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| Our room aboard the Dream - a Cove Balcony class |
As it would turn out, the view this particular morning as
we arrived at Costa Maya wasn’t as picturesque as what we’d seen thus far. I say it wasn’t picturesque even though I
guess to some folks the sight of a roiling thunderstorm off in the distance and
torrential rain might be a beautiful thing (I’m not exaggerating in saying that
the clouds were near pitch-black when the storm was at its most severe). For us, not so much especially considering
we’d just had to abandon our plans for Isla Roatan a day prior thanks to less
than favorable conditions near the port.
We had booked an excursion for the day that would include a sight-seeing
trip on the water aboard a glass-bottomed boat as well as a snorkeling session. Needless to say, as we had our breakfast from
room service we feared that our final adventure as passengers aboard the
Carnival Dream might get washed away.
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| Ominous skies greeted us in Costa Maya |
The storm didn’t appear to dissuade some of our fellow
travelers as they were walking through the rain, bound and determined to see
Costa Maya regardless of the weather. I
was trying to stay positive by holding onto hope that the winds would blow the
storm out of the area and we’d still be able to go on our excursion. Rain isn’t exactly a reason to not go for a
swim – I’ve never understood why people flee from a perfectly safe pool just
because it starts raining seeing as how you were already engaged in an activity
that requires you to get wet. Lightning,
on the other hand, is nothing to fool around with and the fact that there were
several small boats in the harbor getting tossed around wasn’t boosting my
confidence.
Fortunately for us, by the time we were ready to leave
the boat and meet up with the rest of our group on the pier the rain had begun
to slack off and the most ominous of the clouds departed. We wound up having a fantastic view that
morning after all, albeit not of the sunset but rather of a double-rainbow that
seemed to form directly in front of our stateroom’s balcony. It was a very welcoming vision and more than
enough inspiration for us to set off on another adventure.
We had some time to waste before our excursion was to
begin which allowed us the chance to walk around the shops at the port for a
while. We took note of the fact that
there’s a sign at the Senor Frog’s location at Costa Maya pointing in the
general direction of the one in Myrtle Beach, SC (if you’ve never seen or heard
of Senor Frog’s, the best description I can provide would be to picture a dive
bar & restaurant catering to partiers that happens to be a successful
chain). To be completely honest with
you, the areas nearest to the port at each stop we made on this cruise were not
that different from one another. It was
essentially the same set of shops at each port – there’s some mild variation to
the offerings therein when it comes to inventory but not so much that I can say
any one of them was significantly different than the other.
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| Myrtle Beach, SC - your reputation is known around the world |
One feature to the area near port at Costa Maya
disappointed both me and Jill on an emotional level. In looking at excursions, you see many
offerings that deal with dolphin encounters where patrons have a chance to get
in the water and swim or otherwise interact with porpoises. These are usually accompanied by pictures of
the excursion taking place in a tropical lagoon or another setting that would
appear to be natural for the dolphins, as if they decided to participate in the
event on their own volition. To the
contrary of those images was the sight of a narrow holding tank built into the
side of an embankment near the shore where we saw a pair of dolphins swimming
back and forth. I don’t think the
operation we saw is associated with any of the excursions offered through
Carnival, but even so it was a very sad to see those majestic animals penned up
in such small confines.
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| Dolphins in a holding pen near the pier with the Dream in the background |
It was getting closer to time for our excursion to begin,
so we made our way back to the pier. The
rain had stopped for a while but, wouldn’t you know it, as we started walking
away from the shops the rain began again.
And this wasn’t a drizzle we’re talking about – these were big ol’ fat
drops of rain, as Forest Gump would’ve called them. Like I said earlier in this entry, we were
going swimming anyway so the fact that we were getting wet didn’t matter much
to me. Jill, on the other hand, wasn’t
too excited about being drenched; she hadn’t worn a hat that day and I believe
it was getting into her eyes. We made it
to the pier and met up with our tour guide; he assured us that our excursion
was going to happen and that we were on schedule. Not too long after this our group was rounded
up and we boarded a bus that would take us from the pier we were on to the pier
where we’d begin our tour. The bus ride
between piers was interesting as we found ourselves in this huge vehicle being
driven down dirt roads that didn’t seem wide or stable enough to support a bus. All I can say is that the men who drive those
buses know the roads well enough to be able to squeeze their caravans through
spaces I wouldn’t dare try. We made it
to the pier without incident, though, and we enjoyed the opportunity the ride
afforded us to see a glimpse of what Costa Maya is like away from the touristy
section.
