[NB: ALL OF THE LINKS ARE DIRECT LINKS TO PICTURES (on Photobucket, so it is far easier to navigate through them than previously linked pictures). I ENCOURAGE YOU TO OPEN THEM, BUT IN A SEPARATE WINDOW. ALL OF THEM WERE TAKEN BY ME DURING THE TRIP.]
It was amazing to see a multitude of people at the Port at quarter past five in the morning. It was even more amazing to know that I was one of them, and awing all the more, that I had not slept for the past 24 hours.
While waiting to board the ship, Krys struck up a conversation with a near-by fellah. I was wary about joining the conversation. You must understand; I was a stranger to Tobago. So was Krys. We knew no-one in Tobago, and we honestly had little clue as to exactly where we were going to go in Tobago. The following was our plan once we docked in Tobago:
Ask someone where the taxis to Crowne Point are stationed
Go to above taxi
Travel to Crowne Point in taxi
Frolic at Crowne Point beach for a few hours
Ask someone where to get taxis back to the Port
Go to above taxi
Return to port in time for 4pm boat
Return Home
Essentially, we were clueless. We were about as knowledgeable as tourists. Our only advantage was that we spoke English. And then not even so much, because I spoke with an accent that leads many Trinidadians to believe that I hail from America or Canada or something. This was no good, when I hear nothing but stories of tourists getting ripped off by locals.
So who was this guy? Why did he appear so friendly? Is he just waiting for the moment our guard lowers, so that he can steal our luggage? I was carrying my fairly new camera. Aint no way he was getting away with that shit.
Eventually, I decided that one can be gregarious without actually being trusting, so I chatted with him myself, but carried my lone back-pack, which held my camera, with me at all times.
The view from the ship was spectacular at 6:30 in the morning, just as the sun made its first appearance in the sky, touching the harbour at the Port of Port-of-Spain, gently.
After taking in the view outside, Krys and I returned inside. Keel. Thats the guy I was initially wary of, and who turned out to be a pretty cool fellah. We played cards with Keel for a while, and eventually another dude, Shell joined us at the table a tray full of breakfast.
Oddly enough, it was I who struck up a conversation with Shell. I think it was because he had a digital camera as well, but not just any digi-cam, the Canon A400 that I was thinking of purchasing.
Eventually all 4 of us were playing cards that Keel had brought along for the 2 and a half hour boat trip he had experience with these rides, you see.
As neither Krys nor I had taken breakfast that morning, we both opted to cut our card game short so that we could buy breakfast on the ship. While waiting in the line, the boat began to rock, and it rocked a bit more, and then some more again. By the time we had collected our trays of bake and sausage/ham and bottled water, we did not know how we were going to make it up the stairs, and back to our seats without falling, or at least without spilling our trays.
Apprehensively, carefully, we made our way back to our seats, feeling like idiots, and laughing like them, too. As my hands were occupied holding the tray, I made good use of my elbows to guide myself along the rails, up the stairs. I could not believe when someone asked me if I was drunk. Hello? Can you not feel the boat tilting precariously under your feet? Then again, it might have been because I was laughing like a hyena while trying to maintain my balance. It must have been a sight.
When we finally arrived at our seats, Krys could not eat. The bobbing ship was upsetting her. She pushed back her food, and leaned back in her chair, hoping that the ride would eventually smoothen out. It only got worse. I, on the other hand, was fucking starving. A rough boat ride was not going to get in between me and a $12 plate of breakfast.
Half an hour later, Krys was barfing into a plastic bag. The workers on the ship were handing out medium-sized garbage bags for everyone to throw up in a more dignified and reserved manner. Even Keel and Shell, both veterans of the boat, had abandoned their card games to focus on ignoring the tumbling feeling in their stomachs. Still, I was, for the most part unfazed. In fact, after putting down most of a very heavy breakfast, I was fanning Krys who was cold sweating with her vomiting fits.
About an hour and a half into the boat ride, the ship was quiet. Nobody was talking. Everybody was dealing with their own motion sickness. I do not know if I had been a bit too bold to continue eating when the ship was tossing like that perhaps I had only been tempting fate, which intended for me to eat heartily and only feel that queasy feeling after the food was fully settled. Or maybe it was the quietness on the boat, knowing that everyone was feeling ill, and that I should probably feel ill too. The power of suggestion. I do not know. But eventually, I began to feel slightly queasy myself. Slightly. Still, the need to take a shit overshadowed any urge to vomit.
I went off to find the bathroom.
That was a colossal mistake. I should have held my shit in.
Every stall in the female restroom all ten of them was locked. The women inside adamantly refused to come out. There were 3 sinks. At these sinks, there were 4 women who were either throwing up into the sink, or leaning over it, with their foreheads on their arms, waiting for the next heave to bring up something. Then there were the sounds. The sounds of women vomiting it came from every stall, and even more up close and personal, it came from the women who only managed to find themselves a sink.
I lasted all of 10 seconds before pushing away a chick at one of the sinks and vomiting myself. And vomiting. And vomiting. And there went $12 worth of food.
You know, all of this throwing up in public restrooms with fellow females there must be a lesson hidden somewhere beneath all of that semi-digested breakfast. I think I think I found it
I realised that no matter who we are White, Black, Indian, Chinese, rich, poor, tourist, local no matter who we are, once we eat the same food, we all throw up the same colour.
And also to take Gravol before boarding a ship.
Twenty minutes later, I managed to grab a toilet stall. I tried to shit then, but could not the food wanted to return through the hole from whence it came. And there I was, with my pants and bikini bottoms around my ankles, bent over the toilet, throwing up. That, I tell you, was a Kodak moment missed.
Forty minutes after leaving my seat for the toilet, I returned, only to find out that all 4 of us at the table had thrown up. Apparently, the waters were particularly rough that morning, hence our extremely rough ride. Oh, lucky me. After 16 years, this is the boat I had to be on?
I was only too happy to learn that we would arrive at land in less than 20 minutes. Not a minute too soon. An hour too late, though.
