I made it uneventfully to Philadelphia - or rather Cherry Hill, NJ which is where they put me up for the night. I am going to leave in about an hour to head into the city and find the bar where tonight’s contest is being held.

I got my scuba pictures developed! Unfortunately only 15 came out though I thought for sure I took more than that…there were 27 on the roll and I only had to use up the last six at home. I put them in their own album on my travel photo site, but I also posted them at Flickr because I wanted to be able to use their little on-picture notes. One photo of me actually came out, but like a lot of the pictures it’s horribly framed because you can’t see through your mask AND through the little viewfinder, so a lot of the shots were only sort-of on target.

I would say more but this wireless connection in the hotel is very slow. I think it was free for the first day, though, and that’s all I’m here for (overnight), so I can’t complain. I did at least get my pictures uploaded!

My entire journal from Bermuda is now posted.

• 10/7/06 - Bad Bus Ride
• 10/8/06 - Day at Sea
• 10/9/06 - Hi from Bermuda
• 10/9/06 - Hamilton
• 10/10/06 - Scuba Diving Day
• 10/11/06 - My Ear
• 10/11/06 - Walking in St. George
• 10/12/06 - Happy Skippy
• 10/13/06 - Sailing Home

Wherever you see a camera icon in the entries, you can click it for a related picture. And don’t forget to look at the rest of the pictures here!

We’re back! I have about a bazillion feeds and friends to catch up on, and I have to unpack, etc. I got a bunch of stuff in the mail, including my purple corset from Meschantes (I need to re-lose the six pounds I gained on vacation before that will fit) and the original Japanese editions of Bust a Move (Groove) 1 and 2. It’s nice to have more than two TV channels, it’s nice to have my kitties back, it’s nice to have the Internet, it’s nice to be home.

I did stop off at the Green Lantern bar on the way home for the Atlantic Deaf Leather contest. I didn’t stay for the contest, but I did enjoy socializing with friends that I don’t see very often. I’ll be working on typing up my travel journal and posting my pictures online soon.

Yesterday we went with A’s parents to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, & Zoo. Despite being three facilities in one, it’s still quite small and you can tour the whole thing in a couple of hours. You start out in the aquarium, which has Bermudian sea life including a moray eel, a pufferfish, and an octopus. After the aquarium, you are directed through the gift shop to get to the museum and zoo. After passing the harbor seals, we chose to go to the zoo next. They have a section for local Bermudian animals, but the rest of it is peacocks, golden lion tamarins, and other critters in an Australasia exhibit. Our final stop was the museum, which is three rooms of information about Bermuda. There is a fancy projected movie about the geological history of the island, and some artifacts from earlier times. That’s about all there was to the entire place!

Today was a sea day. We slept late, skipped the disembarkation talk, and got a couple of raspberry daiquiris at the poolside bar. Then we went back to our room to read, but A was sleepy and I figured I’d join her for a nap.

At 2:30 we went to a “wine and food pairing” seminar. Our sommelier had promised to have a vegetarian plate made up for me, which turned out to involve skipping the plain chicken and pesto chicken, and increasing my portions of chocolate, cheese, and black olives (I still only had two cherry tomatoes). So the whole thing was a bit of a waste for me, since I don’t like wine anyway (my favorite of the four was the Chardonnay) and I wasn’t getting the same lesson as everybody else.

Pretty much the rest of the day was spent with a drink in hand. Before dinner I put $1 into a slot machine and walked away with $5.85, and after dinner we went to the Friends of Dorothy party and chatted with a gay couple there. They had late dinner though, so we only chatted for 30 minutes before the party broke up. Then we had another drink and came back to the room to pack - we have to leave our bags outside the room by midnight.

Went to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, & Zoo today. Too tired and residually drunk to write much more. Set sail for New Jersey at 3:00pm…not looking forward to this vacation ending.

First, yes: I really do think I ruptured my eardrum while scuba diving. I haven’t had this medically confirmed because a consultation with the onboard doctor is $113, but air is moving through my ear in a most unnatural way.

