Yucatan Cruise Journal, Aboard The NCL Spirit
Thursday, February 11, 2010. Lonely Anniversary. Smokey Mermaid. A Rough Meeting. Today is the twenty-first anniversary of our wedding, Mary Ann and I. But here I am in Belize City, and there she is back home. Last night Mary Ann texted me to say that, after all, she wishes she had come on the cruise. She has been sitting in for me on the radio show, but she says it's been horrible. I can understand why. Topics A through H are various facets of the Saints's Super Bowl victory, and J through L are Mitch Landrieu's landslide win of the mayor's election. This leaves little audience for food discussion. Mary Ann's lukewarm interest in serious eating--one compromised even further lately by her commitment to losing weight--is no bonus. I suggested that she just go with the crowd and talk about the Saints or even light politics. The latter is really what she does well.
I awoke late, still a little groggy from the second martini last night. Back to milder drinks tonight. Breakfast: French toast, bacon, fruit, juice, coffee, all better in Cagney's than in any other eatery on board. (The French toast especially.) I pasted a newsletter together, and at noon made my way down to the tender-boat dock. Belize City is a shallow-water port, and big ships like ours have to drop anchor a substantial distance from shore. Today five of them were out there: two NCL ships, two from Carnival, and the same Royal Caribbean ship that's shadowed us in every port so far. A smallish boat made a speedy but bumpy half-hour transit to shore. But who's in a hurry?
As we approached land, I called Mary Ann to wish her a happy anniversary in a warmer way than by text message. We each told the other that we really should have been together on this day. It's the first time and I hope the last time that we weren't. Then she got a call from Mary Leigh, and signed off. Neither of us knew this would be the last time we'd communicate until I got home, let alone why.
When I penetrated the inevitable tourist shopping mall on the other end (just how many Diamonds International stores does one need to avoid?) I had only a few minutes to get to the Great House Hotel. That's where I told everyone I'd have lunch if they cared to join me. Most people were on tours, however, and the only ones there were Cary and Gloria Richardson. They were on this cruise with me last year, too.
The restaurant in the Great House is called the Smokey Mermaid. It has been around long enough to be famous. Like many places in Belize, it's reminiscent of New Orleans. The tables are in a courtyard about the size of the one at Commander's Palace, with a brick floor, a fountain, banana trees, and palms. I felt right at home.
The lunch was better than last year. First a shallow bowl of conch soup, like a light crab or shrimp soup with a lot of green onions. The entree was a pan-seared snapper fillet, browned nicely and well seasoned, then topped with Creole sauce. Yes, the same concoction of tomato, bell peppers, onion and celery we eat not as often as people think we do in New Orleans.
I have an aversion to fish with tomato sauces. But on unpredictable and rare occasions, the combination shoots up to not just good but spectacular. This was one of those lucky times. The snapper was as fine a plate a food as I would have anywhere on shore throughout the journey.
After lunch, I strolled the waterfront. The houses lining it look like those in the nicer stretches of the Gulf Coast, in places like Seaside--but bigger. A couple of private docks were home to some rather large yachts. The walkway continued on into an area where new construction of more of the above was taking place. This is emphatically the nice side of town. I hear it's much rougher on the south side of the river.
A man with a bicycle parked nearby sat on the seawall, looking into the sea. I was about to say something about what a nice afternoon it was when he moved quickly to my side and yelled, "Give me the money!" He grabbed the waist of my pants and yanked hard. I couldn't tell whether he was trying to pull me to the ground, steal my pants, or what. He let go and I made a run for it. He caught up with me and started yanking hard on my pants again, this time ripping the seam of the left leg past my knee. Whatever he was trying to do wasn't working, so he more or less tackled me.
"Give me the money!" he said again. I reached into my pocket and handed over the forty dollars I had with me. With it came my wallet, cellphone, and the $300 pen Mary Ann bought for me in St. Thomas six years ago.
