Emerald Pool, Dominica
The last time I saw my Sister, I was standing on the cruise ship dock in Victoria watching her walk through the suddenly impenetrable barrier of the chain-link fence that separates the passenger/crew only portion of the dock from the public one. I was stoically refusing to cry. I was failing.
The time before that, we were sitting on a bench alongside the inner harbor, on the last day of my first contract, trying to think of something to say when there was too much to say.
What are you complaining about? You’re the one who’s leaving home!
Yeah, and you’re the one leaving me behind!
I wept for days after the end of my first contract, for multiple reasons, but a lot of them had to do with Saerwan. She knows that, though she doesn’t like to admit it, and usually neither do I.
To make a very, very, long story short – Saerwan and I have been planning this one tiny slice of a day, this tiny three hour cross over in time, for the last four months, ever since we realized that after a year and a half of separation our ships would finally be crossing ports in Dominica. The plans have survived several bumps and bruises, and were possible only because I was granted my World Cruise extension. I was, after all, originally due to go home three days ago – and we would, once again, have missed each other by a breath as we have been doing for the last year. Her ship leaves, mine arrives, or vice versa. She’s watched my ship pull out as hers is pulling in more times than we care to count, and we’ve passed each other in the middle of the night.
When each of us finally figured out which security point the other was waiting at, I very nearly ran down the gangway – or as close to a run as one can manage in heat that makes you nearly pass out the moment you step into it. For the first five seconds we clapped eyes on each other we just stared and blinked, instantly adjusting to the myriad little changes that nearly two years apart has brought in each other. And then it was crying, laughing, squealing reunion, like something out of the movies. The taxi drivers standing around us laughed, probably half surprised and half totally used to such things.
You’re real! You’re actually real! I didn’t want to believe it until you were actually here!
Squeezing a year and a half’s worth of catching up into a 45 minute taxi ride is surprisingly difficult, but we managed it. Then of course, there was more time when we were at the falls. Dominica is a prime example of a tropical rainforest, exactly as you expect one to be..
What are we doing today?
Sis, we’re in a rain forest, with hiking trails, and waterfalls…what do you think we’re doing?
Even though I went through the rainforest when I was in Costa Rica, it’s been too long since I just wandered through the trees. Also, in Costa Rica I was with a tour, organized and time and directed, and not with crew members I knew particularly well. Here, I was with Family. With someone I’ve long since past the point of needing to speak aloud to, and when we do talk, I know that most of what we talk about would make no sense to anyone who might overhear us. Especially since our conversations are conducted only partially out loud.
The only hard part about today? The only bad part? Is that at the end of it that taxi dropped me off at my ship, and her at hers, and I hugged her goodbye at the bottom of my gangway – just like she had done to me so long ago when I was staying shore-side and she wasn’t. I stood on the aft-deck of my floating home and watched hers give three long blasts on the whistle and slowly pull away from us. Taking my Family away…again. For now. Till Next time.
We’re still here of course, our all-aboard time is an hour later than hers was. By the time we let go our lines and slip out of our berth her ship will already be miles away from us, far far out of sight.
And, as always, a part of me goes with it.
And *that* is exactly why I don’t like web cams or buses.
Neither of us was wearing a blue ribbon….