Greetings from the high seas. We stopped in the Bahamas for a beach day yesterday. Today and tomorrow we are sailing for Cartagena, Colombia. Finding some things to do even though I am semi doing the caged animal thing. I have a tendency to pace if I am not kept occupied.
But my inability to sit my sorry self down and relax for extended periods of time is not the main topic of this page. Actually, there are at least two topics for this page. Starting with this one: it may not be fashionable, but I am proud to be an American. How do you like that?
And what brought that about? Simple, I got to watch the United States Coast Guard at work today and those people rocked it. There was a medical emergency onboard. We had to turn around and travel two hours back into Cuban waters to meet the Coast Guard chopper. Maybe a thousand or more stood on the decks and watched the patient be hoisted into the helicopter and whisked away. The Coast Guard came when they were called. They performed their jobs like clockwork. And they are Americans.
Do we know what nationality the patient is? Nope. Doesn’t matter. The United States Coast Guard came. It is their job and they do it well. I am proud of them and proud to be part of the nation they represent.
There. Not said enough. I am proud of what I saw today. They are my countrymen and they ‘done good’!
The other thing I wanted to point out about this incident is this: there are a lot of people who are older and who have disabilities on this cruise. They are being taken care of. Taken care of to the point of spending God knows how much money to travel at top speed to meet the Coast Guard and then turn around and go at top speed to make up the lost time. If you have the time, money and inclination to cruise, don’t let a little vision loss hold you back.
One week later: we have now had a rather large woman taken off the boat by stretcher in Cartagena. The ambulance was meeting her. I also saw a woman being led by a sighted guide. The blind woman was doing a lot better than some of the other people I have seen!
Now is cruising with a vision loss ideal? Absolutely not! I am missing a lot. Yesterday it took me three times as long as everyone else to see the sloth. It took me about twice as long to see the troop of howler monkeys in the tree and I never did see the poisonous frogs. However, because I made my disability known I do have photos. Other people took them for me.
Not much else happening here. I don’t have WiFi so I cannot really do any research. I will send this when we get to the airport in a few days. After that, it will be back to normal.
Written November 3rd, 2017