Belize. No port – the water is not deep enough – so the ship anchors off of Belize City – about 2 miles.
We went directly from the ship to a private small island beach. The island boat picked up about 40 of us and it turns out we were the only ones who had scheduled that shore activity for the day.
The 20 acre beach / island can easily accommodate 300 or 400 people so it was practically deserted and we had the whole place to ourselves.
Again – just laid around, drank a bunch of ‘mudslides’, swam some, listened to music (via ipod) and talked.
Out of the small group on the island were some Ship's crew members and staff. Dave spent his time chatting up an Australian girl (real cute) who works in the Ship's spa.
What a great way to spend the day.
The one great thing about having my laptop - even with slow modem speed access - is that I can listen to RadioParadise. I can only tolerate so much of the Top 40 stuff that is typically played on ships. Music for the masses. I love good music and it's nice to be able to get RP while on board.
Our port on Tuesday was Cozumel. The entire island is a tourist economy. I don’t think there is any manufacturing or industry that isn’t tourist related.
Went to Chankanaab National Park. Pretty much just sat under the palms, read, had a drink and just chilled out.
Steve went on the dolphin encounter and was the time of his life. I’ve done that in the past and it’s pretty awesome. However, I have some problems with keeping dolphins penned up and trained to entertain tourists.
While it was an amazing thing to swim with the dolphins, I don’t think I’ll ever do that again.
Dinner was scallops over risotto, salad, garlic shrimp and asparagus, and tiramisu.
The gang spends evenings hanging out in Dave's room. He's an early to bed, early to rise guy - so it works out to visit a while and then Dave goes to bed. Afterwards, everybody else heads out to the nightclubs / bars and such.
I wanted to stay up and see the comedy show at 11 but I just couldn’t do it. Fell asleep by 10.
Our port yesterday was Key West. I’d never been there. We just walked around looking at the shops and houses. Only place we went in was a small restaurant where we sat on the porch overlooking the street and watched people go by.
I haven’t done a darn thing on board except go to dinner and read. I’m already almost finished with the first of 3 books I checked out.
Dinner last night was chilled peach soup, eggplant and cherries jubilee.
We’re headed in to Cozumel today and again nothing planned. Might get a taxi and head to a beach or Chakanaab National Park.
Everybody’s having a great time, as always people do on a cruise ship. Nuke and Steve are both night owls so they’ve been closing down the bars and casino each night so far.
Last night I stayed up till 10:30.
Parrrrty!
Odds and Ends
Nuke and my cabin has 2 beds and a small sofa.
Each bed has 2 pillows. The sofa has 2 small bolster pillows arranged at each end (total =4). Plus, there are 2 huge oversize pillows that sort of drift around where needed. By oversize, each is the size of those huge pillows you can use to sit on the floor. Plus there are 2 of those 'back' pillows that you can slip behind your back while sitting on the sofa or in bed reading. Total? 12 pillows in this small little room.
Very cozy and comfy.
Wake Up Call
I use breakfast room service as my wake up call.
Each night I fill out the door tag for coffee, juice and a fruit plate with a 0700 delivery time.
They call about 10 minutes before they deliver so that serves as a great wake up call.
(Although I still wake up naturally before the call.)
RCCL does it right. Instead of a tiny caraf for 2 - they send up a full size caraf. I'm on my second cup as I write this entry. Decaf - even in the morning. Otherwise - with this much coffee, I'd be buzzing all day.
Nuke likes it because I turn down the phone ringer so it doesn't wake him. But when he does wake up - he's got coffee right there waiting for him.
On vacation with a group of friends – cruise ship to the western Caribbean.
The ship's modem connection is unbelievably slow. As in 45 kbs. So, these entries will be short. I’ll add more plus photos later so check back next week.
Flight down was right on time and uneventful.
I used to fret about getting to the airport on time and connections and things. Which - with the super efficient, valuable and worthwhile TSA - can be a good thing to have extra time. But as I get older, I just really don't care as much. Missed plane? There'll be another one.
I really thought I had allotted plenty of time to get to the airport and go through the longer Thanksgiving weekend insecurity lines. Still - when we got to the gate I asked when they would begin boarding.
"Going to Ft. Lauderdale?"
"Yep"
"Get On The Plane!"
"OK"
Annnnnd - we're off!
(In all fairness - TSA at RDU really was efficient. The long lines moved quickly. Ineffective - but efficient. Your tax dollars at work.)
Usual first day on board. Everybody is excited. For Chip and Erica – their very first cruise vacation.
Watermelon soup, salad, prime rib and cream filled pastry for dessert.
The shop keeper has several birds for sale, all in the thousands of dollars range.
