The Mona Passage

By the time we arrived back at the Marina we were considerably late for the posted ‘last tender’ time; fortunately (because nobody had explicitly told us this) tenders were still running. We don’t know whether the last tender time was a clever lie to make sure people made it, or the continued operation was due to the late disembarkation, but we were still relieved when we saw them. We happened to run into Kimberly on the dock and we rode the tender back together.

As we cleared the harbour walls it was apparent that the sea had grown much choppier since our disembarkation; it felt more like a rollercoaster as the boat pitched steeply and swooped down the reverse side of the waves. Dan whittered on throughout about how stable this type of boat is, how he had been through worse in the Norwegian sea and that it would be better when we were getting off because we would be under Explorer’s lee by then.

Being tossed around in a small boat seemed like a great way to get set for dinner, so the three of us headed to the main dining room, where we found ourselves seated with some Romulans. As we were ordering from the vegan menu, we had been asked the previous evening if we would like to order ahead (as it takes longer to do those orders) - due to some sort of mix up though, as the dinner progressed it became apparent that we were being served one of /everything/ on the vegan menu. This was pretty funny, another time it might have been very funny, but we had picture sessions with Brent Spiner and Roxanne Dawson to get to, so eating our way through all that food was getting us quite flustered. In the end we excused ourselves before dessert and rushed off for pictures so quickly that Dan left his backpack behind.Read more