My Girl Scout Troop Went on a Caribbean Cruise... and on Day #5, We Went to Cozumel (And It Changed My Life!)

 It was a beautiful morning in Cozumel!

Will had slept deeply and woke up feeling much better, although still pretty tired, so it was just as well that she had another twelve or so hours in quarantine. Matt was going to stay on the ship with her that day, so I left them in the room to get a late start and went out on deck to get myself some breakfast, find some Girl Scouts, and get my first look at Cozumel:

Another cruiser up on the top deck with me and Syd said that she'd been to this port many times, and there are often sea turtles swimming in the shallow water between the pier and the shore! I later told the Girl Scouts I was chaperoning on our excursion this as we were walking down the pier, and accidentally halted all forward momentum for what felt like a very long time:

Check out how forested it is just beyond the beach. Apparently much of the interior of Cozumel is like this, and there are all kinds of little nature reserves, archaeological sites, and cenotes to visit. I really want to come back someday!

We were all much better organized this morning, since Carnival hadn't, you know, changed and then unchanged our disembarkation time, so I connected with all the other Girl Scouts and chaperones, we got our day planned and arranged to our liking, and then I popped back into the stateroom to grab my bag and say goodbye to my precious darling baby before leaving the ship.

I hated leaving Will behind, but I put it out of my mind, because I had two different Girl Scouts to adventure out into Mexico with on this day, and we were going on an excursion that they were HUGELY excited about, and I was... well, I was chaperoning them!

Alas, for they happened to be the same two Girl Scouts I'd chaperoned on the previous day, and they no longer fell for my "Seatbelts, Everyone!" schtick when we got into our van.

Check out this weird mural we passed on the way to the beach club:

It's called "Letania," and is a statement about overfishing. A couple of years ago I read a really great book about overfishing and the commercial impact on the oceans, and it changed my decision-making about what I eat:

• The Ocean of Life

The kids' choice of excursion on this day was a ziplining and snorkeling adventure at Islands Beach Club. If my co-chaperone and I were choosing a day just for ourselves, we 100% would not have chosen ziplining and snorkeling, ahem, but I think we both ended up very happy that we'd taken one for the team and signed up to chaperone.

I have to say, though--I am normally not one to be afraid of heights. I mean, I've walked along the top of the CN Tower ON THE OUTSIDE! I've also done high ropes courses before--one of them with some of these very Girl Scouts! But dang, THIS set of suspension bridges that we crossed on our way to the ziplines got me good!

Looking back, I think it was the wonky planks:

You couldn't just, like, walk along the suspension bridges. Oh, no, because each suspension bridge was a new and different version of hell, with unpredictable gaps or boards placed askew so had to keep looking down to watch where you were going, and every time you looked down you'd lose your balance a little because, you know, it was a swaying suspension bridge made of rope!

Fortunately, the beginnings of a panic attack look basically like big enthusiasm, at least to teenaged Girl Scouts. And my co-chaperone and I gave each other a LOT of emotional support. I'm telling you what, we went THROUGH it, and it wasn't even freaking noon!

Thank goodness for ziplining, which I like a LOT better!

After the ziplines and suspension bridges, the last leg was rappelling straight down the final tower. Easy-peasy!

After getting all our harnesses off, we had time for a little walk around, a couple of cold drinks (Coca-Cola with sugar in a glass bottle with labeling written in Spanish for the win!), and the strict locker negotiations required to fit one empty and one half-full bottle of Mexicoke, and then it was time to meet up for our snorkeling session.

I made sure to tell the Girl Scouts and chaperone exactly how to retrieve the locker key off my corpse--larkshead knot around my bra strap.

I mentioned the other day that I have issues with snorkeling. I don't like putting my face in the water, I don't like getting in water over my head, I don't like having stuff on my face, and if I do any of those things, I will absolutely, 100% die.

Fortunately, I have a lot of coping skills, and I put them all into play here. As one of the staff members handed out the masks and snorkels, I refused one and said, "No, thanks. I'm not going to snorkel. I'll just go out and keep my kids company."

The guy replied, matter-of-factly, "You are going to snorkel," and put the mask and snorkel in my hands.

Communications issues, is all. To be expected. Not a problem.

