by Lehua Parker | Apr 30, 2014 | Travel
It’s been nine days since I got a whole can’s worth at once.
Nothing says I’m back in the USA like the large Diet Coke I ordered at an airport kiosk that’s brimming with ice, half a gallon at least, and rocking a thick lemon slice. I never figured out if in the Caribbean ice was the luxury or the soda—did bartenders serve me two ice cubes in a glass so I would get my money’s worth of soda or were they trying to save the ice for all the rum-blended drinks?
On the cruise I popped for the bubbles sticker, a flat rate per day for all the soda and juice you could drink. You’re charged for every day of the trip, including the first and last day of the cruise, which I think should count as one day since I couldn’t get a Diet Coke to save my life the morning we disembarked. We immediately dubbed them bublé cards. (Even sober, when you’re on vacation, things tend to make less sense later on.)
I paid for four bublé stickers all at once and almost fainted at the total, more than the GNP of many of the small island nations we visited, but I figured if everyone in our family only drank two glasses a day, we’d break even. At less than a can a glass, I knew I’d be drinking more than two.
My daughter delighted in ordering root beer, which always confused the bartenders. Earnest Filipinos and Malaysians would hold up Dr. Pepper and other drinks while she shook her head and pointed at the dusty case of Barq’s in the back. I swear it was loaded on the ship back in 2010 by mistake. My son drank a ton of ginger ale. Bartenders know that one by heart.
The cruise ship had an adult beverage version of the bublé sticker that started at $50 a day, depending on your poison. Suddenly, my Diet Coke pass didn’t seem so expensive.
It’s all a matter of perspective. After a week in the Caribbean even airport prices looked good.
by Lehua Parker | Apr 29, 2014 | Travel
We’re screwed. Taxis in the Caribbean are more than four times what I expected and everywhere I turn people have their hands out for a tip. I didn’t bring enough cash, which usually isn’t a problem, but our bank and credit cards won’t let us get cash from the ATMs.
Yes, I called all our financial institutions before we left and told them we’d be traveling and where. They all said no problem.
Problem. Out in the middle of the Atlantic, the AMEX and Mastercard satellites don’t want to talk to the cruise ship. While we can charge all the ship services we want, they won’t give us cash against our credit cards without first talking to the credit card companies. There’s no problem, the cruise ship assures us, we have lots of ship to shore adventures you can charge to your room or you can just stay on the ship.
Not going to happen.
My husband finally places a ship to shore call to our bank, America First Credit Union. The customer service rep tells us we can access our cash if we use our account’s Visa/debit card, the card neither of us carry, preferring the old-fashioned ATM cards we’ve had in our wallets for fifteen years.
We’re screwed.
Except my husband remembers our son must have one of the newer debit cards. It’s late and he knows our son is fast asleep five decks above him. He asks the customer service rep if our son’s account has that kind of card.
There’s an awkward pause when the rep says she can’t give out that information because my husband isn’t associated with that account.
What? my husband sputters.
She’s right. Our son’s account is in my name and his, not my husband’s.
My husband names a figure and says check your records, that’s a weekly deposit into my son’s account from mine. It’s his allowance.
There’s a muffled giggle, then rep says she still can’t tell my husband that a charge was made that morning in St.Thomas, which means our son has his Visa/debit card on him.
Cool, says my husband. Let’s up his allowance.
Small town credit unions rule.
by Lehua Parker | Apr 28, 2014 | Travel
Outside of the walled resort the town is poor, clothes from Goodwill poor, the kind of poor where there are not enough jobs for young men, so they congregate around shade trees waiting for the day’s catch to arrive in leaky dinghies. My kids have never seen this kind of poor outside of a National Geographic special. Remember, I think hard at them. Understand how much you have and be grateful. Remember also, I think, that to whom much is given, much is required.
Eventually, we walk to a bar where the only non-alcoholic drinks are water and Coke. The older men in the neighborhood gather around us and talk guns with my husband, sell bracelets to my daughter, and once they realize I know what breadfruit, papaya, and mango trees look like, joke with me about island life. Too busy on the mainland, they tell me, you must teach your children to slow down island-style.
Along with the Reggae comes the herb. My son looks like he’s about to blow a blood vessel when they politely offer him some. “No thanks,” I say, “The day is enough,” and they laugh some more.
“Chill,” I tell my son. “Rastafarians. It’s part of their religion. To them it’s a sacrament.”
He frowns. It’s not like this at home. He’s had a few problems with drunken frat boys on the ship and is clinging to his just say no mentality with both hands clenched tight.
“I’ve never seen a belligerent pakalolo head,” I tell him. “Mellow and munchy is the worst to expect.”
I cross the street to where a small boat is unloading its catch, sorting fish into five gallon buckets that are whisked away, disappearing down shanty alleyways and behind bar counters. “How’s the fishing?” I ask.
