and relaxing day.  We did some proto-sunning, went to high tea as we had on every "at sea" day, and had one last lovely dinner.  Mom and I then headed to the casino, where I lost the last of my spending money on a miserably bad run of luck at blackjack.  (Mom, who is an unusually successful player on the average, can't find anything wrong with my play.  Apparently the cards just hate me.)  This did not distress me unduly, though; I don't gamble unless I'm prepared to lose my money.  I was a little disappointed that it didn't take longer, though.

Our scuba diving excursion in Cozumel didn't start until early afternoon, so chikuru and I spent the morning lazing about a suddenly and luxuriously deserted cruise ship.  The food options were a little scarcer than usual, but the cornucopia of empty deck chairs made up for it.

After lunch we joined our diving group, which included one funny little man who seemed to take innocent pleasure in life and everything around him.   We weren't even on the boat yet when I whispered to chikuru that I thought we might have problems with him on the dive.  I'm not entirely sure what made me so sure of that, but... well, more on that later.

I learned something new while we were getting our equipment: Mexican sizing systems are magic.  The woman ahead of me asked for size 9 fins, and was given a pair marked 7/8.  When she protested, the young man behind the counter said "It's OK, these are Mexican sizes!".   I was next, and I asked for size 9/10.  The fins that were passed to me were marked 5/6.  I pointed this out, and the same young man smiled at me and chirped "Mexican sizes!"

Er???

The odd thing was that the fins fit perfectly.

On our first dive, which chikuru sat out because of a bit of nasal congestion, we went down to 80 feet.  The funny little man I mentioned before appeared to have no control whatever of his buoyancy; within five minutes of our entering the water, the dive master had "leashed" him by having him hold one end of a 10-foot rope while the dive master held the other.  Even so, he remained unpredictable, sometimes floating above the rest of us and sometimes coming distressingly close to bumping into the coral on the sea floor.  (One does not touch the reefs while diving!  It kills the coral and can, incidentally, damage the diver as well.)

Still, it was an uncommonly good dive.  Among the sights were a 6-foot nurse shark, a couple of rays, a sea turtle and a small school of barracuda.  I only wish it hadn't been raining; in clear water like that, the difference between a clear day and an overcast one is quite obvious, even at 80 feet.

The second dive, on which chikuru joined us, took us to 60 feet.  The goofy diver was given another chance to manage himself alone, but within ten minutes the dive master had him back on the leash.  To, I might add, my considerable relief.   Sights on this dive included a second sea turtle, more barracuda, a magnificent spiny lobster and the largest and most colorful parrot fish I've ever seen.

By the end of the second dive I was fairly chilled, since I had (probably unwisely) foregone the additional expense of a rented wetsuit.   Within minutes of returning to the ship, though, I had had a hot shower and was soaking in one of the hot tubs on deck.  Bliss.

Day 6

Our excursion in Grand Cayman consisted of a boat trip to Stingray City with a couple of side stops for snorkeling.  The title stop didn't look very promising at first: all we could see was over a dozen boats and several hundred people milling around in a relatively small shallow area.   We were there, though, so we went ahead and got off the boat to see what we could see.

It was well worth the trouble.  In spite of the crowds, we got plenty of attention from the rays, which ranged in diameter from 1.5 to 3 feet or so, with tails that appeared to be up to six feet long.  I'm sure they are *not* affectionate, friendly creatures, but they were giving a fair impression of it as they bumped and rubbed against us, even allowing us to hold them (carefully and levelly) in our arms.  It was not our winning personalities that inspired this behavior, though, but the squid pieces that we were feeding them.

Speaking of which, one has to be a little careful in the feeding process.   I'm told that they don't bite, but that's another thing they can imitate pretty well if they accidentally suck your hand into their mouths along with a tidbit.   I didn't lose any blood, but I had some very visible marks on my fingers for some time after I discovered this fact.

Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from the rays and go on to our second stop, a snorkeling spot with clear, shallow water, small reefs and numerous fish.  The third stop was similar, though the water was a little deeper, but was made memorable by another lone sting ray who had somehow lost (or been born without) her tail.  She must also have been hoping for a handout, as she hung around the boat almost the entire time we were in the water, and allowed us to swim up to her and touch her.  Touching the underside of a sting ray is an amazing sensation: the flesh feels firm and muscular but also incredibly smooth and soft, like cream.   I'll never see them quite the same way again, even on television.

In celebration of D's birthday as well as Thanksgiving, we had dinner at "The Point", a fancy reservations-only restaurant with a "nominal" surcharge but excellent food.  I don't think I've ever had surf-and-turf with lobster bisque for Thanksgiving dinner before, but I have no complaints.

Day 5

After two days at sea, we reached Jamaica, our first port of call.  Several adventurous excursions were offered there, but chikuru and I had decided that we deserved a beach day after our stresses at work for the past few weeks, so we jumped on a bus to spend the afternoon at the Sandals Montego Bay resort, where we would be treated to all the food, beverages (alcoholic and otherwise) and water sports we cared to savor.

On our arrival, we were given an orientation at the hotel chapel.  If I had been wearing a watch, I probably would have spent the whole time glancing at it; we only had 4 hours before we had to get back on the bus, and I already pretty much knew how to use a beach.  I'm pretty good at ordering drinks, too.

Fortunately, that portion of the program lasted only a few minutes, after which we were guided to the extreme left end of the beach and advised to treat the dozen or so beach chairs there as "our" area.  I asked if we were expected to remain there, and was told no, we had run of the resort, but we might be more comfortable there.

"I see.  So we're allowed to go anywhere, but we shouldn't."

"No, no.  You are free to go wherever, but you don't want the other tourists looking at you funny and wondering what you're doing here."

I glanced at chikuru.  "Hell with that," I said, and we walked back to the main area, picked out a pair of nice, shady lounges, and settled down to relax.  We were not the only cruise excursioners to do so, I was glad to see.

Thus began a pleasant few hours.  We sipped, we snacked, we read.  We borrowed a catamaran and sailed around for forty-five minutes or so.  We sipped, snacked and read some more.

Half an hour before departure, the cruise visitors were summoned to a "beach party" which seemed to entail standing in a semicircle and playing absurd games at some distance from the water.   We boycotted this as well, electing instead to savor a little more beach time.

Then, back to the boat and off to Grand Cayman.

Day 4

My primary memory of our second day at sea was of wind.  No, that's not quite right.  Of >>>WIND<<<!!!! 

My first effort to sun myself was short-lived as I was driven back below decks by the relative chill and the hair whipping into my face.   Later it became warmer, but not much calmer -- just not a basking kind of day.

Probably the highlight of the day was an attempt by several of us to play miniature golf on one of the upper decks.  The wind (which I later heard was about 35 knots) was coming from the direction in which the ship was going and thus, er, enhanced.  The balls would not stay where they were placed, and were sometimes blown off the green altogether.  My sarong kept trying to escape, and I was in fact actually blown off balance once or twice.   D had to enter a restricted area to recover a ball that flew off the course altogether.  I truly wish I had a videotape of it all.

After supper, chikuru, Mom, Dad and I went to a lounge that was offering karaoke.  Fortunately, I was called almost immediately -- Mom was fleeing the room owing to an understandably low tolerance for bad singing, and literally stopped in the doorway to come back and hear me.  Fortunately I managed what I'm told was a reasonably creditable performance of Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover", since I doubt we'll be able to talk her into a karaoke lounge again.  (*smile*)

Day 3

I began the day virtuously, going with chikuru to the ship's gym to exercise.  Since he and I had resolved to avoid elevators most or all of the time while on shipboard, and since our cabin was on deck 2 while the gym was on deck 11, we had already had a pretty fair workout by the time we reached our destination.  Nonetheless, we dutifully put in twenty or thirty minutes on the aerobic machines.