Next, the team handed out what they said were life jackets, but were to my eyes absolutely NOT the correct and appropriate life jackets to wear when getting into water over your head. I have since learned that these are, of course, perfectly correct and appropriate life jackets, but still... you know those airplane life jackets the flight attendants tell you about during the safety briefing? The ones that you have to literally blow into yourself to inflate? And you know they probably don't even really work but it doesn't matter because if your plane crashed into the water you'd be dead, anyway?

Yeah, they handed out THOSE life jackets. And then they told us to blow into the little nozzles to inflate them, but don't inflate them more than halfway!

I mean. If I'm going to wear an airplane crash life jacket into water over my head, I am at LEAST going to inflate the damn thing enough to keep me from drowning. right away. It's a slow death for me!

Figuring that I had only moments before we went into the water and I died, I started blowing into that nozzle as if my life depended on it... which it obviously did. I blew that little rubber wrap-around whoopie cushion up like a balloon, until it puffed satisfyingly around me in a manner that implied that I would bob like a cork in the ocean. Which is absolutely what I wanted.

Until a staff member marched over to me, saying, "No! No! Not like that!" He told me I had to deflate most of my life jacket, then instructed me how to start letting my precious, precious air out. I complied, but reluctantly, and all I can figure is that he read something in the look on my face, because he suddenly asked, "Are you a confident swimmer?"

"NO!" I said.

"Okay," he said. "Take that off, and I will give you a special life jacket." I have never divested myself of an article of clothing so quickly before, and sure enough, the guy came right back with a proper life jacket. It had a zipper and everything! It's my new favorite item in the world, and I'm probably going to put one on my Amazon wishlist so that I can just start taking it with me whenever I'm going to be in the water, because why even pretend, you know?

The kids, of course, from what attention I could spare them from contemplating my own imminent demise, were doing awesome. At this point, in my special life jacket, I probably wasn't even going to traumatize them by dying right in front of them!

But then we had to walk down to the actual water. 

I was busily figuring out how to put my flippers on, my mask and snorkel around my neck where they were going to stay, when Martin, one of the staff members, came around and said, "The staff will hold your glasses while you snorkel."

"Oh!" I said. "I'm not going to take off my glasses!"

"Your glasses will not fit under your mask."

"I'm not going to put on my mask. I'll just swim around with the kids while they snorkel. Anyway, I wouldn't be able to see without my glasses, so there's no point."

"The water will magnify, and you'll be able to see. Hand Antonio your glasses and I will help you into the water."

At this point, I realized that one of two things was definitely going to happen, and I had to choose right then which it would be. Either I handed over my glasses, put a bunch of shit on my face, and got into that water over my head and died, or I Made a Fuss.

Friends, I chose death.

I... just gave up on life at that point. Honestly, I just gave up. I handed over my glasses, and thought, "I am about to die." I nearsightedly flipper-footed my way over the rocks and into the water, holding onto Martin's hand, and thought, "This is really happening. I am really going to die today." My sweet co-chaperone lost track of the kids, who were having the time of their lives already in the water with another guide and the lifeguard, and asked about them, and I literally replied, "They're in God's hands now." 

Martin led me by the hands--or it's quite possible that I was gripping his hands too tightly for him to let go without prying me off--into water to my shoulders. In the last moments of my life, he helped me put my mask on, and made sure it was tight around my face, because if I'm going to die anyway, might as well die living out all my greatest fears, right?

Then he showed me how to put the snorkel in my mouth and bite down, because hey, I'm also terrified of suffocating!

Then he said, "Now breathe through your mouth," and I did.

And... okay. That part was okay. Discovering I could still breathe with a bunch of crap on my face and IN MY ACTUAL MOUTH was an absolute revelation. Fun how you can still learn something new even in the actual last minute of your life!

So there I was, breathing through my mouth. Martin asked, "Are you okay?" and I lied and said I was, because he was going to feel bad enough when I died, so no point in upsetting him now.

Then he said, "Okay, Mami, now put your face into the water."

"Put your face into the water."

"Put your face into the water!"

There was no getting out of it, so I did it. I put my face into the water.

And... I was okay? I heard Martin say, "Now breathe through your mouth!", so I did that, too.

And I think I was okay! I hadn't died! I mean, not yet!

Then Martin said, "Now lift your feet up and float."

Oh, my god, you guys. I lifted my feet up, and my special life jacket did its job and had me bobbing there like a good ocean slug. My face was in the water, and I was breathing through my mouth. And then, I kid you not, a school of blue fish swam just under me, and I SAW THEM.