Three men proudly display thirty or so small fish that look like miniature marlin and a couple of red snapper.
“Net?” I ask.
“Of course, mon,” they say, “unlike de tourists we don’t have all day.”
by Lehua Parker | Apr 26, 2014 | Travel
I’m sitting on a bench waiting for someone to tell me which catamaran to get on, listening to a couple of guys bang on steel drums. I suddenly realize they’re playing Hotel California. The shave ice colored buildings—blue raspberry, lemon yellow, strawberry pink—converge with the music and I feel like I’m in a Dr. Seuss book. The Lorax, maybe, or Yertle the Turtle. Thing 1 and Thing 2 round a corner and enter a gift shop. The Cat in the Hat can’t be far behind.
Things are a little bit off. On our side of the fence, there’s Fendi, Rolex, and bottled water. Guys in smart polo shirts and white shorts say things like the wind and waves can tip the boat, but only you can tip the crew. Girls in crisp blouses offer cheap rum shots, foot massages, or to braid my daughter’s hair. Small monkeys wearing diapers climb on shoulders or sit on heads, a couple of dollars for the ultimate vacation selfie.
Vacation, I remind myself. Fun, remember?
As we get on the catamaran, my husband moos. It’s his way of protesting the official tour, the one that promises to take us to a pristine cove called Shitten Bay to snorkel. I shake my head at him. He’s right, but the taxis are killing us, charging four or more times what I expected to run us to a beach or into town. Booking today’s adventure through the cruise ship means all the gear and transportation’s provided.
Besides, it’s my turn to pick. What I really want to do is scuba dive. In fact, I’d love it if all we did was dive, eat, sleep, and dive some more. But our daughter is terrified of sharks, jellyfish, and the unseen thing that will swallow her whole. A morning snorkeling is an armed compromise right up there with the St. Martin/Sint Maarten Treaty of Concordia.
I’m a terrible mother and try to calculate how many more years until I can plan a dive trip for two and come up with three if we leave the princess at home. I bite my lip.
It isn’t until I’m perched on the prow of the catamaran, sea-splashed and wind-whipped, scanning the waves for the change in direction that reveals a dolphin or flying fish, that I finally relax. It’s day six of a nine day vacation and it isn’t until this moment that I feel free. I’m smiling and laughing as I lean against my husband, drenched by a rogue wave that has caused all the other tourists to flee to the covered bar area to point and snap photos of the crazy lady with a Hawaiian print sarong over her shoulders. I sip Ting, a local grapefruit soda that’s better than Squirt, and peer at the dark patches of reef we skim over. Out of habit I check the distance to shore. Even towing a couple of kids, I can totally swim that, no problem. We’re good.
The captain is droning on about the expensive villas lining the hillsides and which A-list celebrity owns them and how you can sometimes see the newest It Paparazzi Darling walking the beaches naked right over there. We’re not going to see them, I tell my son. It’s never the pretty people. They know better than to show it for free.
Later he sadly tells me I’m right. Another bubble popped.
Who says travel isn’t educational?
At Shitten Bay I’m handed a mask, snorkel, fins, and the hated, dreaded, absolutely mandatory life vest. I try to tell the deckhand that I’m more likely to drown wearing one of those things, strangled in the straps or chaffed to death along my carotid artery. No, madam, (and I know what madam is code for), you must. Swimming is too tiresome. Put a little air into it like this. Much easier.
I’m tempted to tell him what else he can blow, but I know he’s only doing his job. Instead I thank him, then deflate every puff of air out of the vest.
Stupid thing.
I think about stripping all the gear off, jumping over the side, and floating on my back, hands behind my head, eyes closed, and taking a nap just to show him I won’t drown, but he would probably jump after me with a life-ring cursing madam, madam, madam.
Well, if I have to wear a vest, I’m not walking down the stairs and into the water like an old lady. I do have some standards. I slip over the handrail.
The water is cool and clear and I feel bubbles rising around me, tickling a little from my giant stride entry off the port side of the catamaran. Everyone else heads out into the deep water, but knowing better, I head to where it’s shallower, where there is more light and more to see. I tear the corner off the mini bag of cornflakes I smuggled off the cruise ship, shake them into the water, and the fish come.
As I quietly float along away from the crowds, the fish continue to do fishy things instead of hiding, and I realize this reef is dying. There’s very little living coral, few fish, and I don’t see any octopus, eels, or even starfish. Looking around, I understand why it’s a good place to bring tourists—outside of some patches of fire coral and wana-like urchins, the worst that can happen is a sunburn.
Too soon, the bell sounds, and we’re back on the catamaran. My son drains a plastic cup and says, we’re bringing a case of Ting back, and I laugh. Everything tastes better on a boat. Ting is good, but I’d trade all the Ting in the world for more time at Shitten Bay.
It’s been nine days since I got a whole can’s worth at once.