We didn’t have to walk far once the bus stopped seeing as
how the driver took the bus out onto the pier where our boat was waiting for
us. Our tour guide – whose name was
Gustavo – and the crew of the glass-bottomed boat helped us step off the pier
and into the vessel that would ferry us the rest of the afternoon. The tour on the glass-bottomed boat was a lot
of fun as we were able to see through the clear blue water of the Caribbean
down to the sea floor which was teaming with life – all sorts of fish and
coral, in as many colors as you could imagine.
I’m not sure what happened but at one point during the tour there was a
loud bang and the boat lurched forward as if we’d hit something. With that, I readied myself for the
possibility that instead of going snorkeling we could very well be swimming
back to shore instead!
The hull of the boat apparently intact, we were issued
our snorkeling equipment just prior to arrival at the location where we’d begin
our dive. Jill was feeling a little
apprehensive about getting in the water; I understood why as she’d relayed to
me when we were booking this excursion that she’d been snorkeling years prior
while on a cruise with her parents and had difficulty adjusting to the
conditions. I, on the other hand, had my
gear on and was ready to go before anyone else in our group which is exactly
what I did as I was the first one to jump in, feet first, to our snorkeling
adventure. Gustavo and I were treading
water for a few minutes by ourselves before anyone else from the group joined
us. I guess Jill didn’t want to be the
only one left on the boat because she was soon geared-up and into the water as
well! I was glad that she changed her
mind as I would’ve hated for her to have missed out on the experience.
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| Hanging out in the water with our tour guide Gustavo |
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| Jill (center, inside the boat) getting her snorkeling gear on |
Before the moment when I jumped into the ocean that day,
the last time I’d swam in the sea was better than 15 years ago. I don’t swim in the waters off the coast of
South Carolina because they are murky, quite frankly, and I don’t have any
desire to get into water that isn’t clear enough for me to see my feet once
they’re beneath it. The most I’ll do
there is stick my toes into the surf.
The waters of the Caribbean are the exact opposite – they are a blue,
almost green tint, clear all the way to the bottom, and surprisingly warm…And
salty – very, very salty. So salty that
when I first went to use my snorkel and wound up with a mouthful of sea water
that I was overcome by the pure salinity of it.
Between struggling to clear my snorkel and dealing with the
sensation of an entire carton of iodized salt being poured into my mouth, the
first few minutes of my snorkeling experience were a little rough. I kept at it, though, and after a bit of
trial and error in determining the best position to hold my head I pretty well
got the hang of it. I was lagging behind
the rest of the group thanks to my struggles but I quickly caught up once I got
comfortable with the sensation of breathing with my nose and mouth underwater. I’ve always loved swimming and I like to
think of myself as a fairly strong swimmer, and the addition of flippers seemed
to have improved my abilities somewhat.
As good of a swimmer as I may be, Gustavo was significantly more skilled
and may in fact be part fish as he had no difficulty in diving to the bottom to
bring up examples of undersea life (several varieties of urchins) for us to
hold.
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| You can barely see it but I'm holding a small sea urchin |
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| A member of our group holding a spider urchin |
Seeing all the various species of fish and coral along
the bottom of the ocean was a beautiful sight.
The seas are a part of our world that is so vast, it’s mind boggling to
stop and consider just how expansive they are.
And to think that the section we were touring that day was quite
literally a mere drop in what is an unfathomable bucket only furthers the
concept of its breadth.
