We went ashore at about 9.45am and there was almost no queuing to get on to the tenders. It was all very well organised and there was no problem with the fact that Enchantment of the Seas was also at the island. The environment was very well arranged. These coral islands lie low and have a surprising amount of wildlife on them – possibly some imported, including small birds like a cross between a kingfisher and a woodpecker, lots of hens and even a colony of fairly shy iguanas!
There were plenty of shady spots so that we could keep out of the rather fierce sun and Graeme spent much of his time on the island in one or more of the many hammocks strung between the fir trees! On the island was the reception for RCI’s ‘Platinum’ Members and above – those who had amassed a certain number of cruise credits with them. We are the bottom tier of this illustrious group and soon the free canapés and the rum punch were coming round. Three of our party managed to get themselves 3 rum punches each and we were also going back and forth to see a young manatee in the sea nearby as she came up for air every 5 minutes or so.
Those who wanted to had a swim and also had an ‘official’ photo taken when on the sea shore. Strange to tell however, they didn’t want to buy a copy of the photo when they saw that it had been printed off later and was on sale in the ship’s photo gallery.
Then it was time for the RCI’s barbecue lunch and there was plenty of shady seating to take advantage of. There was also quite a lot of local wildlife with wings which was delighted to share any items which fell to the floor! We then browsed the ‘market’ stalls for suitable purchases and a T-shirt and a bathing ‘cover-up’ were duly purchased!
Not much waiting time for the tender back and we were soon back on board. We then had one of our most stunning cruising moments. Sarah and Chris did the short course on napkin-folding and then it was time for the ‘TV Themes Quiz’. We decided that this would be a waste of time, as the programmes would all be from US television and that we would be struggling – and we were! Chris took charge and he and Sarah muddled along with a little help from Elizabeth and an Aussie lady who had decided that her husband wasn’t going to turn up so asked to join us. Elizabeth chipped in when she recognised the theme tune from ‘Desperate Housewives’ and Graeme scored ‘null points’ as his contribution.
There were lots of gaps on our answer sheet and we felt we were surrounded by groups of committed Americans who definitely knew their stuff! Then it was time for the marking. We had scored a fairly pathetic 10 out of 20. In previous quizzes on board, we had won with 14.5 out of 20 on trivia and had come second with 16 out of 20 on movie themes. The adjudicator asked who had got 1 out of 20 and then moved upwards. We and another team had got 10 and no other team had scored more.
We couldn’t believe it – we were in to a sudden-death play-off and Chris would be our man. The tie-breaker question was – How many series did ‘Prison Break’ run for. The other team said ‘3’, Chris said ‘4’ and they replied with ‘2’ and Chris then said ‘5’. They then said ‘1’ and Chris said ’6’ and we had won! The most inauspicious start had turned to a victory for the noisy English gang and the losing team in the head-to head gave us the dead-eye. But victory was very sweet. We had already won plastic RCI key rings from Royal Caribbean’s logo shop’s discontinued stock and now we each had an RCI bum bag to our names and we had become an unholy alliance with an Aussie from Perth on back-to-back cruises! We changed for dinner with everyone in high spirits.
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