Mr. Sea

The alarm went off this morning. Now when you are on holiday and you have to use an alarm, that usually means you have to meet a plane, or something that isn’t going to wait for you. Today we had to meet a boat. We also had to leave our very cool room at the White Sands and move to the Banana Bay hotel. Only three other hotels got a lower score on trip advisor than the Banana.

The boat was in Key West. We were in Marathon.  We had signed up for an all day, snorkel, jet ski, Para sail, water adventure, with Fury.

Ford Edge got us there in no time. No one else on the Keys was awake when we left. Traffic into Key West was light as the town was just beginning to stir as we found our way to the parking garage.
In no time at all we were walking to the docks in our finest beach attire. My beach attire was all new, since I made the mistake the other day of sending both swim suits I had with me home.
Soon we found our boat, a trusty steel catamaran, our crew, our captain and 37 of our fellow passengers.

After the traditional signing of waivers and paying of fees we were off for our adventure.

Now yesterday a storm blew in. It rained. It rained hard, and today it was sunny but the wind was brisk.

The sea was angry my friend, and  after being on a cruise ship for 15 days Peppermint and I both knew these seas were moderate 3 to 5 ft. moderate. Waves and white caps were rocking the mighty cat as we made our way out to the reef. Soon The first mate gave the safety briefing on how to use the snorkel gear. Showed us the distress signal the ok signal, and after a bit we were tied to the buoy and ready to go.

I have been on one ship and several other boats this trip, but no captain I have been with ever asked me to do what Captain Ron just did. He told us all to get into the sea, the flipping 3-to 5 foot waves that were crashing into the boat.

Some of the passengers out right refused to suit up and get in the ocean…

 

Others like me suited up and waited for the younger ones to jump off the boat. I watched them as they struggled against the waves. A few of them got out in the direction of the reef, the water was warm so I jumped off the boat. The waves were not that bad, but they would come over your snorkel. It really wasn’t fun so I headed to the steps that were extended from the middle of the catamaran. The steps were wildly crashing up and down with the waves. One of the crew came and stood on the steps and extended a hand. I was back on board.

The jet skiing in rough seas went much better. Riding the thing was a blast! Crashing into the waves warm water crashing over you. It was like riding in the rain only the water was salt.

Next Captain  Slade.