DAY 4 - August 17, 2004 - St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

Since we’d booked the snorkelling excursion for 8:30, we had to be up early again. (I don't remember what the logic was in booking insanely early excursions and forcing ourselves to get up when we were still drained and listless from the night before.)

We had to clear through U.S. customs and when we were making our way to the elevators, I peered down below and noticed that a huge line had already formed.

The customs line up for the non-U.S. citizens was mercifully a lot shorter than the U.S. one.

From my understanding of everything that I’d read, we needed our passports to get in and out of the ship.

When Flo and I cleared through customs, I even stopped to ask one of the ship’s staff and she confirmed what I suspected. But Theresa said she’d asked the Customs people and they said it was okay to lock our passports back into our safe.

Aunt Ying was wary of having us carry our passports with us because if we lost them, we’d be stuck and it’d be a huge mess to get out of.

So, reluctantly, we decided to give our passports to Uncle Wei Kuo so that he could run back upstairs to put them away.

But by the time we made it down to the gangway and saw Dave the shopping guy, he said that we absolutely needed some sort of photo ID. If you had your driver’s license, then great. Otherwise, we’d need our passports.

Theresa, Flo and I were the only ones stuck with that and Theresa had to run back to tell Uncle Wei Kuo.

As we got off the gangway, the adults said goodbye and prepared for their morning of sightseeing before they went shopping.

While we were waiting with the other passengers who’d signed up for the Catamaran Sailing and Snorkelling excursion, we saw a bridal party get off.

“Man, I feel so sorry for the guy in the tux,” Daniel said, shaking his head.

We were already sweltering.

Walking down the dock took nearly half an hour and when we got to the catamaran, we had to take off our slippers and dumped them into the bucket.

Daniel, for some reason, was wearing socks and running shoes.

We all got on. I wanted to sit in the shaded cockpit area near the washrooms, but Daniel led everyone out onto the sunbathing deck.

As the catamaran bobbed along the shore and headed out towards Ship Wreck Cove in the Marine Park on Buck Island, I started to feel sick. I could barely concentrate as the captain of the crew pointed out Jay Leno’s mansion and old fortresses and the island’s only water fall.

I fumbled in the bag for my Bonine pills and passed some to Flo as well.

“Look at the floor. Look at the floor,” I thought to myself as I tried not to think about the rising bitter taste in the back of my throat. But I knew if I didn’t move soon, I’d throw up right on the deck.

I walked on unsteady legs, trying not to step on anyone as I blindly reached out to grab onto anything that would steady me and not send me slipping right off and onto the water.

As I made it to the washroom, carefully making my way down the steps, I threw open the door just in time to puke up all of my breakfast. I stood over the sink, shaking as I watched the scrambled eggs and the bacon come up. I heaved and heaved until I felt like my stomach was completely empty.

At one point, some guy opened the washroom door by mistake and started apologizing. I didn’t even care. I just felt like I was going to gag and die.

When I finally finished puking, I sank down on one of the seats in the cockpit area and tried to close my eyes, but then noticed Derek looking at me from the other side of the deck and making these weird faces at me and pretending to puke. I looked at him, puzzled, wondering how he knew I’d thrown up. But then, Flo came wobbling down. She had puke on the front of her bathing suit and some on her camera bag and apparently, she’d left a mess on the deck, too.

I took her snorkelling gear from her gingerly holding out in front of me with my thumb and forefinger as I told her where the washroom was. As she made her way down, she slipped and crashed down the steps, landing awkwardly at the bottom.

Some of the other passengers looked at her in alarm and asked if she was okay, but she just winced and stared back at me looking miserable. Hobbling, she went over to the sink and hovered over it just like I did and puked her guts out. I think most if had already come out on the deck, anyway.

I had to hand her her things for her to rinse everything off before they could be used. She also had to go back up on deck to wipe up most of the puke.

When we finally made it to Ship Wreck Cove, we had to get up on the deck to listen to the instructor tell us how to put on our gear. Some women didn’t even notice the puke and just walked right over it.

We had to smear some baby shampoo into our eye mask and then rinse it out. We slid our masks on and put on the flippers. I was planning on using the stairs that led straight into the water, but one of the guys told us it’d be faster and easier to just jump overboard.

