Big Ships, Quick Trips

Although the birds were amusing to watch, the real show was the drill sergeant. "You are lazy," he reprimanded Bird No. 82, which had strayed from the group to preen. "March!" he hollered to No. 40, which was fluffing its wings, a snub to this pointless exercise.

Between Ardastra and the dock lies the Fish Fry, a ragged strip of seafood shacks on Arawak Cay. Most of the restaurants have the same menu of fried fish, conch salad and fritters, etc., so the majority of people stop into the one that materializes when hunger strikes.

I entered Brother Eddie's Kitchen by accident. I had stuck my head through the open window, curious to see what was inside, and suddenly found myself behind the stove, learning to cook Bahamian style.

To say Eddie Dormens is amiable is an understatement; the guy is your immediate best friend. He showed me how to fry snapper -- "Get the oil very hot before, you don't want the fish to stick, and serve the snapper whole. The locals love it, the tourists love it, everyone loves it!" -- and kill a conch (a hard knock on the shell, followed by a stab). Ever the gentleman, he offered me the pistil, a clear thread with supposedly aphrodisiacal powers. I declined and watched Eddie pop nature's passion pill into his mouth.

In the end, I was quite content with my independent shore excursions, which included Atlantis and Cabbage Beach in Nassau II and the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum and Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park in Key West.

Unfortunately, the one outing I had booked through the ship was almost a washout. When we arrived in Cozumel, the sky turned ominous and dumped fat raindrops on our heads. The dock was chaos as trips were canceled, including my bike-and-snorkel excursion. Fortunately, Erika, who organized Carnival's trips, had a good memory and a phone. Remembering my inquiries about scuba diving, she quickly bundled me off to a boat headed out to the coral reefs.

Our small vessel was a tight squeeze of equipment, passengers carrying cruise ship towels and two dive masters who were tiny in stature yet cut like Michelangelo's David. For the first dive, we dropped 80 feet and landed in a coral city of purples, greens and creamy whites. Pint-size Julio led us through low, narrow arches that opened up into white sand dunes framed by a wide blue wash that blurred sea with sky.

Before descending, Julio demonstrated the hand gestures he would use to communicate the names of the creatures below: turtle, moray eel, stingray, barracuda. He was an adept tracker, pointing out a turtle gliding on stubby flippers and a spiny lobster with saberlike antennae guarding its doorway. I could not remember all of the symbols, but when Julio looked at me with his fingers forming a triangle on his forehead, I knew immediately what was up ahead.

Thanks to the regulator, I could only scream "Shark!" in my head. Watching the dark gray shadow swim gracefully before me, I was pretty certain the shark was not hollering "Human!" to itself. It was the better animal.

* * *

The cruise ships do their best to keep guests entertained while at sea, and so I took them up on nearly all of their suggestions. I learned to cha-cha and disco like Travolta with a broken toe. I built an elephant and dog out of towels; I went to a scrapbooking workshop where I tried to create a pictorial of my trip using only stickers and glitter. I rooted for the guy with a ponytail and topiary facial hair at the Hairy Chest Contest (I know my fur: He won) and cheered men with Orson Wellesian heft as they flew belly-first into the pool. (The winner went to bed with the reddest stomach and a free baseball cap.) I attended a cooking demonstration and learned to make Kahlua creme brulee and carve an angelfish out of a watermelon. When they announced ice cream time, I ate a cone with a twist; when they cranked up the Cupid Shuffle, I went to the left, to the right, now walk it by yourself, walk it by yourself.

Then, I stopped.

The point of cruising, I would argue, is to relax and fall into the slow rhythms of the sea. The waves were not racing off anywhere, nor were the clouds. Everything was floating along, sea mist in the wind, a bird on the current, laughter in the air.

So I set up a chair facing the endless expanse of water, stretched out and fell into a dream state. I awoke in time for dinner, but not a minute earlier.