Cozumel

Dec 15th
Cozumel

Today was the big Christmas party, which oddly enough, I almost missed. We were supposed to be out on the pier at 1:15, ready to get on the Catamaran that the party was being held on. Well, after staying up late last night doing some reading, I ended up sleeping way longer than expected. I was woken up at 1:10 by Brandon when he knocked on my door asking is I was going. Had he not knocked, I’d have missed the Catamaran, and with that, what turned out to be a really great time.
So after I threw on my bathing suit and got all my stuff together for the party, I ran outside and met everyone on the pier. We walked to the catamaran, were all handed life preservers, facemasks, and fins for swimming. After motoring south for a little ways, we stopped above a national reef that was there off the coast. The rules were that we were not to touch anything and had to wear the inflatable life vest at all times. For those of us who wanted to free dive, we just left the life preservers un-inflated and had no problem swimming down to the sea floor that was maybe up to 35 feet deep. We did what was called a drift dive, meaning due to the current, we’d simply get off the ship and drift along without really needing to swim much if we chose not to. The ship would drift at the same speed as us, so as soon as someone wanted to get back on the ship, it was easy enough to just swim back to the stairs they had between the two hulls. I had a great time in the water, saw a ton of fish, some conch shells, and some nice coral formations. The water itself was perfect as well, it’s always amazing to think that the water and the weather can be so nice where I am in the middle of December while being so cold back at home. I was one of the first in the water and the last out of it, and when everyone got back on the cat, they opened up the bar. The crew was serving margaritas, beer, and coke, and seeing as I haven’t had a margarita yet in Mexico, that’s what won out. All the drinks were included in the $10 fee to get on the boat, which really made it a great deal considering all the stuff we got to do. We all drank our margaritas as the ship continued south to a beach that I suppose was owned by the company. The cat drove all the up onto the beach, meaning we could walk down the stairs between the hulls into water waist deep and walk up onto the beach from there. At the beach, they had a grill going where they served huge hamburgers for $5. I bought one and loaded it up with absolutely everything I could put on it seeing as I missed breakfast and lunch from sleeping in so late. Following that, I hit the sand volleyball court and played volleyball with some friends till I had to get back on the ship. It was a great time though, playing on a beautiful beach, and where everyone there at the beach were friends of mine from the ship. We spent an hour there, got back on the Cat, and then sailed back to the Navigator. From there, most of the group got in taxis that we took down to No Name Bar, a popular crew hangout. This is a really cool outside bar right off the water with both entrance into the gulf and a huge swimming pool and pool side bar of it’s own. Most people ordered drinks and hung out around the pool, I however, joined a few other in jumping off this 20 foot wall into the sea, which was really fun. Then we’d swim back around, climb up on the pier, and do it all over again. We hung out there from before 5 till about 6:30 and really had a great time. Then we all took taxis back to the ship, stopped outside another bar right there in the port (where I again passed on buying any drinks), and got back on the ship just before our deadline. I spent the rest of the night pretty low key (I had the whole day off too), and where as some people went to the dancing under the stars party on the sun deck, I decided to hang out in the room and relax from an already long day of nonstop fun. It takes a lot of energy to have that much fun! I got a few good pictures out of it all, though not as many as I’d have liked cause I’m always afraid of my camera getting wet. But all in all, I had a fantastic day in Cozumel and got to really enjoy these few perks of working on a cruise ship. Tomorrow is a sea day, nothing too exciting. Thanks for reading!