I Don’t Bend That Way

Today is disembarkation day and, later, embarkation day. That means one group of passengers leaves, and another come on. On these days I’ve found that it best to get off of the ship for the whole day, as the crew works very hard in the hours between groups, and if you stay on the ship, you’re likely to get vacuumed up or polished until you shine.

I took my bike out, stopped briefly at the bike shop for a look around, then biked on to the beach. Hot dogs are better when mixed with the smell of surf and coffee is always good, so I stopped for both. Eventually I ran out of boardwalk and found myself in town, luckily around the time that my friend S. called. She’d come down from the north to spend the day together.

We drove southeast, hugging the coast and stopping at the first waves we saw. As we walked down the beach with our boogie board, the lifeguard stopped us. He asked if we were planning on using the boogie board today. I guess it’s pretty clear to an experienced lifeguard that I’m a total novice. Was I holding the board wrong? Was I dressed like a rookie? He said it was because I wasn’t also carrying fins.

He strongly recommended against boogie boarding the beach as a rookie. He said the beach had the most spine and neck injuries of any beach in America – 12-17 a year. That’s more than once a month!

That was enough for me, we didn’t take a step further and instead drove farther up the coast to a break he recommended.

I still managed to fall on my face and bend myself into a pretzel at this second beach, so it’s probably best I didn’t try the first. See, this second beach was the type with a very short break – the kind that forms a wave very large and very close to shore, then SLAMS this wave onto the steeply pitched sand/rocks/small children that line the edge of the water. I’ve experienced breaks like these before, and I should have known better.

I only caught one wave. It wasn’t until I crested the top of this wave (AKA “too late”) that I recognized what kind of break this was, but by that time I was about 15 feet above where I was about to be quickly SLAMMED into. I also found that the area I was above looked more like sharp, pokey, rocks than soft smooth sand. I ditched the board, also too late, and took a dive south over north, if you know what I mean.

It turns out I’m too old now to be bending my south over my north in that manner, as evidenced by the way my back complained afterwards. No real harm done, of course, but that was enough for me. I went back and sat quietly on the beach, having learned my lesson good and well.

Later S. dropped me off near the ship and I returned to my cabin. When new passengers first come on the ship, the jet lag puts them to sleep very early in the evening. By 11 pm I would venture to say that there isn’t a single person awake on the whole ship, except for the crew that is still on shift (no doubt wondering why they are working if everyone else is sleeping).

The ship is a ghost town, and it’s a great time to take advantage of the amenities. I went to the gym first. Then later, as the ship sailed on through the black water and the wind brought cool rain, I slipped into the hot tub at the very top and back of the ship and relaxed.