That was a lot scarier than I expected. Walking around with those flippers on was no easy task. I felt like I had gigantic feet and was surprised I didn’t trip all over myself and crash head first into the water. Taking a deep breath and squeezing my eyes shut so I wouldn’t lose my contacts, I jumped into the water and then put on my eye mask and put the breathing tube into my mouth, biting down tightly and not even thinking about the hundreds of people who’d probably used the mask before me.

Daniel had brought his own gear and kept saying it was so gross that we were using the rental gear.

I couldn’t care less. I figured I’d just barfed and that I was probably the grossest person to put that tube into my mouth, anyway, so everything was good.

It’s strange breathing only through your mouth. You have to remind yourself to do it and sometimes, you take in a bit of salt water, which always makes you gag.

I could hear Derek, Darren and Daniel laughing and I couldn’t figure out why. The sound alone made me laugh, which echoed in my ears while I was under water and made me swallow some more salt water.

Flo had put on her eye mask backwards and the nose part was on top. She couldn’t figure out why the mask was so tight and when Derek and Darren saw her, they bust out laughing.

While it’d been bright and sunny when we first set out, it’d gotten overcast by the time we got to the cove.

The water was cold but we quickly got used to it.

It was crystal clear and when you looked down, it was like being inside a giant aquarium. Everywhere you looked, there were little yellow fish and some brightly coloured, striped pink and blue and yellow fish. I was afraid to reach out and try to touch them.

The lifejacket that they gave us helped to keep us afloat, but using the flippers to push ahead was surprisingly hard. It felt like I had lead weights tied to each ankle and I could barely move. But as I floated around, it felt really calm and serene and I couldn’t believe I was actually out in the ocean, exploring coral reefs and watching as schools of brightly coloured fish swam past.

The guide that was with us kept sprinkling fish food, which made the fish rise up in the water and closer towards us. I actually got a little panicked every time she did that and I would kick my flippers madly, hoping the fish would swim away, thinking I was some large, dangerous animal they should steer clear from.

The guide swam down and plucked off a slimy star fish and then a prickly urchin which she held out for us to touch. I passed on the star fish because it was pulsating and moving, but I tentatively poked at the urchin and it was really sharp. It had all sorts of spindly points all over.

As we moved along, we actually saw a sea turtle swim past, which was really cool. We all turned around and swam madly after it.

As we swam around the cove, we came across the wartime shipwreck of the Catanza C, which was 25 feet below the surface.

It was around here that Daniel lost his snorkelling pipe.

From behind him, I saw the pipe slowly drop further and further below. And there was nothing any of us could do about it. It was already too far down below for us to chase after it and I knew I’d run out of breath if I attempted to do it.

Daniel bobbed along the surface, wiping his eyes and looking dejected and lost as he said over and over again that he’d lost his pipe.

The guide looked at him and asked him how much it was worth to him because it was really deep and she might not be able to get it for him. Daniel looked lost and wasn’t sure what to say.

The guide told him that it was worth at least a $10 tip. She didn’t really seem to want to do it, but she dove down anywhere and as she swam down, I realized just how deep it was. I found myself holding my breath and remembering all those times that I’d been in swimming class and the stupid instructors would toss a puck into the deep end and tell us to go get it.

It takes a lot to hold your breath for even a minute. When you’re underwater and you can feel the pressure beginning to surround you the deeper and deeper you go, you can’t help but feel the beginnings of panic because when you start to push your way back up towards the surface again, there’s always that moment where you think you have to take a breath or you’ll die — yet, the surface looks so far away.

And when you finally manage to break through the surface and manage to get air into your lungs, it’s the sweetest feeling in the world.

Unless you’ve actually done this, you won’t know what it’s like.

When she managed to grab the pipe and came kicking her way back up again, everyone broke out into applause.

I hung back with Daniel and we watched as she dove down again — basically to show off — as she made her way through the opening of the shipwreck and floated through one of the rooms and up again.

“It’s funny how she won’t dive down to get my pipe which isn’t as deep but she’ll go down into a shipwreck for free,” Daniel said.

He had a point.

I told him not to worry about and that if he really felt compelled to give her a tip as thank-you gesture that he should just give her $5, instead of $10.