There was a mildly disconcerting portion of our
snorkeling adventure, which occurred when Gustavo lead us into waters that were
significantly more shallow than what we’d started off in. The currents in this area were much stronger
than what we’d encountered previously and some of the coral formations were
quite large, reaching almost up to the surface of the water. We were told before we began our dive that we
shouldn’t touch the coral as we could inadvertently damage it; unfortunately,
we didn’t have much choice at this point in the excursion seeing as how the
current pushed us into several jagged coral formations. Jill was fairly distraught as she thought she’d
cut her hand – it turned out she hadn’t but of course I immediately thought of
her having encountered a piece of fire coral which is venomous albeit in a way
that is more irritating than anything.
Several other members of our group fared worse than we did as they actually
got hung up on a large formation. As we
were collecting ourselves I couldn’t believe it when I saw a woman standing on
either a rock or a huge piece of coral.
She was yelling at Gustavo, saying (amongst other things) that she was
in distress and that she’d lost one of her flippers. Needless to say, that was when our dive ended
and we made our way back to the glass-bottomed boat.
We rode back to the area around the port in a passenger
van, which felt much more maneuverable in the streets of Costa Maya compared to
the bus we’d rode in on. Once we were
back in the touristy section of the city we did more shopping and made a few
small purchases. One of my favorite
magnets from this vacation is the one we picked up in Costa Maya, a bronze
piece featuring Mayan hieroglyphs in a circular pattern around a tribal figure. I’m not sure exactly why I pushed Jill into
doing this but I decided that we should eat lunch at Senor Frog’s instead of
going back to the Dream. I blame anatomy
as the fact that my stomach appears to be hard-wired to my brain has lead me to
make more than a few poor decisions in my life.
The food at Senor Frog’s wasn’t bad – it was quite good however the
service was poor and the meal was significantly more expensive than what it was
worth. Let’s just say that I’ll never
forget having paid $10 for a Coke served in a souvenir cup shaped like a palm
tree.
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| This cost $10 - no, seriously... |
As we walked back to the Dream I took off the pair of
water shoes I’d been wearing for a majority of the day. If you’ve never had a pair of them, water
shoes are intended to be worn while swimming and they’re usually rather tight-fitting. Between the fit of the shoes and the fact
that they were soaking wet, I managed to get a fairly good-sized blister on the
pinky toe of my left foot. I’d add a
picture of it to this blog entry but I don’t want to repulse what readers I do
have.
After we were back onboard the Dream we took showers and
got some rest. I went out onto our
balcony after I’d taken a brief nap and noticed an ambulance near the gantry
connecting our ship to the pier. A female
passenger was inside the ambulance, and there appeared to be several personnel
from the ship communicating with the passenger’s family and operators who I’m
assuming were the Costa Maya equivalent of emergency medical technicians. I couldn’t help but watch and listen as the
scene developed since it was all happening within earshot of our stateroom. At one point I overheard one of the patient’s
family members say something along the lines of “We don’t have that kind of money!”,
and I immediately started thinking of the logistics involved with getting
healthcare in a foreign land. Do
hospitals in South America even recognize our insurance providers? It was a question I’d never even thought to
ask myself until then. The patient’s
family went into the ship for a while, long enough for them to gather up a few
belongings, then came back to rejoin her.
I’m not sure exactly how much money changed hands but I can tell you
that I witnessed a male passenger count out what looked to be a significant
amount of cash into the hands of one of the EMTs before everyone got into the
ambulance and left the pier. I could not
imagine getting caught up in a situation like that; I pray that passenger and
her family are alright.
That night was the final elegant evening on the Dream for
this voyage which meant we would once again be getting all gussied up for
dinner. Have I ever mentioned how
beautiful my wife is? There is no better
example of her hot-young-trophy-wife status than the image of her this night as
she was wearing a classic black dress and pearls (a personal favorite accessory
of hers). I dubbed her “The First Lady”
of the Dream as it was an ensemble that looked like something a true first lady
would’ve worn to a stately occasion.
We had the dinner table to ourselves that evening, which
was perfectly fine by me as it gave it the feeling of a high-class date night –
something we don’t get to experience all that often. The service staff in our dining room was set
to perform for us that evening (as they often do on Carnival ships, the waiters
and maître
d' break out into song & dance during the meal), and we both got a kick out
of seeing our waiter dance to T-Pain’s tribute to curvaceous women, “Apple
Bottom Jeans”.