Hot damn, the water DOES magnify things!

I didn't even tip my face out of the water when Martin said, "You stay with me, Mami. I'll take care of you." I just vaguely waved a thumbs-up in his direction-ish, because there were fish! Tropical fish! Just down there living their best fishy lives and check. Them. OUT!!!

I do remember that at some point, Martin told me about kicking, but otherwise, I lay flat on my stomach on top of the water like a slug, marveling at all the stuff I could see. Every now and then I would hear a shout of, "Mami!!! Over here!!!" and I would sort of figure out how to get my head out of the water to look for Martin, where he'd be waving his hands where the rest of the snorkeling group had gone, and I'd put my face back in the water and kick over in that general direction and then lie like a slug on my stomach some more until he shouted for me again.

You guys, look at me:

I am in the WATER, you guys. It is OVER MY HEAD. I have so much crap on my face you cannot even believe it. And my whole face? Is IN THE WATER! My god, my EARS are in the water! I have probably not put my ears in the water on purpose since I was seven!

Sooo... I think Martin might have changed my life. Seriously, what else is there that I don't think I can do that I can actually do?

For one thing, I can't wait to go snorkeling again!

I'm definitely buying myself one of those special life jackets first, though...

My Girl Scouts, too, absolutely loved their snorkeling adventure, and even wheedled the staff into letting them temporarily keep their masks and goggles to use over in the beach area, which is where we headed next. 

I showed these two photos to Will later, and she was aghast at me. "You chose to sit under a COCONUT PALM?!? With COCONUTS?!?"

I was all, "Baby, it turns out that I am immortal!"

While the kids snorkeled and my co-chaperone swam, I got started on a book I'd been saving special for the cruise: Project Hail Mary:

It was phenomenal, just like this day!

Not even having my phone accidentally turned onto selfie mode AGAIN could bring me down:

After the kids were finally snorkeled out, we gave them the choice of staying at the Beach Club for lunch or heading back to the port area for shopping. The kids were absolutely revved up for shopping, so decision made!

But not without first handing them several large bills (Thank you for changing my life, Martin!), pointing them to the staff, and telling them that, yes, it is handshake tip time.

Because if I'm going out of my comfort zone, I'm dragging everyone else along with me!

When we got back to the port, we found the other excursion group already there, also shopping with the kids, so we all had a happy reunion and lots to tell each other. I did not bring any money for souvenirs, which I actually now super regret because they had whole dish sets with painted cat and dog skeletons on them, but you know what, the ability to snorkel is a GREAT souvenir. And it was a lot of fun helping the kids under my care knock out their souvenir shopping lists and find the perfect memories to bring home and use up their pesos.

And we didn't see ANY passed-out drunk people in wheelchairs when we re-embarked!

Will hadn't had any excitement all day, which was just what she'd needed. She reported she'd had a fine time, though, watching TV and reading and playing on her ipod and talking with her dad. She was sure ready to be done watching the world through our stateroom window, though!

Matt and I went off to meet the rest of the troop for dinner, hoping that someone from the med center would come by with Will's second Covid test while we were gone. 

Here's part of that night's dinner menu:

Yes, Matt tried the alligator beignets. I had the onion soup like a non-alligator murderer!

One of my favorite parts of the cruise was watching the sunset outside our window while we enjoyed our appetizers. 

I had a nice pumpkin and sweet potato savory pie for my main course:

Matt had two main courses, both of them meat:

And, of course, I had my melting chocolate cake for dessert!

We got back to our stateroom after dinner to discover that, indeed, someone from the med center had come by while we were gone to administer Will's Covid test, and just a few minutes later, they called us with her get-out-of-jail negative results!

I kicked her out of our comfy stateroom and our king-sized bed and back into her stateroom shared with two other kids one second later:

And then we hit the deck to get my kid some fresh air!

We had a GREAT night! Will had a light dinner, then we met up with some other Girl Scouts and chaperones for the family-friendly comedy show, then we all hung out on the deck for a while reading, doing puzzles, and listening to the St. Patrick's Day party across the way. It veered between awesome dance music and... bowling?

Anyway, the decorations and music were great accompaniments to crosswords and Project Hail Mary!