As we drifted over the shipwreck, it was kind of cool ‘cause I kept thinking about the Navigator and thinking that if it ran into an iceberg like the Titanic and sank, it’d be surreal floating over it and seeing the stairs that we’d gotten used to climbing up and down every single day.

I could see the staircase and port holes and it was a little creepy, wondering what had happened to the ship and if people had died on it.

In retrospect, I should have asked.

As we swam back towards the catamaran, Derek whispered, “I peed in the ocean twice.”

Hey, if you gotta go, you gotta go.

I was a little wary about getting back onto the catamaran and sailing back. I didn’t want to barf again even though I didn’t really have anything in my stomach to barf up.

Flo and I decided to take the smart route and sit in the cockpit area instead.

The crew provided us rum punch and chex mix — probably the best tasting food we’d had all day because we were starving by then.

It took about an hour to sail back and when they mentioned tips, I wasn’t really sure how much we should give.

“What do you think about $5 for the both of us?” I asked Flo. I told Derek and Darren that’s what we were planning on doing.

Derek later told me that he thought $5 was too much and that he would have rather given $1 instead.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I demanded. If someone had said $1, I would have agreed to it right away.

Daniel didn’t think it was enough. He wanted us to put all of our tips together so that it’d seem like he was giving more, but Derek nixed the idea, saying it would be better to give it separately so they’d know that we were all tipping them and it wasn’t all coming from just Daniel.

When Aunt Ying and Theresa found out, they lamented our stupidity.

“What? $5? Do you know how much that is in Canadian?” they kept asking over and over again. “So stupid! So stupid!”

We had to hoof it back to the Navigator to drop off all of our stuff and it was an insufferably long walk. We were bathed in sweat by the time we actually got there, because the Navigator was at the very end of the dock.

I told them we had to be back out of the ship by 1 p.m.

I wanted to take a taxi into town and then maybe ask the guy to take us to some of the more popular tourist areas. But in the end, everyone seemed to want to go shopping instead. While we waited inside the taxi, I decided to rifle through the bag to make sure we had enough money.

I’d exchanged our $100 bills for smaller bills at the Guest Relations desk earlier, but it turned out that I had walked right off the ship without my wallet.

Luckily, Derek had $80 with him.

We climbed into a taxi, which cost us $3 per person (that was drilled into our heads by Dave, the shopping guy, at his presentation the other day), and took it into the downtown shopping core.

It was blistering hot by then and the sunlight was so bright that the water shimmered with sparkling white light.

The ride was about 20 minutes and when we finally hopped off, the downtown area was unlike what I was used to seeing. It was actually pretty run down with the cobble stone streets lined with little shops that sold exactly the same thing.

The buildings had a somewhat tropical look and feel to it with leafy overhangs and narrow spaces between the shops that led into secluded little watering holes and street cafes.

There was jewellery shop after jewellery shop and liquor store after liquor store.

There were a couple of cheap souvenir shops that we ducked into, primarily to escape the heat and get into a nice, air conditioned place.

Darren and I went into one shop that looked really pricey and had these really cool, marble globes that cost a fortune. We ran our fingers along the smooth surface and tried to find St. Thomas on the globe and then pick out some of the other places we’d be stopping at.

At one corner shop, we found all sorts of cute little knick knacks, but we didn’t really buy anything until we found this liquor store that had all sorts of booze for insanely cheap prices. We started looking around and Daniel suggested that we split the cost of one bottle that we all enjoyed so that we could share it in one of our cabins later on that evening.

We went around and sampled some of the drinks.

The lady looked Daniel up and down warily and asked how old he was.

“18,” he said automatically.

“You don’t look 18. You look 14,” she said with a sceptical snort as she poured him some of the rum-based drink.

Daniel was really insulted, though I have to admit that he looks really young.

The drink tasted like a diluted Bailey’s. It was really good. Derek, after tasting the drink, decided that this was the one he wanted to split, so he bought a bottle, too.

I had to sign for it because I was the oldest, and it was in my name.

As we lugged it back and we walked around, we realized there wasn’t much to see and it was getting hotter and hotter by the minute.

We’d run into the adults and they’d mentioned that the sight seeing tour wasn’t really all that interesting. It was just “scenery”.

Darren had been reluctant to go on the tour in the first place and suggested that he take the taxi back to the ship while the rest of us went on a tour.

