We awoke early this morning to a light rain and slight wind. G went up to grab two lounge chairs on the Terrace Deck...and most of them were already reserved with pool towels. Grrrr...that is SO rude. It's 9:35am right now, and there are 16 chairs across the back of the ship with towels but not people on them. Ridiculous.
But, G went up just a few steps further and sat in one of two covered chairs there and I joined him as soon as I had dressed. We sat in the early morning light, drinking coffee and watching as the rained slowed and the ship slowly came alive. We moved our clocks ahead an hour last night, so things were a little quiet first thing this morning.
Things are now picking up. The rain has stopped, the pool attendants have dried off tables and chairs and people are bringing their breakfasts outside to enjoy. The sun is out; we can see its light on the top deck of the ship, but since we're sailing in an easterly direction, it's still nicely shady back here. It's going to be a beautiful day.
I had promised to post what I've been through with my contacts, and it's a story that continues to unfold. Since I'm sitting in the shade here, and can see my iPhone screen, I'll take the time to tell it.
12 years after LASIK surgery, which corrected me from being near blind to being able to see without correction, my eyes regressed and I needed to begin wearing contacts again. Even glasses couldn't provide me the correction I needed. And not just any contacts, but, I found out in August, I needed rigid gas permeable (RGP, also known as "hard" contacts) again. Fussy fit and unforgiving. I will fast forward through two and a half months of appointments and fittings and trials and errors to this point: due to a series of goof-ups, the last day we were home I received a spare lens for our trip...but not the one I'd ordered. The lab had made a mistake. What to do? I was a woman without an address for the next several months. A replacement lens sitting in my file at the doctor's office did me little good when I was on a ship in the Caribbean. Luckily, a cruise friend (Suzan!) who was joining our ship on November 28 offered to bring me the corrected lens, so I had my doctor's office mail it to her once it was was made.
For the first 20 days of this cruise, I knew I had no room for error. I couldn't lose a lens, or I'd be blind in one eye. The pressure was on. One day I walked out onto the Promenade Deck to wait for G. We were going to sit and watch for the dolphins they'd just announced were off the port side. As I was slipping on my sunglasses, my finger brushed my eyelid. My contact slipped off my eye...or did it fall out of my eye? I couldn't tell. Since G hadn't yet arrived (he's become very adept at lifting my eyelid looking for a missing contact), I turned and went back into the ship, into a ladies restroom that was nearby.
For five minutes, I lifted my lid, rubbed it from every direction, rolled my eye every which way and peered into the mirror, all while half blind. I finally gave up...the lens was gone. It was probably laying on the Promenade Deck, smashed into pieces by someone's footstep.
Resigned, I picked up my sunglasses from where I had thrown them on the bathroom counter...and stuck to the inside of the glasses was the missing contact. Thank God!
But the story doesn't end there. As I rinsed off the lens with water and then put a drop of the lubricant I now have to carry everywhere on it. I put the lens on the end of my finger, leaned close to the mirror to insert it on my eye...and DROPPED it into a LARGE bowl of potpourri sitting on the vanity.
Does anyone besides me have this kind of luck?
Still half blind, my mind was racing. What to do, what to do?? I'm in a ladies room. Even if I could find G, he couldn't help me. I scanned the top of the potpourri, and didn't see the contact. So, with no other options, I dumped the entire bowl into the sink. The drain was covered with one of those filters used to prevent small items (like contacts!) from going down it, so I knew I was safe there. But I still had to find that little piece of plastic in all those flower and wood bits.
Piece by tiny piece, I picked up each little bit of potpourri, examined it on all sides, and placed it back in the bowl. Piece by tiny piece, my heart sank as I couldn't find the lens. I finally reached the last piece with no luck. I resigned myself to being blind in one eye until Suzan arrived with my spare lens.
And then, I looked again. Glistening in the drain filter at the bottom of the sink was my lens!! Happy, happy, joy, joy! I moved the potpourri to the other side of the vanity this time, cleaned the lens and reinserted it. And went to find G on the Promenade Deck.
Where he wanted to know what took me so darn long to meet him. :-|
Well, I was saved that time, but wasn't so lucky last month. Still half asleep one morning, I was rinsing my lenses to insert them when I mixed up the "close the stopper, turn on the tap" order. I turned on the tap, and then moved to close the stopper. In that split second, I dropped a lens into the sink. What a sight I must have been. I instinctively moved both hands to plug the drain, but the stopper was still open and the tap was running. I'd have to remove a hand from the drain to close the stopper. What to do, what to do (again!)?? I removed one hand and made a mad dash for the drain valve-y thingy...and watched the lens float down the drain. It was over. There was no saving it.
But, by then, my spare lens had arrived. I had prepared for this to happen...and it did. THANK YOU Suzan, for carrying onboard a package given to you by a stranger and intended for someone else (which goes against every security rule in the book). I'd be half blind without it.
We walk all over these islands. We manage to avoid 2 foot deep open storm sewers and potholes the size of small cars. We play chicken with crazy taxi drivers as we cross streets where they drive on the left side of road and we're not sure where the traffic's coming from. We snorkel in coral gardens and climb on rocks the size of houses. We haven't had any issues with these things at all. But I am staying clear of potpourri bowls and open drains from now until we go home. That's where the real danger lies.
Photo: My view while I was sitting on the deck of the ship typing this post. That's the "breakfast bar" I sometimes mention on the Terrace deck right in front of me. We love eating our outdoor meals sitting there watching the wake.