Mercy, would you look at this newspaper, Diary, another cruise line has returned to port on account of passenger illness, food poisoning again, I dare say. My life upon it, I'm going to pack a bag lunch the next time I sail to the Bahamas. Not that I make that trip routinely -- indeed, I've only been once -- but let me tell you something: peanut butter and jelly will serve me in good stead the next time, with iced carrot sticks, perhaps, and a good stayman winesap apple. So help me, I'll bring my own bottled water, too, if I have to smuggle it aboard! The very idea, getting passengers sick like that. Not that I expect 5-star fare during the 3-hour cruise between Fort Lauderdale and Freeport, but the food can at least settle in my stomach. I mean, for heaven's sake! How else does the cruise line expect me to enjoy my promised swim at Lucaya? And here I brought my coolest set of baggies -- and all to no purpose! No, my friend: Given the recent trend in reveler incapacitation, you'll find me doubled over under a beach umbrella, gloomily awaiting the ride back to port in the little local-driven bus. (Actually, our foursome had no trouble in the tum-tum department during our trip, but then we travelled at least two years before the cruise lines instituted the controversial custom of large-scale ptomaine poisoning.)



(Of course, I'll want to take a bag of chips, too, in my bag lunch.)



Some "promised swim at Lucaya," by the way: why, there was no beach! Or rather we had to steal one, by walking across the street from the tourist zone, through the lobby of a sprawling hotel, with the desk clerks eyeing us suspiciously (I was like: had they never seen baggies before?!) for during the morning voyage, we had been given the vague understanding that the ship and this hotel were in cahoots and so we could trespass thither without raising eyebrows -- which was not strictly true, as it turned out, especially on our trip back to the tourist zone when we retraced our steps through the (till-then) immaculate lobby, this time with dripping towels and sandy feet. Well, there were no changing facilities on the beach. Indeed, there was almost no beach thanks to an ambitious construction project that was underway during our apparently ill-timed visit. Moreover, the little strip of sand we finally commandeered turned out to be strewn with half-buried cement blocks (apparent "escapees" from the fenced-off construction area that began 30 feet from the water line), to such an irritating and painful extent that we thenceforth referred to that stretch as "Toe Stubber Beach." But I've got to hand it to our hosts -- they didn't poison us once, and we gave them plenty of chances to do so with our immoderate vacationer appetites.



(Brownies might be nice, also, come to think of it -- for my bag lunch, I mean.)