Sunday 8Feb cont. / Monday, 9 Feb

Britt here. It’s Monday evening and we just got back from our excursion in Mexico. Let me first write about the rest of our evening before I get to today.

After posting our blog last night-it was back to our room to get ready for formal night. I was all excited to get dressed up in my new dress and new shoes for the evening. I even did my hair up for once-quite a change from the normal dry and let be hair-do I display every day. As I was curling my hair, it brought me back to the days of Show Choir where I would single-handedly waste an entire bottle of hairspray on my own hair just to make the curls stay for a performance. Poor Ted was breathing in fumes for 30 minutes.

Old Theodore was at his old tricks of forgetting things-and somehow managed to forget a pair of dress socks. He checked out the gift store, but to no avail, could locate any. Thus, dressed up Homer was sporting some short white socks. Luckily, the floods weren’t coming through and his pants were long enough to hide the embarrassment of the white socks.

At dinner, I found myself ordering strawberry bisque for an appetizer. Tasted like the two strawberry yogurt ice cream cones I had earlier in the day, only it was melted. I was still happy! All four of us ordered the lobster tail and shrimp for dinner, which was quite tasty. After dinner, we went on the deck for a photo op. We opted out of the cruise scripted photo opportunities and settled on the cheap self portraits taken by Ryan. Upon completion of our photo session, we decided to hang out with the two of them in a lounge which had a lady playing some light piano music. Striking up conversations with others around, we met a lady who was born in Dennison, Iowa, which is where my sister and brother-in-law both live, along with my other sister-in-law’s family. She had since moved away a long time ago and has no family ties to the area anymore, but still small world. We then met a couple from Dubuque. He was three sheets to the wind-but during our conversation-asked if I knew anyone by the name of Cummins from Denver. Not knowing the name I told him no, then we turned the subject to where we worked. Upon informing Jim we worked at John Deere-his buddy, Tom Cummins, came up again. At that point I recognized the name, a marketing manager at the facility I work at. I’ve spoken to him once or twice-but now have reason to say hi again as Jim shared a story I am to ask him about. That was the rest of our evening and we called it a night.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Woke up at 9, opening our shades to Cozumel. Got ready and grabbed a quick breakfast before we found our way off the dock. I took some sea sickness medicine just incase the waters would be rough. We took a taxi to the Marina where we were to leave from. 13 other folks were on the excursion with us, only one family from the Carnival ship. Before we left, the owner came and told us the waters would be rough-leading me to grab another pill incase I were to get sick. He said the winds were up to 20 knots-not sure what the conversion is, but enough to think, OH GREAT We spent an hour sailing out before we dropped the anchor. We had dropped a fishing rod in along the way and were lucky enough to catch a 20 pound barracuda they filleted up for lunch later in the day. We didn’t physically catch the fish-but had a little kid reel him in. Once we anchored, we took a small raft to a beach shore for about an hour. There wasn’t really much of a beach, so I just laid out for a bit while Ted roamed and found himself a hermit crab. A young British girl got quite seasick on the way out, making it unbearable to listen to-and I at one point was concerned I would be using a bucket alongside her. Luckily, my overdose on medicine paid off. Note: I do not recommend my overdose for anyone reading this. Only skilled individuals should attempt this.
After returning to the catamaran, they busted out the parasailing swing or whatever I should be calling it. I opted to sit on the boat, as it would’ve required me to hop into the water and not know where I was going to go. You’ll see a few pictures of Ted enjoying his time in the sky. Lunch was then served-a good Mexican selection, then off to another spot to attempt snorkeling. Again, I stayed in the boat with the waves being pretty choppy. Ted only managed to see a lobster and a star fish before he headed back in. He said it was quite difficult to swim out in the waters, making him tire quickly. Probably a good thing I stayed back. After that, it was time to head back to the marina. On our way back, they caught another barracuda which I’m sure they’ll split and take home amongst the three crew members. When it was time to return to the boat, the owner had called a taxi for us to share with the other family aboard. The taxi was waiting for us and got us back to our port in 15 minutes. We got out, and the driver asked for $20 between the two families. We were all quite shocked after we only spent $12 on the way out. The other family was quite upset as well as they only spent $10. I guess there are really no laws governing what rate they charge-therefore, they basically can take advantage of the tourists-and we have no way of doing anything about it. Quite upsetting, but, what do you do?

So, we are back in the room. I have since showered and am writing. Ted is fast asleep on the bed, a bit sun burnt in some areas he “forgot” to put sunscreen on: his arms, upper shoulders, parts of his face, and one side of his chest. I don’t feel too sorry, as I am always reminding him to put it all over. I guess I better finish getting ready for dinner here. Tomorrow we are porting in Belize and going on a zip lining tour. Can’t wait, should be a blast! Hope all is well back home.