Cozumel

I am really, really enjoying this cruise. We are on board for 15 days in total. It's a bit of a weird one, as it's actually three shorter cruises hobbled together.

Bernie and I are both freakishly early risers, and normally find one another and sit for coffee, and for what we call "first breakfast." After seven we return to our cabins, and by 8 all four of us meet up for our real breakfast. Then, it's ashore if we are docked someplace. If it's a ship day Helen and I go to Zumba, and then I go to the gym.

We all meet up for lunch. Afternoon is nap time, or sit-about time.

Then dinner at 5:30. We are all early diners. We get done in time for the early show. Post-show, Lola and Bernie head for bed while Helen and I go dancing.

Bedtime, then repeat.

Tomorrow will be especially good for me. We will be docked at Cozumel. Helen and I have booked a novel tour. It is a day at a snorkeling beach, but that's not all. The interesting part is our transportation back and forth. No bus, nor shuttle; we will be riding Segways. We've always wanted to try them and this seemed like an ideal opportunity.

We get a little lesson, then scoot to our beach through town and return the same way.

***

Last night we had to set out clocks back another hour as we've sailed that far west. My body is confused. We changed time three hours ahead by flying to Florida, and then an hour back last weekend for the end of daylight savings, and now this. It's currently only an hour off of where we started.

The problem is that my body has gotten used to both of the first two changes.

Tonight we sail away again, and our clocks go ahead to remove the adjustment for Cozumel. A week later we fly home and gain three hours. That will have been a total of five time changes in a single month.

This morning I was finished sleeping and got up at 4:30am, which feels like 5:30, and back home would be 2:30. Thank goodness for coffee.

Our Cozumel day was perfect. Our tour wasn't to meet up until 11:20am, so Helen and I went ashore as early as possible to do a walk about.

It was dang hot, but almost at once some cloud cover rolled in. It kept the temperature pleasant, and cut the risk of sunburn.

Half of the pier is a cruise-style shopping area set up as a gauntlet that the passengers have to bottleneck through. However, we were there so early that they were letting folks avoid this by using the crew express walkway.

Off of the pier there is a big shopping area geared to the cruise tourists. Lot's of tshirts, jewelry, and junk. There are a bunch of restaurants and bars. What kind of idiot leaves a cruise ship to go eat? Beyond that is the town.

In no time at all the entire cruise shopping area was packed. I suspect that 75% of those who go ashore never set foot beyond of this zone. To them, this is Mexico.

We checked out a couple of these tshirt shops on our way to the egress towards town. It's still tourist-land, but at least it is all Mexican controlled.

The little straw-market shops were just waking up. We slowed for a moment at one, and in no time the guy had us looking at silver jewelry. He was charming, and slick. He kept playing with his prices. It was so much fun that Helen bought a lovely little pendant for $20. Then we escaped.

Everybody was very nice, and perfectly polite. I don't know how many times we smiled and said, "no, thank you." At least a few hundred.

Helen also found some beadwork rings, and bought three for another $20. I picked up a couple of tshirts.

We headed back to make our 11:20 tour, but first we took our purchases back to the ship. This time we had to cram through the bottleneck. For me the worst part is the perfume stink area. Yuck. We got through, and put our stuff in our cabin, and re-ran the bottleneck to get ashore for the second time.

I had chosen our tour, with Helen's enthusiastic agreement. It could handle 12 people, but there were only 6 of us. Our guide lead us out of cruise/tourist land to a small, enclosed area. There were a bunch of traffic cones, and a bunch of lovely, Segway vehicles.

They gave us a lesson, with everything demonstrated, and then it was time to mount our trusty steads. They are controlled by a combination of leaning, and handlebar manipulation. We went around the course a few times, and then we were lead single-file out into the world.

We had a guide in front, and another in the rear. Behind that we were followed by a truck that was carrying all our stuff. We rolled about a kilometre, then stopped for a break.

They warned us our legs would tire fast, and they weren't kidding. At the stop, they walked us over to a lovely fish-filled sink hole. The guide chatted about the island a bit. This was a pleasant way to rest our ankles and such.

Back on the Segways, for the rest of the run to our real destination.

It was a nice, little spot for swimming, snorkeling, sunning, eating, and drinking. We had about an hour there. I've done better Caribbean snorkeling, but this was good.

Back onto our vehicles, and we rode back. Altogether, we did about 5 kilometres on the Segways, and did some lovely snorkeling

After our tour we wandered on a bit of a photo safari.

Finished the day with a splendid dining room meal as we pulled away from the dock; with a show; and with some dancing.

Cruising is hard work.