Except for one which is only $25.
The guy inquires about the el-cheapo bird.
Shopkeeper:
“This one has some behavior problems and has a pretty bad attitude and vocabulary.”
The guy figures that for only $25 he can afford to try and re-train the bird and put up with a dirty word now and then.
Well, the bird has a really bad attitude and even worse vocabulary.
Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.
The guy tired and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to try and ‘clean up’ the bird’s vocabulary.
Nothing worked.
Finally one day - the guy got fed up and yelled at the parrot.
The parrot yelled back.
The guy shook the parrot which only made the parrot angrier and even ruder.
In a fit of anger, the guy put the parrot in the freezer just to get it to shut up.
For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed and swore like a drunken sailor.
Suddenly – there was total silence.
Not a peep was heard for over a minute.
The guy, fearing he had harmed the bird quickly opened the door to the freezer.
The parrot calmly stepped out onto the guy’s arm and said:
“Sir; I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I am sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”
The guy was stunned at the sudden change in the parrot’s attitude. Before he could ask the bird what had caused such a dramatic change, the parrot said:
“And sir, may I also inquire – What exactly did the Turkey do?”
Spent the past week working at East Carolina University. Most of my time was spent at the Medical School.
Rather typical week but I did get to see some neat stuff at the West Campus. West Campus is the old Voice of America site. The VOA used to broadcast radio to Eastern Europe from here during the Cold War. The facility is about 600 acres out in the middle of nowhere with an operations / studio / broadcast building and an antenna farm plus a couple of small warehouses. At one time there were 100+ antennas out there. Most of them have been dismantled and used elsewhere. About 20 or so remain.
The facility was turned over to the State and ECU after VOA ceased operations at the site. We now use the site for agricultural medical research and it’s also the location for the Queen Anne’s Revenge archeology project.
Here’s an interesting room inside the VOA building. It’s made of copper and is a radio wave suppression room. I’m not exactly sure what it was used for but I have my guesses. I noticed a bunch of Cracker Jacks secret decoder rings that were left behind.
Blackbeard
The Queen Anne’s Revenge artifact research and salvage / restoration takes up the storage / garage area of the building and a separate storage warehouse.
Everybody likes the cannons since they are large and cool to look at.
In the past month a couple of really neat items were brought up. This is the rudder of the ship. It still has the depth markings on it in roman numerals. Quite a find and in remarkable condition.
And here’s something that is really spiffy. Back in the day, the captain of a ship might have a small brass cannon. Not really useful in warfare, they’re more like the small replica cannons that people have today and shoot off at football games and such. Think of it as an executive toy.
This little number was mounted on a pivot that fit into a hole in the ship’s railing. This was probably Edward Teach’s personal little play toy.
The old safe room in the VOA building is now used as an x-ray room. Here, a plate has been x-rayed before clean up.
Check out the detail.
Pretty neat, huh?
Football
Nuke and I went to the State at Wake Forest game yesterday. The Pack lost 38 to 18. It wasn’t quite as bad as the score indicates but WF did beat us pretty soundly.
The Pack helped beat itself with 3 interceptions, one of which was run back for a touch down. Another interception was in the end zone negating a sure touchdown drive for State.
Also, we recovered a fumble at the WF 30 yard line and came away with zero points. Add to that 90 yards in self inflicted penalties – well – that’s the way put yourself in a hole. If our offense hadn’t kept shooting itself in the foot, we would have very well won the game.
Still, this loss not withstanding, you can see this team can move the football and play some awesome defense. Tom O’Brien has taken a team that was 3 and 9 last year and started out 1 and 5 this year and is turning the program around. Without a single recruit of his own.
I honestly felt that except for Wake Forest’s quarterback, Riley Skinner (phenomenal!), State had the better overall team on the field.
Wake Forest should win out over Tulane next weekend and finish 8 – 4. Last year’s Wake's ACC Championship was no fluke.
It was a nice way to spend a football afternoon and evening. The drive to the game took about 3 hours including parking and traffic. While a long day overall - about 9 hours total – it was not that tiring. With the game breaking up the driving – it didn’t seem that long. I’d guess it’s a lot like when Dave drives up from Wilmington for games.
State fans easily made up ¼ of the crowd. Even with their football success the past couple of years, WF doesn’t sell out their stadium. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Grobe isn’t lured away to Nebraska or Arkansas or somewhere that’s more of a traditional football school.
Thanksgiving Week
Short week at work coming up. Then Thanksgiving at Kure beach with the sister family unit. State’s final football season game is next Saturday. Then, exactly a week from today – I’ll be on the deck of a cruise ship having a pina colada. Yaaaay.