When we all decided we’d rather head back to the ship, it was a bit of a relief to him.

Some sites along the way back to the ship:

By then, we were so hot and irritable, all we wanted to do was dive into the ocean or at least sit in the pool for a bit.

We didn’t realize that when we got back to the boat, they’d take our booze away from us and only return it to us the night before we were supposed to head home.

Stripped of our booze, Flo and I made our way dejectedly to our cabins and then decided to head up to the pool to cool off.

The problem is that, no matter how hot and humid it is outside, as soon as you get back onto the boat, you get cooled off right away and walking up to the eleventh deck in your swimming suit is a long, cold walk.

When we got outside, I gingerly went into the pool, sliding in a little bit at a time.

I got into the whirlpool and just sat there for the longest time, watching as my fingertips and toes shrivelled up.

Derek eventually came out and joined me. We sat together and talked.

“You know, the more I look at white girls, the more I want one,” he whispered.

I had to laugh out loud. He smiled and said, “I’m serious.”

While we were sitting there, I noticed Adam’s Rib come out and set up by the edge of the pool again.

After a lazy afternoon by the pool, we all headed back to our cabins to shower and get ready for dinner. When Flo and I reached the dining room, we found Daniel and his new friend, Dale, hanging out by the doors.

I decided to wander out onto the deck and watched as the Navigator pulled away from the dock.

The sun was already beginning to make its descent, but it was still bright out and the warm breeze outside felt a lot better than the cold blast of glacial air conditioning from inside the ship.

I leaned against the railing and watched the shoreline of St. Thomas slowly grow more and more distant.

Daniel and Flo joined me outside with several other like-minded passengers.

The head waiter, Krishna, was from India and when he asked how the food was, Theresa told him that the food was kind of salty.

“Never satisfied,” Daniel would murmur, shaking his head.

Before they served dessert, the waiters all performed for us again, singing along to Ricky Martin’s “Cup of Life” as they waved their arms in the air and did a bit of dancing as they made their way towards the grand staircase and assembled along the steps.

I clapped along enthusiastically and several people started dancing by their tables as the song, “Mambo No. 5” came on.

Hera pulled Uncle Wei Kuo up and started dancing with him before bringing Aunt Ying over and then linking Daniel up with his mom. Flo snapped several pictures and we all laughed.

The Love and Marriage game show was the main entertainment for the eveing and it was hosted by Becky. She pulled up three couples. The first couple were newlyweds; the second pair had been married for close to 25 years and the last couple had been together for 41 years.

The first two pairs were funny and the men were hilarious, but the older couple was completely boring and didn’t seem like they really wanted to be there.

They also happened to be Canadian.

One of the questions that Becky asked the men was what colour and size bra they would buy for their wife. The guy in the middle said, “46 D and red”, which made everyone crack up.

When Becky asked where was the wildest place they’d “made whoopee”, the newlywed groom readily answered, “Out on the balcony of our cabin.”

The guy in the middle answered, “There’s been so many places” and couldn’t seem to decide, much to the horror of his daughter, who was sitting right in the front.

By the time the show was done, the pool side buffet was already set up on the eleventh deck.

It seemed like we never had a camera with us when it was most important.

The buffet was amazing. All of the fruit carvings were out on display and there were all sorts of good eats out, though I wasn’t particularly hungry.

It’s amazing how much people will eat even if they’re not hungry. And usually, it’s the people who shouldn’t be eating who wind up shovelling food down like pigs at a trough. They’re also the same people who’ll get on the elevator only to get off at the next floor.

Flo was groggy and sleepy so she headed back to our stateroom, while I felt compelled to stay up as long as I could. I trailed listlessly behind Aunt Ying and Theresa as we surveyed the spread.

I didn’t eat anything besides a fruit kebab, while Theresa stood in front of one of the chefs and held out a bowl for him to dump a whole lot of papaya chunks into.

I walked along the edge of the deck and watched the heavy throng of people that were dancing by the poolside bar.

The staff had strung Christmas lights and there was a decidedly tropical feel to the whole evening.

In the distance, I could see the small twinkling lights of a city in the distance.

Aunt Ying mused that we were probably already at San Juan because she’d noticed Puerto Rico wasn’t all that far from St. Thomas. It was nice to just lean out and feel the warm sea breeze on my face.