As I was not particularly interested in the guided ship's tour that some of the others were taking, I settled after breakfast in solitary splendor about halfway up the tiered sun deck above the main pool area.  ("Solitary" is of course a relative term, as the boat was (as previously noted) filled to capacity and the weather was fine.)  I spent the morning there, alternately watching the crowds and reading my book, sipping a soda and basking in the warm-but-not-hot sunshine.  Not the stuff of which gripping narratives are made, but very relaxing.

The afternoon brought excellent news: our maitre d' had somehow accomplished the impossible and arranged for our party of eight to be seated together for the remainder of the cruise!  A late seating, too, which made most of us even happier.  I, for one, cannot get excited about starting a formal multi-course dinner every night at 5:45, which was chikuru's and my original seating time.

In the evening I played Blackjack in the casino, but I lost all the money I was willing to lose ($21 at $3 a hand) too fast for it to be much fun.  I resolved to confine my further gambling activities to penny and nickel slots, at least until the final night of the cruise.

Day 2

Fear, fire, foes!!!  When we boarded the cruise ship, we quickly discovered that our party of eight had been separated into four parties of two for dinner; the ship's computer had no record of our cross-reference request for dinner reservations.  We were scattered across two dining rooms and three seating times.    Eek!

I went to one of the maitres d' and explained the situation, trying hard for a tone of wistful pleading rather than frustration or entitlement.  He was sympathetic, but unsure of whether he'd be able to help or not: the cruise was fully booked, with many family groups already dining together.   He said that he would do his best, and that if he were successful we would have new seating assignments delivered to our (also scattered) staterooms the following afternoon.

After being reminded that this was also T's birthday, I went back to the restaurant with D to see if anything temporary could be done for us tonight, since eating separately wouldn't be very festive.  When he realized that we had waited patiently through the whole line again, I think J, the maitre d', wanted very much to be able to do something for us, though he still couldn't guarantee anything.  After telling us that he felt bad but that there probably wouldn't be much he could do, he finally told us to show up half an hour after seating time tonight to see if he'd been able to arrange anything.  He couldn't promise, he reiterated, but he would try.

So, we arrived at 8:30 and were promptly seated at a lovely table for eight.  Still no promises for the rest of the cruise, but we were very impressed and relieved that J was able to do that much for us.   I know T especially appreciated it!

Dave and I began our cruise vacation by driving down to Galveston a day in advance, so as to be there to pick my parents up at Houston Hobby airport at 10:55 pm.  We left at 11 am with the intention of getting there early enough to enjoy a leisurely day in Galveston first.  Alas, we were foiled by a number of unrelated circumstances:

• Stopping for breakfast at a Waffle House that inexplicably took over 45 minutes to serve us a waffle and an omelet.
• Road work along 290, which narrowed the road to one lane for a mile or so, with predictable results to traffic flow.
• More road work near where I-610 and I-10 meet, causing part of our route to be closed altogether and forcing us to detour through the heart of downtown Houston.

The net result of all of this was we spent over 5 hours on a drive that should have taken around 3.5 hours, and we arrived too late and too tired for much tourist activity.  We settled instead on dinner and a movie.

For dinner, we stumbled completely by accident on the Rain Forest Cafe, a spectacular family restaurant modeled to look like an African rain forest, complete with animatronic elephants and gorillas, not to mention a couple of large free-standing aquariums (aquaria?) and a semi-hourly sound-and-light simulation of a thunderstorm.  It was clearly very popular, especially with families with young children, but they managed to seat us quickly and bring us some quite reasonably edible food from an interesting and varied menu.  I don't know that I would eat there all the time even if I lived in Galveston, but I'm certainly glad to have gone once.

The movie was BEOWULF, which we saw in a small and nearly empty theater.  For a review of this film, see fraeuleinchen's blog posting here.