After a while, Will packed it in for an early night, and since Matt and I weren't in charge of the late night Girl Scouts, we went to the adults-only comedy show (which was TERRIBLE, but the super drunk St. Patrick's Day crowd seemed to love it!), got midnight pizza afterwards, and took it back to our room to find that our blessed stateroom attendant, Ditka, had cleaned and sanitized our room in our absence, Hallelujah:

OMG THANK you, Ditka!

My Girl Scout Troop Went on a Caribbean Cruise... and on Day #4, We Went to Progreso (and Someone Got Food Poisoning)!

Get ready, because I took a ton of really terrible cell phone photos, and I'm going to show you ALL of them!

We woke up bright and early and in Mexico this morning! Our first port day was Progreso, which I had been revved up about beyond belief. As I explained to my Girl Scout troop at least four hundred times, you know what Progreso is RIGHT NEXT TO?

Chicxulub!!!

And you know why Chicxulub is so special?

Because right off the coast of Chicxulub is where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit! RIGHT THERE!!! WE'RE PRACTICALLY STANDING RIGHT ON TOP OF IT!!!

Even though the Girl Scouts had divided themselves into three separate excursion groups, each chaperoned by two adults, we'd all be spending our port day inside, or at the rim of, the ancient Chicxulub crater. My partner, the younger kid, and some others were visiting a beach club, and driving to it would take them directly through Chicxulub--squee!!! The older kid and some others were visiting Chichen Itza and a nearby cenote, and I and some others were going to be biking between, and snorkeling in, several cenotes.

The cool thing about cenotes, and the reason they're unique in the world, is that they were formed from that asteroid crater. The impact blasted and changed the qualities of the rock, and so it was the limestone around the rim of the crater that was especially vulnerable to water seeping in through faults and forming these deep, straight caves. When sea levels receded, these caves were the only natural water sources in the Yucatan Peninsula, which is very flat and has no rivers. So people chose to live near cenotes, and many ancient Maya sites are located there. 

So, Progreso! We were all getting off the ship, we were all going to be in different groups, we all needed to have our passports and Sail and Sign cards and sunscreen and beach towels and what-have-you with us, and we all needed to be up and at 'em early in the morning. The chaperones and kids in each group each figured out among themselves when to get up and where to meet, etc.

Except that the night before, the captain had made an announcement to the ship that we'd be arriving late into Progreso, so everyone's debarkation time was pushed back by over an hour. The same for excursion meet-up times. So we all changed our plans to a slightly more leisurely breakfast and meet-up time. 

Except that THEN, during that slightly more leisurely breakfast (BlueIguana breakfast burrito, I MISS you!!!), the captain made ANOTHER announcement that surprise! We got in earlier than expected! In fact, we can disembark NOW!!! And if your original excursion was scheduled to meet NOW, it's once again meeting NOW!!! 

Imagine that scene from the first Harry Potter movie, when Professor Quirrell announced to a Great Hall full of children that there was a troll in the dungeon, and chaos ensues. 

Now imagine it with Girl Scouts.

Some Girl Scouts were still in bed. Some Girl Scouts had their mouths full of food. Heck, *I* had my mouth full of food! I was also watching, horrified, as the older kid sat across from me and messily ate a, to my eyes, very undercooked salmon eggs benedict. Some people had their stuff with them, and some had their stuff back in their room, and nobody could communicate with each other because the Carnival app's chat function that we'd each paid five whole bucks for wasn't working, or rather, was only working sometimes so you never knew if it was working or not. It was a very unwelcome reminder of the exact same scenario Carnival had caused at embarkation, and I was NOT happy.

So, my mouth full of delicious breakfast burrito, I ran across the ship and down five flights of stairs to my cabin for my day bag and passport and back up five flights of stairs and across the ship, then, with my co-chaperone and the Girl Scouts on our biking and snorkeling excursion (my Girl Scout count was 2!), back across the ship and down six flights of stairs to disembark in real, live Mexico!!!

Just as we came abreast of the fruit-sniffing dog, my co-chaperone remembered she had half a breakfast burrito in her bag. I pulled the children slightly towards me and away from her, but the dog fortunately had no interest in Mexican-style scrambled eggs and Monterey Jack cheese.

Back on the ship later that day, I would be PISSED at my partner that on his own excursion, which included one of his own children, he'd managed to take exactly three photos, whereas I took literally 150 photos of children not my own on my own excursion with them. However, to be fair, all my photos were taken with a cell phone inside a waterproof case, and they're all SUPER crappy. But I made a lot of magical memories, anyway!

