More From Fiji (5 of lots)

Next morning, we woke up early -- we wanted to leave at about 7:00 so we could get some sailing in.  The wind complied this time, so we packed up all our stuff, loading it into the longboat (smacked my knee a THIRD TIME), and piled onto the ship, waving goodbye to our little island home.

I found myself a piece of deck, spread out a towel, and had a lie down -- I love feeling the motion of the ship and letting it just rock me.  The crew guys were playing guitar and singing.  It was this great style of playing where they sang the right melody and played the right chords -- but the actual strumming had the same island-influenced rhythm no matter what the song.  It's a weird world where "You Picked a Fine Time To Leave Me Lucille," "Yellow Submarine" and "Bad Moon Rising" all sound the same.  (Our crew guy from the night before was serenading the Englishwoman with a version of "When the Saints Go Marching In" that had verses like, "Oh when the brandy/it makes you randy..." and "Oh when the kava/makes you a better lover...")

We stopped for a snorkel which I did not want to partake in.  I was three for three in smacking my knee on the longboat, and was happy to give it a pass.  Besides, I had made a SERIOUS TACTICAL ERROR in swimsuit shopping.  I had purchased a one-piece because it's more flattering to my figure.  What I'd forgotten was that I'd be wearing the damn thing under my clothes all day ... and how much FUN going to the bathroom is in one of those -- when you have to virtually undress just to take a pee.  I'd decided that morning there would be no more swimming for me, and was wearing actual underclothes under my clothes, rather than the swimsuit.

And then we dropped anchor while the longboat took the snorkellers out to a reef.  And a couple passengers noticed that since we'd dropped anchor, we were allowed to jump off the boat again.  And that was the one thing I hadn't done the day before (because I was wearing flippers) -- and I thought, "when the hell am I gonna get another chance to jump off a sailing ship?" so I ran to the head, changed my clothes, and jumped off that boat, screaming like a little girl all the way into the water.