Today our ship went back across the island and docked at Penno’s Wharf in St. George. We went walking with A’s parents; I quickly picked up the cache at the Deliverance, petted a stray tomcat, and watched the celebrated wench-dunking in the town square. Next we walked up to the Unfinished Church, and then came back down the hill. A took the tour of the Bermuda Perfumery with her parents while I read outside; next we did some shopping before heading back to the ship for a nap before dinner.

My hearing has been diminished all day and I’ve asked people to repeat themselves a million times. The perforation should heal up in a few days, but I will probably see a doctor when I get home anyway. The “Cruise in Review” video is already playing on flat screen TVs outside the photo gallery. We are in it, but I decided to just wait for our bit and film it on my own camera. The DVD is $35 which is just insane. I also brought home two photos. The first was $15, and the second was supposed to be $25, but…um…well, let’s say I feel two for $15 is a more realistic price to expect people to pay.

I can write normally again. I trimmed off the nails and removed the color; now I just have to fuss with the remaining adhesive.

Just a quick update, which will also be interleaved with the journal I’ve been keeping by hand. I successfully went scuba diving yesterday, but I think I ruptured my right eardrum. Something is very wrong with that ear, at least. The scuba diving was interesting though…

Today I went scuba diving for the first time in my life. We took a cab out to Robinson Marina, adjacent to Somerset Bridge - the world’s smallest drawbridge. We signed our waivers and collected our equipment: fins, mask, and BCD (Buoyancy Control Device). We got onto the dive boat and set out for open water, with the lesson being given on the way. We learned about clearing your ears as you descent, and what to do if you have a problem during descent, as well as a few hand signals - “fine/ready,” “problem,” “going down,” and “go up.” We also learned about the “giant stride” entry, which is just a big step off the boat’s platform - you have to go wide enough that your tank doesn’t hit on the boat. Once we got out there, we learned we’d be seeing the Constellation/Montana wreck site which was featured in that fabulous late-70’s movie “The Deep.”

When I took my giant stride off the boat, I was surprised by how much I could see. But the BCD had been filled with air, so I bobbed back up and made my way to the place we were told to wait. We kept our faces in the water and practiced breathing through the regulator. I was supposed to keep an eye on A, who was wearing a -4.5 prescription mask even though she needs -9, but I was so scared myself that I stayed busy practicing my own breathing pattern. Eventually an instructor came over and asked if I was ready to descend, so I said yes. Even though I tried to equalize on the way down, my right ear popped painfully, and I panicked and begged to go back up. The guide brought me up partway, and I managed to calm down and gave the signal that I was ready to try again. This time I made it to the bottom successfully, but I was having trouble staying there, so the guide clipped an extra weight onto me. But then I couldn’t get off the ocean floor, so she took it off again - and I began to rise. She chased after me and put it back on, and for the rest of the dive I was always barely above the bottom. It was difficult breathing through the regulator, but I settled down and it got easier - though never like breathing on land, because I always felt short of breath. I knew A was still at the surface with an instructor, so I remained focused on my guide and followed when it was time to follow. I figured the other guide knew A would be nearly blind, and would take care of her - little did I realize how wrong I was.

But meanwhile I followed my guide through the wreck and the reef. I could easily distinguish living things from manmade, but it was very hard to figure out what ship parts I was looking at. The fish were completely unafraid of us and swam right by; at one point my guide pointed to a fish and indicated it was yummy! I had no way to say “uh, I’m a vegetarian,” so I let it go. That’s one thing that was hard for me - resisting the urge to use sign language to communicate! I couldn’t even use “fish” or “boat” because no one would have understood.

This came back to bite me in the ass when the guide signaled “something-something OK?” I foolishly indicated “sure, OK” in reply, and was surprised when she started leading us (that’s me and another guy) through a tunnel. I figured I’d try it, and I was dismayed when my left ear popped painfully. Okay, “dismayed” isn’t right…I panicked! I told the guide I had a problem with my ear, and she signaled to the other guy to proceed out of the tunnel. She came back and pulled me out, and I tried the equalizing tricks we’d learned topside. By the time we were out of the tunnel I felt a bit better, and indicated I was okay.