It turns out that I can get kids not my own to indulge my Magic School Bus bit ("Seatbelts, everyone!" "PLEASE let this be a normal field trip!" "With the Frizz, no way!" And then you sing the theme song) exactly twice, even though I tried it every single time we got into a van and put our seatbelts on. Better than my own kids, at least, who would have indulged me exactly once.

It's also just as magical to watch kids not my own seeing a new country for the very first time, exclaiming over all the novelties and differences between there and here. And I spend just as much time talking kids not my own out of buying contraband material, debating if a cocoa bean really counts as a fruit or vegetable and what are the chances one could sneak a street dog past Carnival security and onto the ship?

We did not try to sneak this good boy past security, but we wanted to!

This good boy lives at Cenotes Santa Barbara, a site with three cenotes open for exploration (and a bunch more that aren't yet), all connected by a bicycle trail. 

Fun fact: I am apparently easily distracted, and this is not great while bicycling. I have SO. MANY. BRUISES!

Our good boy accompanied us to the first cenote:

The bicycles were pretty old, but more-or-less functional, although the kids, in particular, seemed quite stymied by their lack of hand brakes. I scoffed a bit internally at their dismay, because come on, I rode a bike without hand brakes for my entire childhood! You just pedal backwards to stop, Kids, it's not rocket surgery!

You know what, though? I did not come to a successful, event-free stop a single time during this entire trip. Once, I ran into a tree. Once, I got so distracted by a giant iguana sitting on a rock that I, too, steered directly into a rock. And then I steered into a different rock.

Here's our first cenote!

Entering into Cenote Cascabel was one of the most magical experiences of my life. Maya mythology has a version of the World Tree, whose branches reach the Upper World, whose trunk lives in the Middle World of humans, and whose roots touch Xibalba, the Underworld. It was fitting, then, that we entered this cenote, another way to access Xibalba, through a cave situated in the roots of a giant tree. We walked down several flights of steps, fastened on our life jackets and snorkeling gear, and just like that, we were all swimming in a real, live cenote for the first time in our lives.

So here's something that you should know about me and snorkeling: I don't. I've technically gone snorkeling several times, because you apparently can't go to Hawaii without managing the social expectation that you get in open water above your head and put a bunch of crap on your face and spend a lot of time trying not to actively drown, but in every single instance I weasel my way out of actually getting in open water above my head, putting a bunch of crap on my face, and trying not to actively drown. Being so near-sighted is a help, because usually I can just say that, oh, darn, I can't see through these goggles, perhaps I'll just lay on this nice boogie board with a porthole instead. Another option is just sort of... not snorkeling, like, "Oh, this boat tour includes snorkeling? How fun! Yep, you go ahead, I'll be over here looking at this fish I can certainly see from the boat, yeah, maybe I'll join you in a bit," and then later being all, "Yeah, that was super great! So many fish!" without actually specifying that I had not, in fact, actually jumped in the water without a life jacket and with a bunch of crap on my face because I DO NOT WANT TO DIE. 

Since life jackets were mandatory on this excursion, though, and I didn't have to worry about actively drowning, I could use the easiest option, which was to simply accept the snorkeling gear and then leave it with my bicycle. That way, I could enjoy the cenote, not drown, and not have to put my face in the water!

And that's how I happily bobbed like a slug atop the water of every cenote, taking 1,000 terrible photos of the Girl Scouts in my care and the cenote features and having an absolutely marvelous time:

I even took a selfie, that's what a happy cenote slug I was!

I really wanted to use my waterproof pouch to take underwater photos and videos, but my cell phone was not happy with the temperature change, and didn't really cooperate. You can make out, though, the smooth bottom of the cenote, with some rocks fallen from the ceiling, a few dead vines, and a fish! Fish kept touching me, and I did not like it. 

My Girl Scouts are much braver than I!

We had plenty of time to explore the cenote, and then it was back up the stairs, back on the bikes, and over to Cenote Chaksikin:

I loved the stalactites in this cenote, so here's a bunch of terrible photos of them!

I think it was around this point that one of my Girl Scouts said, "Ms. Julie! The water's not salty!", and I was all, "OMG DO NOT GET CENOTE WATER IN YOUR MOUTH!"

