Sidelined at Sea

I have a knack. Oh, I suppose I have several of them, but this one if just plain irritating. All too often when I am on vacation, I get sick. Not that, “oh-I-am-feeling-a little-under-the-weather” kind of illness, but the full-fledged, “all-this-has-got-to-come-out-of-me” kind. And, so, it has happened once again. The other night, I became far too acquainted with the teeny stateroom bathroom on our cruise ship. A nice little bathroom, of course, which comes in handy, but it wasn’t the spot I had hoped to spend most of the night.

Our cruise line had a few too many cases of this sort reported on the last sailing, so our departure was delayed by thorough disinfecting of everything. In fact, the first thing with which we were welcomed aboard was a generous squirt of Purell, followed by champagne. There are also many ship attendants who are spending many hours dispensing Purell pretty much everywhere. Their dream job, I’m sure!

But, alas, that extra attention to disinfecting failed to be communicated to my system. Too bad. As the cruise lines are particularly sensitive to the topic of “noroviruses,” I was confined to my stateroom for 24 hours. That confinement is why I am currently blogging away rather than seeing tonight’s show or out feeling the Caribbean breezes on my face. I could not have gone anywhere anyway and I have learned a great lesson: never cruise in an inner cabin. Had I been in one, I would not have seen any of today’s brilliant sunshine or the extravagant yachts beside which we were docked. I would not only have been ill, but felt as though I had been confined to a dungeon—one that I paid big bucks to inhabit! The balcony decision was for Mom’s pleasant travels, but it has ended up benefitting me greatly.

I made the best of a bad thing. Missing the trip to the St. Thomas beach was quite a disappointment to me, but sometimes you gotta just roll with what shows up. Instead, I opened the balcony door and kept it open all day watching the sun travel across the sky, glinting off yacht mirrors here and there until it faded behind a small island as we left port, only a couple of hours ago. I’m feeling better at least and I really, really want to be able to kayak tomorrow at our next port. I can’t imagine the outing will be ‘strenuous’ anyway, as it appears cruising in general is created to be indulgent and anything but strenuous. Lord willing, the stateroom bathroom will perform only it’s regular duty this evening and all will be well.