So we looked around a bit more, with me trying to keep from sitting on the bottom the whole time. Eventually it was time to return topside, which was when I noticed A treading water at the surface, with no scuba gear on. I made my way over to the dive boat, anded over my fins, and climbed up the ladder. I staggered over to where I could take off my gear, and stripped everything off. Then I went over to the platform and called out to A, and she swam over and climbed aboard to join me.

I only found out later, at dinner, how bad her experience was. Nobody had checked to see if the prescription mask fit her face, which it didn’t, meaning it kept filling up with water. She managed to descend to the bottom, but her mask filled repeatedly and she asked to be taken topside. She was offered another mask, but was told that by that point it was too late for her to try descending again. She was told that she could just snorkle, but nobody gave her a snorkle. So she was just going to swim around, but she slipped on the boat and fell down, which was the culmination of a bad experience. Once she regained her composure, she did swim around for a while, which was what she was doing when I returned to the boat and called out to her.

Back in the office, she asked for a partial refund on the basis that no one checked to see if the mask fit her properly, and as a result she did not get to dive at all. The kid she was asking adamantly refused to refund any of the $110 cost, so I will be e-mailing the company owner to notify him that I intend to take it up with the credit card company. I had snagged a copy of the waiver we’d signed, and the way I interpret it is that my ear pain, which lasted all night, was covered by the waiver, but A not getting to dive because no one fitted her mask was not.

So we were pretty upset leaving there, and we were going to try for the Dockyard and a ferry back to Hamilton. We ended up taking the bus all the way back, but not before encountering a very sweet, very talkative kitty who begged for pets and sat on both our laps. So that made us feel a bit better.

We got back in time for dinner, though I was 15 minutes late for the Friends of Dorothy party and people were leaving. I said we’d schedule another one for the sea day going back, so I hope that will work out.

Today we docked in Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda. We arrived about an hour later than scheduled, but we didn’t have any morning plans so we didn’t mind. When we got through customs I called the dive shop on a pay phone, but they said the trip would probably be canceled due to lack of enrollment. She said to call back in an hour, and so we wandered around shops near the passenger terminal. When I called back she confirmed it was canceled, but said that they already had the minimum signed up for tomorrow, so we switched to tomorrow’s dive.

Next we took a ¾ mile walk to find a geocache, which was not actually easy to find. On the walk back we stopped in the gift shop of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, but we didn’t take the tour. We also went into a grocery store to see if they had anything we couldn’t get in the U.S., but there wasn’t anything interesting. We also went into Tattoo Pirates, who we’d seen ads for around the terminal. I was seriously considering getting a tattoo as a souvenir of Bermuda, but the guy mocked my idea of a hibiscus (yes, they’re cliche, but I’d just seen some walking from the geocache) and A said he was adjusting himself a bit much (ew), so I may not go back after all. I couldn’t get anything before I go scuba diving anyway, so that was how I begged off from him.

We did a bit more shopping, and stopped into an Internet cafe for a few minutes. Then we came back toward the terminal, and A wanted to go into a perfume shop. I went too, and ended up buying a cute purse and a wallet that’s much more practical than the Hello Kitty one I’ve been using for a couple of years. Next we came back on the ship for a very late lunch, and I turned a blind eye to the veggie burger being cooked on the same grill as the meat and handled with the same tongs. I am a strict vegetarian, but some battles just aren’t worth fighting…but I won’t be getting a veggie burger again.

Here I am in Bermuda! This entry will eventually get put in between the entries I’ve been writing by hand in a notebook, but since I have some time here at an internet cafe I wanted to make a quick post. The weather is beautiful here! We took a 1.5mi round-trip walk this morning and I found a geocache, so I’m very pleased now that I’ve been caching in two countries. We had fun dressing up for formal night last night, and tonight we are going on a nighttime glass bottom boat tour. We had booked scuba diving independently with Blue Water Divers for today, but it got canceled for lack of signups…so we are doing it tomorrow, when they’ve promised the tour will go ahead. We’ve never been scuba diving before but this is a lesson and dive for one price, so it will be interesting. I think when I am done posting this we will go back to the ship for lunch…although it’s pretty late! So who knows what we’ll do next. We are having fun walking around on Front Street (we’re docked in Hamilton) and looking in all the little shops.