Please note: she was NOT the kid who got food poisoning!

Again, we had loads of time to enjoy this cenote, and then it was back on the bikes to the last one!

Cenote Xooch was my favorite. I mean, look at it!

To get to this one, we walked down a long flight of stone steps, and when we arrived at the edge of the water, literal birds were flying around and chirping and looking like something out of a fantasy novel.

They also were apparently pooping liberally into the water, but whatever. God hates a coward:

On the way back up the steps, I was trying to pose my Girl Scouts in front of the cenote entrance so I could take adorable photos of them, but the sun was so bright that I couldn't actually see my screen. I'd snapped probably a dozen pictures before I realized that my camera was actually on selfie mode, and all my photos looked like this:

Behind me is our tour guide, Fabiola, who was wonderful and who I'm pretty sure knew the whole time that my camera was in selfie mode.

Our excursion included lunch in the on-site restaurant, and it was delicious!

Fabiola had told us that, if we had time after lunch, we should walk around back and visit the ladies who made our tortillas in an outdoor hut behind the restaurant. Obviously, that was a must-do, so after we'd eaten, the kids and I headed back there to explore.

The real treasure, though, was the friendships we made along the way:

And we found our good boy again!

Indeed, back behind the restaurant there WAS a hut, and in the hut there WERE two ladies making tortillas by hand! They pressed and shaped the balls into tortillas, then cooked them on a giant metal dish set atop an open fire. We greeted each other, I trotted out my extremely awful Spanish 101 taken 25 years ago--"Me gusta la comida!"--and we got so thoroughly distracted that Fabiola had to yell at us from across the property to inform us very politely that every other person was already on the tour van waiting for us, oops.

One of our troop's trip preparations was a lesson on tipping, including making all the kids practice my specialty, the handshake tip. So in the van on the way back to the port, I passed out some of our troop's petty cash to the kids, and told them who should be tipped when we got out, and about how much they should each be given. One kid was all, "We don't have to do that handshake tip thing, do we?!?" I told them no, but on the next day's excursion, I told them yes, mwa-ha-ha!

The only bad part of the entire trip is that our excursion took so long that we barely had any time back at the port before our ship's all-aboard time, and the kids were SO excited about shopping that I hated how rushed we were. Also, one kid really had to use the bathroom, so we spent a lot of that precious port time rushing through the shopping area, desperately trotting out more of my bad Spanish to every shopkeeper--"Donde esta el baño?!? Gracias!!!"

Another of our troop's trip preparations was currency exchange, so that each kid could have her own small supply of pesos, and one of the trip requirements was that each kid had to spend her own pesos, interacting with shopkeepers, attempting to communicate, etc. Some kids had to be chivvied into this activity that was way out of their comfort zone, but the kids I was chaperoning were stoked to try it, and we had just enough time for each of them to find something they wanted to buy and to make the purchase, although we did not, alas, have time to sit down for virgin frozen cocktails like they also wanted before we had to get in line to get back on the ship:

The kids had an interesting instructional scenario to entertain them in line, as at the hospitality station next to us were a couple of women, one of whom was passed out drunk in a wheelchair. My partner's group beat us, though, because they saw two guys, both passed out drunk in wheelchairs, one with some bloody injuries on his knees and head that were probably pass-out drunk related. 

Oh, and here is one of the THREE photos my partner chose to take during his excursion:

He apparently REALLY liked his tour guide!

My partner and I arrived back in our cabin from our various excursions at about the same time, although there was no sign of the big kid's group yet. Here's our towel elephant:

I figured no Girl Scouts would need me at least until dinner, so my partner and I walked around the ship for a bit--

--then had just settled ourselves in a couple of chaise longues by the pool, virgin pina coladas in hand, when one of the chaperones from the big kid's excursion found us. The poor kid had started feeling puny shortly into their Chichen Itza and cenote swimming excursion, and even though one of the chaperones gave her first Dramamine and then a prescription-level anti-emetic, she'd vomited the entire long ride home. 

My partner and I went down and got her out of the stateroom she was sharing with two friends and put her to bed in ours, and gave her another prescription-level anti-emetic. I was a little surprised that the first one hadn't stopped the vomiting, but I figured that the heat and the motion sickness of being on a tour bus and the anxiety of being out and about must have exacerbated things. She was feeling pretty sleepy, so we left her alone to rest while we went to dinner with the rest of the troop.

