El Caribe: Anchors Away

Day 3
October 25, 2010
At Sea
The sun was barely up on Saturday morning when we found ourselves at the new “Plattsburgh International Airport,” waiting for a puddle-jump flight that would take us to Boston where we’d begin our 15 day cruise. It was a crisp, cold late October morning. Frost hung in the air.

As Glenda and I sat in the boarding area, I looked up and noticed a woman I’d worked with from my NCCS days. “Silva,” I said, “Let me guess why you’re here.”

“NCL? Cruise to the Caribbean?” I asked.

I knew the answer. I’d known Silva as a School board member and after-school tutor who’d often use the library as home base. I knew she was an avid cruise taker, so wasn’t at all surprised to see her.

“This is cruise #81,” she said. “All on NCL.”

At that point, two other people piped up and said they were also on the cruise, heading home to New Orleans after a visit with a sister in Plattsburgh. There weren’t twenty people on the flight and more than 25% of us were heading south to warmer climes, sub-tropical islands, and lazy days at sea.

The journey had begun.

An hour later we were at Logan International where an NCL rep met us before taking bunches of us to the pier, a short bus ride away. We’d seen the boat flying in; we could have walked.

Once on board, we amused ourselves getting oriented to the boat, trying to find something to eat (not a hard thing to do on a cruise ship), and unpacking. By 8:00 pm, four hours later than scheduled, we set sail.

When I was 14 years old, my parents, brother and I took a four day cruise from Miami to Nassau. In the long shadow of memory, I vividly remember our disembarkation as a joyous, fun event. Somewhere a band played, people cheered and threw paper streamers from the deck. It was long time before the EPA when it was still OK to pollute American waterways.

This night, we simply slipped out of port, the skyline of Boston fading to black. I stood on deck, simply because it’s what I’ve always done when we disembark, and thought back to that first cruise, when my brother and I were still children and my parents were young.

“Bon Voyage,” I whispered to Mom and Dad, both gone now. I tried not to miss them, but it was hard at that moment. I just knew they would be with me on this trip.

We were traveling a straight-line trajectory down the East Coast of the United States. By Day 2, we woke close to the mainland of Virginia. We were far out at sea, far enough for the casino to stay open most of the day and all night. (“Yay!,” said Glenda.) All around us was the autumn-chilled Atlantic.

The sun was still low in the sky, so a day poolside wasn’t an option. No problem. From previous experience, I’ve come to love “sea days.” No one has to be anywhere. Not a thing is expected of anyone. It’s a time to kick back, enjoy what the ship has to offer, drink lots of Diet Coke and relax.

Occasionally, we’d see a large shipping vessel or barge, but other than that we saw no other evidence of civilization. It was wonderful.

How to spend such a day? An hour over breakfast staring out at the sea. Two hours doing a slow workout in the gym. A two hour nap. A long dinner at dusk as the sun set, another hour in the casino (I lost $10.00 in three nano-seconds), and a long walk around the ship relishing a stiff ocean breeze, and gazing at a tranquil sea under an almost full harvest moon.

By Day Three a new laziness had set in. Because we were in an inside cabin, it’s like sleeping in a tomb. I turned on my flashlight to see the time.

8:40 a.m. Neither of us wanted to emerge into the day. Monday morning. Why bother. A whole luxurious day lay before us with no place to go and no one to meet.

It was our second day at sea, and I promised Silva to join her “East Meets West” trivia team at 10:00 a.m. But I’m a bust at trivia and my mind is hardly alert that early in the day, so I was no bonus to the team. Instead, I’d do what I do best—spend the afternoon at the pool, soaking up the sun, and napping.

We were off the coast of Florida, so the days were warmer, the sun higher. But after three hours of lying in the sun, jumping into the pool and relaxing in the hot tub, it was time to leave.
I lazed the third late afternoon away in the 12th floor “Galaxy of the Stars” lounge which was wrapped with twelve foot windows facing the front of the ship. All late afternoon I read, wrote, gazed out at the sea. By now we were on a line with the Florida Keys and would, by late evening, enter lusciously-colored Caribbean waters. A live jazz quintet provided us with great tunes, and I had to force myself out of the space to watch the sun set.

Just before sundown, I took another swim in the saltwater swimming pool on Deck 13. Oblique rays of sunlight dazzled off the slate hued Atlantic. I watched as a translucent red ball sank in a pallet-splash of reds and oranges. As daylight diminished, clouds turned from shades of blue, to gray and finally to dark. Venus, a diamond glitter, hung low in the Eastern sky—the promise of clear night sailing.

It was a fine end to a very fine day.