After everyone got back from their excursions, were checked in and accounted for on the ship at Progreso, that afternoon we headed around the Yucatan peninsula toward Cozumel. Of course they timed it so we arrived bright and early the next morning at the cruise pier at Cozumel.
The water around the island of Cozumel was incredibly beautiful - and oh so clear. The shot below was taken as we hung over our balconey looking straight down the side of the ship. However deep the water was right there below our ship, you could see all the way down to the rocks at the bottom. The orange sliver of color at the bottom of the picture is one of the ship's lifeboats waiting to be deployed in the event of an emergency...
Here we have gotten off our ship (the one showing on the right side of the picture). Another ship was already docked at this cruise pier, and that is the one showing on the left. Lots of goings on as vendors were trying to get you to have your picture taken with them in their costumes, etc.
This shot is back off a bit further, and you can see our Carnival Triumph ship on the right side of the picture. And yes, this ship is the SAME ONE which had a fire and got stuck a few days out in the gulf toward the end of February. We were so thankful that we weren't dealing with ship failure during our cruise back in October. That would not have been fun!
Here's another shot from even further on down the cruise pier. You can see just how big these cruise ships are!
There are a series of "duty free" shops which you negotiate through near where the pier meets up with the land. We managed to wade our way through all these shops without buying anything...
Once you've made your way through these shops, you emerge on land at the other end to a nice plaza area. All through here are additional tourist shops, etc. It is also here where you meet up with any "shore excursion" group you might have signed up for.
We decided to "sail" with a group on 12-meter America's Cup racing sailboats.
Once we were setup with our group, we loaded onto a shuttle boat which took us out to where our racing sailboats were anchored. This picture is looking back at the two cruise ships docked in Cozumel.
This is actually one of the "Stars and Stripes" 12-meter racing sailboats used by Dennis Conner to defend the "America's Cup" trophy back in the 80s sometime. This is the boat we would "crew" against another 12-meter racing boat.
This was our team "leader" who positioned each of us at our various crew spots - and explained how everything worked.
This is the "main streamer" (or something like that) which would be my (Tom) responsibility. This rope was tied in directly to the main sail. It was my job to apply tension on this rope around this buckle thing to either maintain the current setting, or to let it slip out some to give the main sail more line, or to help in winding the rope back in to pull in the main sail some. The actual "pulling in" of the rope was managed by large cranking handles/winches operated by two other crew members, but I would have to keep the proper tension so that their cranking would result in the rope being brought in.
Here we are underway. The other 12-meter racing sailboat we competed against is ahead of us at this point. We made 6 lengths around some buoys spaced some distance apart. We finally caught up with and then passed the other boat on the last leg of the race - so we were deemed the champions!
Once our sailing adventure was completed, we made our way back through some of the shops and bought some trinkets, and then made our way back aboard ship. That afternoon, an artist proceeded to transform a big chunk of ice into that of an Indian Chief with a full feather bonnet. It probably didn't take him more than 10-15 minutes from start to finish. It came out very nice!
Late afternoon, we pullled away from the cruise pier in Cozumel and pointed north to head back to the home port of Galveston. Here's a shot of our wake. The seas were calm so the trip was very smooth.
After traveling all night, come morning the next day we arrived back in Galveston. This large structure is the gangway which the ship pulled along side for everyone to depart.
One last look back at our ship as we departed down the gangway! It was a fun trip, and we made ourselves relax and enjoy just "doing nothing" to speak of.
As previously mentioned, this ship we were on had a fire onboard some 4 months later and left everyone stranded out in the Gulf of Mexico. It took them several days to have rescue tugboats come out and tow them back to Mississippii for repairs! We were so thankful, in hindsight, that when we sailed the Carnival Triumph - everything went off as planned and we weren't stuck!
Tom and Nancy...