Here are my fried cheese sticks:

And my two desserts! Our waiter served them on one plate to make me seem less like a glutton:

Then, the sunset outside, on the way to check back in on Will:

Unfortunately, the poor kid was not feeling at all better, nor had she stopped vomiting. My partner called down to the med center, and they told me to bring her straight down. Field trip to the crew area!

The first thing the med center told me was that they don't take health insurance. I seriously had to say to myself, "Okay, she's VERY sick. This is what money is for" silently inside my head before I could say, "No problem" out loud. Also, the med center was completely full, they said, and we did, indeed, pass rooms that were chock-full of people on our way to what I think was used, in less fraught times, as a supply closet. But it had a bed for the kid to lie on, and a private bathroom for her to be sick in, so it worked for us.

Here's some of the three-page itemized list of medical care that poor kid received:

She was super patient and calm, did her best to comply with the doctor's requests and answer all their questions, while being just absolutely, terribly, miserably ill. I feel like they were checking her, in part, for the biggest potential issues like E. coli, appendicitis, and an ectopic pregnancy first, but they finally gave her a shot of something that they said would stop her vomiting, although they warned it might take up to an hour to kick in. Which it did just that, poor kid.

They also gave her a Covid test (negative!), and told her that she had to quarantine in her stateroom for both 24 hours after her last symptoms and until she had a second negative Covid test 24 hours after the first one. The doctor had a hard time understanding my request that she be allowed to quarantine in my stateroom rather than the one she was sharing with her friends, but eventually agreed, although then I had to go over the whole request and explanation with the nurse practitioner who came in just after and get permission all over again, and then the next day my partner had to go over it all AGAIN with the med center because room service had apparently been calling the wrong room repeatedly to see if the kid wanted anything delivered and when they never got an answer they alerted the med center that she was either dead or violating quarantine.

I also didn't love that they literally put us back into a tiny stateroom with someone who could have had food poisoning or norovirus and didn't provide us with any disinfectant. It felt very unhygienic, and I'm basing my theory that she had food poisoning rather than norovirus solely on the fact that neither my partner nor I became ill. I wish we'd at least had a balcony to get some fresh air into the room!

Fortunately, though, the kid fell asleep almost immediately after returning to our stateroom. She slept probably twelve hours straight, and felt MUCH better the next day. I sent her sister into the other room to pack her things and bring them to us, and my partner went down to Guest Services to cancel her Cozumel excursion and get a refund. 

I kind of wonder if she was SO sick partly because I don't remember her being sick at all since before the pandemic. I think this is maybe the second sickest I've ever seen her, below only that time that I thought she had meningitis but it was actually an infected lymph node. Probably good for her immune system, overall, although I hate that she was so miserable and would miss so much fun. 

And we are NEVER going near salmon eggs benedict again!

Here's the rest of our trip!

• Day 1: Montgomery, Alabama
• Day 2: at sea
• Day 3: across the Gulf of Mexico
• Day 4: Progreso
• Day 5: Cozumel
• Day 6: at sea

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

My Girl Scout Troop Went on a Caribbean Cruise... and on Day #3, We Sailed Across the Gulf of Mexico!

As stressful as much of the day before had been, I was ready for all of us to have the perfect, relaxing day at sea.

And I think we did!

It quickly shook out that there were two distinct groups of Girl Scouts on this trip: the early birds and the night owls. I'd been up LATE the last night with the night owls (another chaperone asked me later that day who I'd been out with, and to my horror, I had to reply, "I... don't remember!" I know I started and ended with the same kids, but I'd been so sleepy that honestly, they'd basically just hauled me around like luggage), and yet I was too excited on this morning to resist the messages of the early birds telling me they were up and about and heading to breakfast.

Why, *I* like breakfast!

I cold-heartedly left Matt lying in bed without even a note and headed up to Deck 9 to meet my early birds! 

Here's Will, eating my favorite food on the ship:

Every morning of our cruise, I ate a BlueIguana breakfast burrito: jalapeño tortilla, chicken sausage, Mexican-style scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, and guacamole.

It. Was. DELICIOUS. Syd basically had to force-feed me a couple of breakfast pastries on the last morning of the cruise just so I could say I'd tried something else... and fine, I do wish I'd known about those pastries earlier, because they would have made an excellent breakfast dessert, but nothing will ever lure my love away from my BlueIguana breakfast burrito.

