Our second morning on the ship we were once again greeted
with torrential rains. Despite the fact
that we were now out of the pasta-infused waters of Italy and docked at Toulon
in the south of France the weather was playing no favorites with
countries. Despite our best efforts of
waiting out the weather on the boat, we eventually gave up and decided to brave
the heavy rains and take the shuttle boat into the lovely port town. Doing our best to kill time, we headed to
McDonalds to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi (and to hide from the weather),
as internet on the ship was extremely expensive at $0.75/minute and painfully
slow. Hanging out in McDonalds gets old
pretty quickly though, and after trying to wait out the weather for over an
hour we decided to give up on our dreams of wearing berets and eating baguettes
and just headed back to the boat on our $16 per person shuttle boat!
Being back on the boat a few hours earlier than expected, I
attempted to relieve my stress of spending $32 on shuttle boat fees that
afternoon by soaking my pain away in the outdoor hot tub. Most of the passersby kept looking at me as
if I was crazy, although they did have a valid point as I was sitting in
torrential downpour in a lukewarm hot tub.
Fast forward about two hours later and wouldn't you know it, but Colleen
came down to find me and I was passed out, fast asleep in the hot tub. According to her eyewitness account of my hot-tubbing exploits, I kept passing in
and out of consciousness and my face would fall forward and slap the water
before I jerked it back up. I guess this
is why they tell you not to spend more than fifteen minutes in the hot tub, but
then again weren't rules made to be broken?
That evening we again took in the nightly entertainment,
aptly titled JUNK!, because from what I could tell it was just a poor man's
version of The Blue Man Group. Following
the show, it was time for dinner shit to get crazy. During our dinner, we were informed over the
P.A. system that our boat would be changing its course due to thirty foot waves
and a very bad storm. Having said that,
shortly thereafter the boat started rocking fairly violently. Having only been on one prior cruise, and
experiencing only minor sea/motion sickness, I was not sure if this was
normal. Our four tablemates at dinner
who were all seasoned cruisers assured us that this was not normal. With that in mind, we headed back to our
cabin around 10pm and well let's just say that all hell broke loose! Shortly thereafter, it was apparent that
whatever storm we were supposed to be avoiding had other plans and it had
changed course and was wreaking havoc on our ship. After laying low in our room for a bit, we made
our way out to investigate around the ship.
Colleen and I could not believe our eyes when we looked out some of the
doors going out to the outdoor decks on the ship and were greeted with the
closest thing I have ever seen to a hurricane.
Patio furniture was flying everywhere and the boat was rocking so much
that everyone was stumbling to the point that they looked like a bunch of
19-year old Brent Moreau's exiting a strip club after a hard night of
partying. Apparently those thirty foot
waves had found us after all! With my
stomach now in knots, I purchased some magical lotion that you dab behind your
ear and is supposed to help with motion sickness. Fail.
With the motion sickness potion doing nothing to curb both of our
extreme sea-sickness, there was nothing left for Colleen and I to do but to go
and lay in our room and wait for our impending doom. But alas, that would be too easy and instead
the boat proceeded to rock heavily for the majority of the night and laid waste
to anything that wasn't stationary in our stateroom. Sometime around 2am, Colleen was so sure that
we were going to the bottom of the ocean
that night she felt the need to call her mother at a cost of $8 a minute
to tell her how much she loved her!
Fortunately, our boat did not sink that night and the weather eventually
calmed down a bit some time after 3am.
Unfortunately, Colleen was now stuck with a bill for the most expensive
phone call of her life.
~Brentski~
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