spit: January 2012

Vince briefly at the wheel under the tutelage of Captain Bill, aboard a 38-foot sailboat from Sail Caribe.

Prior to leaving on a vacation to Puerto Rico, I experienced a mix of excitement and trepidation, as I expect most 50-ish women nervously view any vacation that involves donning a bathing suit in merciless sunlight. But even beyond that, it was the first time Vince and I had gone on vacation with another couple, and our friends Bill and Shari wanted to spend days at sea on a sailboat exploring undeveloped islands. My idea of a vacation usually involves mostly indoor activities. I like stylish restaurants, clean bathrooms, sun protection, maybe a 104-degree hot tub, and easy access to medical facilities in the event of an emergency. Exploring undeveloped islands on a sail boat didn’t meet my usual vacation criteria. In fact, to me, it seemed a little crazy. But we developed an escape plan that involved taking a ferry back to the main island in the event of seasickness or any other regrets so I decided to give it a try. So, off to PR and sailing!

Even waiting to board the plane was an exercise in humility and a reminder of my limitations. I fly economy class and never opt for upgrades. AirTran isn’t as bad as other airlines, but on many airlines, especially United, there’s an optional upgrade fee for everything, with a boarding process that makes India’s historically entrenched caste system look like amateurish playground cliques. United has boarding categories like Premier, Premier Plus, Presidential Premier Plus, Gold Presidential Premier Plus, Gold Presidential Premier Elite We’ll-Kiss-Your- Fanny-as-You-Board-the-Plane Ultra Plus … then women with children, those in wheel chairs and those with special needs … Paper, Plastic and – my usual category – scum of the earth who bought your seats on CheapAir.com (no kidding), whom we will shove into random, open seats to stuff the plane, just like those hapless souls in the cargo bay of the Titanic. What? There’s an emergency? I’m sorry, but you forgot to pay for the optional emergency oxygen mask upgrade, so prepare to die suckas!

I made the Walk of Shame to the back of the plane, took my seat and realized that my watch had stopped working. Out of habit, I kept looking at my wrist, but the watch’s face just blinked back at me, flashing apparently random times that mocked me, as if to say, “What time is it? What does it matter, bimbo? Leave me alone, it’s time for vacation!”

I often felt discombobulated until I decided to just let it go and rely only on the sun, moon, and stars as my time guides. In the end, it was the best vacation evah!

Here are some highlights:

It turns out that, unless you’re the captain or co-captain (who sometimes have to do actual work) the main activity on a sail boat is relaxing, feeling the wind on your face, and gliding over the ocean blue. Pretty blissful. Then, you moor off-shore for the night and relax some more, maybe grill some steaks or dive off the boat for an evening ocean dip, enjoy the sunset, view a dazzling nighttime display of stars, and then go to sleep in the berth, letting the waves rock you to sleep. That is, unless you decide to dress up to go out for dinner on the island of Culebra, climb into a dinghy (a kind of rubber raft) after dark and travel significant distances into unfamiliar territory where you suddenly realize that your dinghy has run smack into a coral reef.

Shari, perched on the front of the raft served as look out, pointing her miners-style head lamp at the ocean. “Up now,” she’d holler authoritatively, and Bill would yank up the motor so that the dinghy could glide, propelled by momentum, over the coral reef. They were a great team and, somehow, we managed to get near the shore without the dinghy doing damage or getting ripped or entangled in the reefs' sharp edges.

At one point, a flying fish jumped out of the ocean just in front of our faces and almost landed in the dinghy, which, if the fish had succeeded, probably would have freaked me out to the point where my wildly flailing arms and legs would either capsize the dinghy or I’d just fall out.

This was definitely not something I would do ordinarily. In fact, it was something that I could only imagine a Navy SEAL doing – “Your mission is to go by dinghy under cover of darkness and surreptitiously penetrate Culebra’s perimeter. The future of your country depends upon it!”

Our mission was more like some mahi-mahi and a refreshing drink. We succeeded in making it to the perimeter but there was no dinghy dock in sight.

We shouted out to a security guard near the shore. “Can you direct us to the dinghy dock?” He claimed that it was right around a nearby pier, but we rounded the corner only to find a locked fence and swarms of long slithery tarpon fish with eyes that glowed demonically, reflecting back the light of our miner’s lamp. We proceeded down dark canals until we came to a foul-smelling residential area and then past that to a bright, festively lit restaurant deck with tables.

“Can you tell us where to find the dinghy dock?” we asked the waiter at Mamacita’s. “You’re looking at it,” he replied cheerily. There were some poles where we could attach a rope, but no ladder. A couple eating on the deck watched in freaked-out amazement as they saw four people rise up out of the ocean and clamber onto the deck, two of them flopping onto the floor in dresses, and one of them with a miner’s light on her head and carrying a large, white plastic bag of garbage from the sailboat. “Can you take our garbage?” we asked, somewhat sheepishly. A look flashed on the waiter’s face like he wanted to throw us and our garbage back in the water, but he quickly suppressed the urge and ended up taking our garbage.

Suddenly, Vince disappeared. He eventually re-emerged as we got our seats and, as it turned out, he had been busy scoping out possible sleeping accommodations for the night because there was no way he wanted to get back in the dingy, ostensibly because “the women” wouldn’t want to. Ah-hem. “I’m up for it,” I chirped.

I mean, we had already survived flying fish and traversing reefs that could rip our dinghy into shreds. What else could there be?

Of course, if we ended up capsizing or sinking in a dark ocean at night, Vince would be vindicated (and it turns out that we came pretty close to that) but we finally made it back safely, at least until a storm the following night. And then two earthquakes the next night, but that’s another story.

Overall, it was a thrilling vacation that involved snorkeling, sailing, exploring secluded beaches, kayaking in narrow, Mangrove-lined canals at night and plunging into the mysterious waters of a remote bioluminescent bay.

On the plane ride back I glanced at my worthless watch again. Surprisingly, the time seemed accurate. I had to check a few times before I was sure, but it had started working again as if on cue. PR had been a timeless interlude, a magical mystery vacation, where I broke free of my usual time consciousness and play-it-safe mentality and, instead, morphed into Jeanne Warrior Princess, daredevil, adventuress extraordinaire, and fearless dinghy dock garbage deliverer. Thanks Shari and Bill and everyone else who was a part of it. You know who you are.