A few of the kids had woozy tummies this morning, so I handed out some dimenhydrinate and prescribed big glasses of water and lots of fresh air. Here's my advice when teenagers tell you that they're seasick: gaslight them. The Navy conducted a study that proves that you can literally gaslight someone out of seasickness, and I think it works pretty dang well! So when a teenager tells you that they're seasick, you give them a Dramamine, but you also tell them that getting seasick on a cruise ship/on the Gulf of Mexico is generally pretty unlikely, and most of the time they're just dehydrated or have low blood sugar, so a big glass of water and a snack with protein and carbs will usually make them feel better. You also tell them that even when someone does get seasick, it usually just lasts a couple of hours, so if they're still feeling gross after their snack and water, they should try to take a nap, ideally out in the fresh air, and they'll definitely feel better when they wake up.

And to be fair, it IS fairly unlikely to get seasick on a cruise ship/on the Gulf of Mexico, and a teenager who feels ratty IS way more likely to be dehydrated or have low blood sugar, especially after two full days of traveling, a very late night and/or early morning, lots of excitement, and maybe a little homesickness. 

Anyway, I gave out Dramamine like it was candy on this day, but after that, I don't think a single person asked for another one!

Many of the kids scattered again after breakfast, but a hardy soul or two came with me to the Starlight Lounge for Creativity at Sea. You KNOW how much I love a craft project!

We made cross-stitch luggage tags, which I LOVE, even though I had to modify it a bit to minimize the use of scissors, since the activities director brought exactly two pairs to pass around--scissors are a scarce commodity on a cruise ship!

After the program ended, some of us found ourselves lounge chairs outside, although it was REALLY windy. Will determinedly kept plugging away on her luggage tag, the long loop of embroidery floss flying like a flag in the wind!

Some kids braved the waterslides, although the strong wind made it a little too chilly to be fun--our next sea day would be perfect for waterslides! Other kids, as far as I could tell, stationed themselves by the self-serve ice cream or the French fries--I can't imagine why there were so many yucky tummy complaints! Each kid had to be with a buddy or a chaperone, and although occasionally a kid would accidentally get ditched in their stateroom and have to message for a companion or permission to leave alone, for the most part the system worked well. The ship that felt so big and overwhelming just the day before was actually also small enough that we all also ran into each other constantly, and it was nice to happen upon some Girl Scouts or four and see that indeed, they were all having a lovely time.

I did not win Harry Potter trivia, but I like to think that I came VERY close!

I blanked on both Tonks' Hogwarts House (Hufflepuff!) AND the dragon that Harry faced in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament (Hungarian Horntail!), sigh. Although I wouldn't have been able to answer the tiebreaker question, anyway--what page did Professor Snape have the students turn to when he subbed for Professor Lupin?

Page 394 would have won you a ship on a stick!

After Harry Potter trivia, some of us met up for Afternoon Tea, which was delightful:

In our pre-trip meetings, the kids had all been very enthusiastic about the idea of meeting up altogether on our at-sea days for "projects." They were less enthusiastic about my declaration of the rule that one of these projects would be travel journaling, but I brought stickers and colored pens, and if everyone didn't exactly "journal" in the strictest (or not-so-strictest) sense of the word, then everyone did, at least, make marks on paper. And they all spent time together, ate snacks, compared notes, and made plans for the evening, so it was well worth it just for that. 

I'd been worrying out loud about the ever-changing number of Girl Scouts under my direct supervision, and how my obsessive need to continually count them over and over again to make sure they were all there was working against me when I kept forgetting how many of them were actually supposed to be with me at any given time, so Syd made me a cheat sheet:

I'd have to mark out that number and write in a new one on the next day for our Progreso excursion, but on this night, eight kids all dressed up for Elegant Night, eight kids giggled as they passed around one kid's order of the ox tongue and tasted it or not, eight kids ordered WAY more than eight desserts between them, and then eight kids bopped off to change out of their elegant clothes and find more adventures.

Matt and I found adventure, too! If by "adventure," you mean virgin pomegranate margaritas--

--books read in a window seat--

--and a lovely walk in the moonlight:

It's quite possible that I was asleep by 10:00 pm, that's how much adventure I found!

Here's the first day of our vacation, road tripping our way south!

Here's the second day of our vacation, finally making our way out to sea!