6/14/16

Cast Away....Cayman Style....(Except for the Island, and the plane crash, and the spears....)


We were bouncing across the ocean sitting back to back on my bright green, sporty Jet Ski. Ray’s larger, much more powerful one was bobbing wildly behind us at the end of a ten foot towrope. In fact, it looked a bit like an angry child being dragged into the doctor’s office against his will. (I remember being the dragger on MORE than one occasion and it’s not a pretty sight.) 

I hung onto the handles on either side of the seat with my back to Ray’s, praying that I wouldn’t be bounced off the back and into the path of the crippled Jet Ski. Ray had the ours going about 3 to 4 miles an hour as we chipped away at the journey ahead of us. 

This particular part of the sea is apparently a VERY busy one, as charter boat after even larger chater boat passed us coming and going.  Now, you would THINK that one of these captains might have thought that PERHAPS two old people on one Jet Ski pulling one wildly behind them might possibly need some help. I guess that was a crazy notion.

We bounced and bobbed and weaved and made our way across the beautiful blue sea one mile at a time. We closely watched a blanket of dark gray clouds off to the east follow us while the sun beat down on us from above.  The precious sunscreen and our hats were tucked neatly inside the waterproof compartment in Ray’s crippled Jet Ski, and we could feel our skin burning.  Fortunately the spray from each crashing wave fooled us into thinking that we were NOT burning.

As we finally closed in on the opening to the bay, the gray blanket of clouds overhead opened up and came pouring down, along with several loud kabooms of lightening and thunder.

“Honey,” I turned and shouted to Ray, “Wouldn’t it be HYSTERICAL if we made it the whole way across the bay alive and were killed here in the bay by one of those bolts of lightening?  Wouldn’t it?”
He laughed and gunned the throttle trying to outrun the storm. At this point the no-wake zone in the bay meant nothing to us.  When we made it to our own beach a few minutes later the storm decided to leave us alone and headed out to sea. Thank God. 

I jumped off the Ski and stood, exhausted, on the sand. Ray walked over and we both stood there quietly for a minute digesting what we had just been through.  I’m sure he was trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do, and I was wondering I needed some medical attention for what I was sure was going to be sun poisoning.

It was then I noticed an adorable young girl in a skimpy bikini walking over to us from the cottage next door.  She carried an ice cold Corona and a beautiful smile on her face.  Little did I know that what she also carried with her was something that was going to make our day….