Part Two: The Voyage

The morning of our cruise to the island started when we woke up at 5:30 am Eastern Time, which translated to 2:30 am Pacific. If it wasn't for the combination of adrenalin from the excitement of going to the Bahamas and sugar from the key lime pie we'd eaten right before going to bed the night before, we never would have been able to pull ourselves out of bed. Of course getting up that early, we had to forego eating breakfast, so by the time we'd checked in, we were STARVING (well, as starved as a middle-class American can be... which is surprisingly hungry! Fortunately the ship offered a full buffet breakfast as soon as we boarded. The 5-hour cruise also included a full buffet lunch. I guess that, just like the airlines, they figured that since we'd be trapped on the vehicle for 300 minutes, they would offer us enormous amounts of food, alcohol, gambling, movies, swimming, and private cabins. Oh, wait... never mind... all the airlines gave us were peanuts, Diet Coke, and in-flight movies we had to pay $5 to watch! Friendly skies my arse!

Of course we made our way to the prow of the ship, where we posed for the obligatory Titanic pose before making our way down to the car deck, where we climbed inside one and... well, that WOULD have happened if we could have found anything but old American autos with vinyl seating and smelled like cigarettes that were left unlocked. There's no way I'd have sex in an American car!

Anyway, soon after lunch, we pulled into the Freeport harbor on Grand Bahama Island. As soon as we got off the ship we were accosted by hair braiders offering to give Margaret beaded corn rows... something that we'd be offered at least 300 more times during our visit. (Afterward someone told us that they don't clean their combs, so they're a great vector for lice... (shudder). There were also lots of people selling conch shells. Reading in our guidebook, we learned that Bahamians eat a LOT of conch. When I was talking to the sellers, though, they kept referring to "conk." It wasn't until after I'd heard them say that a couple of times that I realized that that's how they pronounce it and it wasn't a speech impediment. Well Margaret and I got a kick out of that, saying that it reminded us of that character from the Disney movie "The Emperor's New Groove" whose name was "Cronk." Well, unfortunately we talked about Cronk so long, that at dinner when I ordered deep fried conch, I asked for deep fried CRONK--how embarrassing! The waitress just looked at me like I was a complete lunatic, but fortunately still understood the order. And it turned out to be extremely delicious, as well, like a gigantic fried clam... only less chewy. Little did we know that that was just the beginning of our all-fried diet for the next couple of days.

On our way back from the hotel, the winds started picking up, but we thought it was just an evening storm and that the next day we'd be getting brown on the beach. Little did we know that Mother Nature had other plans for us, which I'll tell you about in tomorrow's edition.