The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
The Sunset Cruise
“This too, shall pass” is not a mantra that works for me. It is for more patient people. However, “This will make a good story” rather does. Luckily.
So I embarked on the four-hour sunset cruise because:
- There is no other way to see the cliffs on the west side of the island.
- This is my seventh trip to the Hawaiian islands and I had yet to see a whale.
- It came highly recommended by Christy as well as the hotel concierge.
The issue is that I am prone to motion sickness. However, I had never gotten sick on a boat before. I figured if I stayed on the upper deck in the open air, I would be able to manage.
Strike One: Assuming that an hour on Lake Michigan = four hours on the Pacific Ocean.
When I arrived at the pier, there were plenty of anti-nausea meds available. The crew highly recommended it. I declined because:
- I had never taken them before.
- I knew I would have to drive the 40 minutes back to the hotel in the dark after the cruise and wasn’t sure of the effects.
- Bloody expensive stuff.
Strike Two: Ignored the warnings and declined the meds.
So we embarked. And I did, in fact, see some whales:
Even if good pics were hard to come by. Seriously, the experience is so much better when one isn’t trying to get the perfect shot.
And there were dolphins:
And it was awesome.
Strike 3: Trying to focus a camera.
Alas, about a minute after I took this shot:
I was throwing up all over the upper deck of the boat. After the crew quickly and quietly cleaned it all up, a young man came over to check on me. I said I was hanging in there. “Are you sure?” he asked. “‘Cause you really got some distance there.”
And then it started raining. I was afraid to move from that seat, even as it started to pour and we couldn’t have been more than 90 minutes in to the cruise. I wasn’t the only one looking green, so I was hardly alone up there. But I was the only person that vomited.
So I saw the famous caves, all Pirates of the Caribbean or whatever, but I wasn’t taking the camera back out. By the last hour, I was shivering and my feet were blue (which I knew because they ask you to go barefoot on these cruises). There was lightening before we disembarked. My teeth were still chattering when I got back to the hotel room.
Today, I was planning on taking the Fern Grotto cruise. Besides still feeling vaguely nauseous, it is still raining, thus the blogging. I ran to the grocery store this morning, so other than a 3pm at the spa, I am not required to move for the rest of the day.
If the weather clears up, I can do the Fern Grotto and the rum plantation tomorrow. If I pull that off, I will pretty well have seen all that is required for a trip to Kauai.
And now, there shall be ginger ale.
The Next Dark Age 