This day was spent in Mexico, on the Yucatan peninsula. An adventurous day indeed...

In the first place, as we were eating a buffet breakfast in La Trattoria, Nina came by and, seeing me, came over and shook my hand and said "Complimentiare!" (I hope I spelled that right.) I suppose that meant she enjoyed my singing. It made me feel a little bad about how we'd been laughing at her the night before.

The ship anchored off the coast of Playa del Carmen, where passengers took tenders to shore for a tour of ruins at Tulum, or for a shopping tour of Cancun. The ship then left and went to Cozumel, an island a short distance away. There, other passengers went ashore either for shopping on Cozumel or to take a plane trip to visit the ruins of Chichen-Itza. Terry and I had signed up for a tour to Tulum. We would have preferred the Chichen-Itza tour, but it was prohibitively expensive.

We took the tender to shore - we were able to bring Robbie with us this time - and boarded a bus for the drive to the ruins. There were some children playing in a schoolyard near where we boarded the tour bus:

...and we stopped at a roadside souvenir shop along the way:

Here are several pictures taken at Tulum:

Our tour guide; I don't remember his name


I have no explanation for the look on my face in this picture
(...and I don't know who took the picture)


I don't know who took this picture, either

After Tulum, we went to Xel-Ha (pronounced "Shell-Ha"). This is series of lagoons which make up a popular beach resort. Not only tourists go there, but locals as well. Terry and I took a brief dip. Unfortunately, it was raining that afternoon; this wasn't so bad for us, since we were getting wet anyway, but poor Robbie got rather bedraggled.

The tender waiting to take us back

The trip back - Ay, que horror! As I said, it was raining, and the weather was getting progressively worse all afternoon. The boat was overloaded, and to make matters worse, a large number of the passengers had gone up to the upper level, making the boat top-heavy, and thus increasing the amount of swaying. The boat then set sail for Cozumel, to return us to the ship. The crossing took almost an hour, and the boat was rocking and rolling all the way.

To my surprise, I was not seriously affected, but was only slightly uncomfortable. One thing I did, which may or may not have helped, was to move my body in opposition to the swaying of the boat. As the boat swayed from left to right, I moved my body from right to left, and so on, with the result that I kept myself roughly vertical with respect to the Earth. I don't know if this really made a difference, but it kept me occupied, and I didn't get sick.

Others around me were not so fortunate. Not long after we left the shore, faces started turning green, and not long after that... You haven't lived until you've been on a small boat, tossing on the waves, being blown about by the wind and the rain - with people throwing up on the floor all around you!

To make matters worse, the boat was riding so low in the water that waves came over the side - even on the upper level. Once Terry got socked by a large enough spray to get her thoroughly soaked - although I didn't. I guess Terry took the worst of it. I though it very sporting of her to shield me that way.

And through all this, the tour personnel were gamely trying to keep people's spirits up. One woman was trying to get people to sing. "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." !!!! I was surprised no one tried to punch her out.

We were very thankful to get back to the ship.

It wasn't over yet, though. As the ship sailed away that evening, it too was being tossed about by the weather. And my experience on the tender notwithstanding, I too began to get sick. I never threw up, but I felt close at times.

After dinner that night (the second formal night) we went to that night's show. This was a song and dance revue entitled "Let's Celebrate!" It was pretty good, but my enjoyment was diminished by the fact that I was feeling sick, and by the fact that I was tired and kept drifting off. I heard later that several of the poor performers were also sick. They'd go offstage, throw up, then go back onstage and continue the show. Quite a bunch of troupers.