Right before he caught me, I considered swinging my camera at him as a weapon. It's a heavy SLR with a big lens, and it would have done damage if I'd hit him with it. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. In retrospect, I'm glad of that, because it may have escalated the violence. As it was, he handed my wallet back, took the camera, and departed.
My glasses were somewhere on the ground--ah! there. Unbroken--unscratched, even. I patted my left pocket looking for the ship's card that would admit me to the tender boat area. But the pocket--in fact, that whole section of my pants--was gone. So was the entire zipper. This look would not help me get back to the ship. Then I saw a scrap of my pants lying near where my glasses had been. It was the part with the pocket. Inside the pocket was--miraculously--my ship card.
I had to hold up my pants as I made my way the quarter-mile or so to the dock. I did not appear to be injured at all. No blood. No pain anywhere. I turned over in my mind the brief incident. What was the pants business about? I decided that he was trying to get my pants around my knees so I couldn't run. When he couldn't get them down, his strategy misfired, and that threw him. For the first time in my life, I was grateful for having a big ass. I pulled down my golf shirt--fortunately, it had a long tail--and walked into the dock area without a challenge from anyone.
I reported the incident to the ship's security people on the dock. They took quick action and shortly had the Tourist Village police and the Belize City cops on the scene. The latter wanted me to come to the station and go through photos, but we were too close to departure time for that. They wanted to know the serial number of the camera, and said they would search the pawn shops for it. In general, they were much more sympathetic to my plight than I expected.
So was the ship's staff. The chief of onboard security was waiting for me at the ship, and took me aside for more questions. I later received other calls (usually during naps) from the staff, wanting to know how I was. I kept waiting for one of them to say they were going to give me a credit on my shipboard account or something, but, really, it wasn't their fault I got mugged.
I took an extra good shower, and studied my body in the mirrors for hidden marks from the scuffle. Nothing. I thought I felt some pains in my ribs and waist, but by the next day even those were gone. I had escaped from this ordeal unscratched, save for about a thousand dollars worth of stuff--most of it in the camera. Also in the camera were several days' worth of photographs. I had some superb shots from Quirigua I will never see again. This journal is much less well illustrated that it would have been.
At the end of the massacree, my lifelong good luck had come to my aid again. This mugger could have done much worse than he did to me. I carried on as if nothing had happened, but with a conversation-stopping story to tell.
I told it first when a couple of members of the Eat Club gave me grief about moving the location of the Martini Club today. I'd said so in the newsletter I deliver to their rooms every few days, and other had found me in Champagne Charlie's. "You think you have your problems? Let me tell you what happened to me today!"
Tonight was to have been our dinner in Shogun, the pan-Asian restaurant on the NCL Spirit. But only a couple of people signed up for it, so I suggested that we might get a bigger table assembled if we went to the main dining room, Windows. In fact, that did get us up to six people. Which, on this trip, was a lot.
I started with cheese tortellini in a beef consomme. Cruise ships always have excellent consomme, a soup we don't see often in New Orleans. This one was no exception. Then a salad of mixed vegetables. For the entree, I ordered something I've ignored for nineteen previous cruises. For some reason, every ship on every line has a Thanksgiving-style turkey-and-dressing dinner on some night during the cruise. With cranberry sauce. I think this is a concession to the many older people on these ships. (Indeed, Captain Peterson ordered it, too.) When I was a kid--but not after that--we often had turkey dinners throughout the year. Mary Ann says her family did, too. I wonder what happened to that? Now turkey shows up only on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and on sandwiches.
Anyway, the turkey (and even the dressing) was reasonably good. The dessert feature was a warm strawberry soufflee. That was perfect.
Dinner ended around nine-thirty. I perambulated around the ship for a little while, but didn't really want to do anything. I stopped in at the casino to see if my good luck from earlier in the day was still active. But the $20 I always gamble at some point in every cruise vanished quickly without a trace, as it always does. Surely the day will come when I don't lose on every single pull of the slot machine, or when I will cash in a bet at the track. But it still has never happened. My guardian angel has a much better idea of what's really important.
