A Western Caribbean Getaway

Day Five – Cozumel and Submarine Tours

Day…what day was this? We seemed to have lost track. We pulled into Cozumel, which was much more developed than any of our other stops. Since our excursion wasn’t until afternoon, I headed down to the main dining room for breakfast for the first time. I was seated next to a “frequent cruiser” who was a bit full of himself. He said he lived in Clearwater on the “Gulf of America” (which almost made me completely tune him out), and that he cruised a couple of weeks a month. He was trying to get to Pinnacle status with Royal Caribbean and he was almost there. Whatever, dude. I guess everyone should have life goals.

I joined Laura and we decided to go ashore and find some souvenirs. We each found a ball cap we liked.

From there we went to Señor Frogs to hang out until time for our activity. I was wondering why the waitresses were wearing Furman shirts. That wasn’t the case.

Soon enough it was time for our cruise. We were taxied to another location where we had an orientation about our trip.

We would take a boat out to rendezvous with the submarine Atlantis, which would then take us down 100 feet to the coral reef. When we arrived the sub’s tender was already on site.

We boarded, but due to safety reasons weren’t able to take phots until we got onboard.

A tour guide described what we were seeing out the port holes as we descended to the reef. There were lots of fish, the names of which I could not recall. We also came upon a boat that had been sunk as an artificial reef.

At the end of the tour we could download a certificate stating that we were now submariners and had been down over 100 feet in a submarine.

I’ll be sure to add that to my resume.

Taxis took us back to the terminal and we headed back to the ship. This evening’s trivia was an 80s Name That Tune. We met another passenger who was a frequent tourist. He was also striving for Pinnacle status, but wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as the guy we met earlier. Alex was a paraplegic, but we marveled at his determination and how well he got around.

That evening we tried something different. I decided to try my hand at karaoke. I didn’t really have time to browse their selections, so I picked the first thing I could think of – “Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard. It’s NOT in my standard repertoire, but I think I did OK. At least, I think I did better than the drunk Michigan students who tried to do Taylor Swift songs.

Continued on the next page…