As I write this a few days before starting my vacation, I am filled with anticipation and dread.
“Underway, Shift Colors!”
For a guy who spent a number of years at sea, I have always hesitated in my adult years buying a sailboat or other watercraft. I would never have had time to use it being the practical reason, but I was, like my Navy mentors before me, happy to look at the beach more than the sea. It is one reason I realized why I encountered more old Sailors ln Arizona.
I have only been on a harbor cruise boat, a couple ferries, a cruise liner welded to the pier (a hotel), and a few moored Navy ships in the last ten years.
But the ALLURE OF THE SEAS is a behemoth floating hotel and the time of year – after the hurricane season of 2017, should prove to be quite entertaining.
Anything nautical I do not have to clean, nor join working parties for stores onload, nor man “General Quarters!”, nor chip paint, is entertaining.
Even if this vacation proves for me to get back out on the open sea, and not with six thousand of my “closest unmet friends”, it will prod my spouse and I to venture more abroad. Perhaps I will finally take sailing lessons. I’m the Senior Chief, Comet can be First Mate. Dexter can work the scullery. And of course, Mrs. S is and shall be the Admiral.
Update. My wife is already captivated by cruises. Several people she has met are longtime cruise aficionados. Sleeping like a baby rocked gently to sleep. There’s all sorts of activity, even during those early morning restlessness. Walking up 16 decks and around a thousand-foot-long vessel. And haven’t yet made landfall.
It's a Dog's Life 