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| Our waiter, Big D, bringing the funk |
The performance in the Encore Theater was a tribute to country-western
music and it was one of the better shows we saw during our week on the Dream. I’d brought my beloved Canon SX30-IS camera
(which I’d bought just prior to this trip) with me into the theater even though
guests are asked to refrain from taking video or still-images during stage
performances. I didn’t have any
intention of defying this request; I’d brought it to take pictures during
dinner and didn’t see the point in going back to our stateroom to drop it
off. I’m something of a photo bug, you
see, which is why I like to have it within reach in the event that I see
something I’d like to document.
After the show, we walked the length of the ship to the Punch Liner
comedy club. Once we were there, Jill
excused herself to make use of the facilities and left me by myself to watch
her stuff for her. I sat there, looked
around the room and contemplated flagging down a waiter to order a drink. I looked down at the seat beside me at Jill’s
stuff and it was then that I realized I’d left my camera in the theater!
I was instantly frantic – I politely asked the woman
sitting beside me if she’d be so kind as to watch my wife’s belongings, telling
her that I’d be back but that I had to rush off because I’d done one of the
stupidest things imaginable. To say that
I was upset as I all but ran back to the opposite end of the boat (which wasn’t
an easy task seeing as how night time is when everyone is out and about on the
various decks of the ship) would be a vast understatement. Not boo-hoo crying upset, mind you, but pure
rage at myself as I was sure that I’d lost not just a camera but all the
pictures we’d taken throughout our cruise.
As I neared the theater I convinced myself that the camera was gone and
that I should accept that my own neglectfulness had lead to me not only lose a
very valuable piece of equipment but also a set of irreplaceable keepsakes.
I entered the theater via the upper-level balcony and all
but tumbled down a set of stairs leading to the lower level where we’d been
sitting. I neared our seats, hoping that
I’d see the camera lying there like an abandoned pet hoping that its owner
would return for it – alas, there was no loving puppy nor a camera there where
we’d been sitting. I asked several of
the custodial staff who were working to clean up the theater in between
performances if they’d seen my camera; none of them had but one of them
suggested I check with guest services to see if it had been turned in to lost
& found.
The guest services desk, conveniently enough, is located
not far from the encore theater. I approached
the desk and, still in a state of panic, completely ignored the fact that there
was a line of people waiting to speak with staff there. It’s tough to be convincingly apologetic when
your nerves are fried, in case you didn’t know.
As I awaited my turn at the desk my thoughts were of someone else using
my camera as if it were their own. I can
only equate the feeling to that of seeing a girl you like going out with some
other guy. Finally it was my turn – I asked
the female agent at the desk if a camera had been turned in as I’d left mine in
the theater. She asked what kind of
camera it was and I described it to her down to the model number, after which
she said to me “Is it a larger, black camera?”
A glimmer of hope!
I replied that it was as she’d specified and she told me that a camera
fitting the description of mine had been turned in to them by one of my fellow
passengers. She brought the camera to
the desk and, low and behold, it was my camera!
Suddenly my faith in humanity was restored and all was right with the
world. I asked the agent if the person
who’d turned it in had by chance left their name as I wanted to buy them a
bottle of something very expensive or at least thank them for their honesty in
doing the right thing. Unfortunately
they had not – all I can say is that if you were the person who took care of my
camera for me that evening and you happen to be reading this, thank you very
much! Even so, I was relieved and as
soon as the camera was back in my hands I put its strap around my neck. If I’d never taken it from that position I’d
have never put myself through the ordeal; consider it a lesson learned that the
strap is there for a reason.
I returned to the Punch Liner, camera safely in my grasp
much to the relief of my wife. She and I
finished off our evening with a lot of laughs in the comedy club, which was
exactly what I needed after having frazzled my own nerves just about as badly
as they’ve ever been. We turned in for
the evening knowing that our time on the Dream was drawing to an end as
tomorrow would be our final day at sea before returning to Port Canaveral.
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