Okay, I get it. This doesn’t suck. Loblolly Bay is the kind of Caribbean Beautiful that inspires postcards and mid-life-crisis-type-drifts-of-priority. It was gorgeous and secluded and all ours.
For a little bit, anyway.
The Queen Princess Cruise Director had herded us all together into the dinghy with our coolers and Painkillers and snorkel gear and sunblock for a day on the beach at Loblolly Bay. It took a couple of trips but we were all standing on the dock by 8:50 while Captain Ron went to pick up the rental truck that he had reserved for 9:00. He returned a couple of minutes later, on foot, with news that he couldn’t pick it up ’til 10:00. Ooh, baby, baby, Island time.
So we sat down or roamed around the closed up waterfront bar checking out graffiti. It’s an island kinda thing that people drop off stuff at the bars like bras and scrawled thoughts. I walked around deeply contemplative or maybe mostly bored in the heat and humidity reading the blurbs of those who had come before.
We finally picked up the rental. And get this- it was a pickup truck with seats running down both sides of the bed. Think safari. Think laughing and pointing by the locals as we drive by with the Touron light bright and flashing. I know I was.
And so. We set out secure in the knowledge that we were headed somewhere meaningful.
After lots of wrong turns and backing and forthing and after Captain Ron jumped out of the truck at one point and screamed that if someone else wanted to drive, they could fucking drive, we somehow found our way to Loblolly Bay. Kinda lyrical, that.
And it was beautiful- until 109 teenage kids and 19 support staff from Sail Caribbean showed up, streaming over the dunes and into the water like cockroaches. They seemed like good kids but our little sanctuary went from seductive to sedentary in, like, two seconds?
Even the little bar with it’s obligatory dangly graffiti was overrun. It’s kinda creepy to have a fourteen year old sharing bar space with you. Nursing a beer, I don’t wanna be sitting next to a kid ordering virgin whatevers and pulling crisp dollar bills out of his crisp little wallet. It’s creepy. Bars are for big people.
So anyway.
After about four hours of this we were ready to go. And we did. But Hennifer wanted a tour of the island. Like we hadn’t gotten one trying to find Loblolly Bay. But she insisted and Captain Ron relented so we bounced around drinking warm beer and enjoying the view-
I’m pretty sure the travel folks call this quaint or diverse or whimsical, but trust me, it’s not. It’s hot, dusty, and boring. Even with beer.
We eventually got back to the boat and honestly? it was my drunk night. Each of us had one and this was mine. It’s a testament to our friendship that we can have drunk nights and be forgiven.
So I don’t remember eating any of the leftovers that Miss Carol made for dinner and I ended up sitting bolt upright listening to Buttons on my iPod over and over again until Miss Carol pushed me down and made me go to sleep.
Whew.
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