For those that do not know, I recently switched platforms for our website. I assumed that everything from our site would easily transfer to the new platform. You know what they say about assuming. Yeah, I deleted our whole website. The only thing that saved was our website name. Yep, let your true Geezer Colors shine! Sometimes, something bad has to happen to find the good. I wasn't really happy with the other site and it was much harder to use. So this is a good thing! Bad thing is that I have to rewrite my previous posts. Hence the 2.0 version.
This past January (2025), we went to Pineapple Beach Club in Antigua. Pineapple Beach is my happy place. It is the one place in the world that I have learned to actually RELAX. We try to go to Antigua once a year and have been going since 2019 and we love to travel with a group of friends. This year, we had 14 in our group. So much fun!
One of our favorite excursions is to take a snorkeling tour with the Calypso Cat. The Cat leaves out of the Verandah Resort, the sister resort to Pineapple Beach. If you take this excursion, the adventure will be mostly visitors from these two resorts or even Hammock Cove. This tour leaves from the opposite side of the island of St. John so you don't get many tourists from the cruise ships on this excursion.
The Calypso Cat takes you on the northeastern side of the island where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Carribean Sea. They will take you slowly past Sting Ray City and take you to Hell's gate. According to the crew of the Calypso, Hell's Gate made an appearance in the Pirates of the Carribean movie. I think the sceen was one that had 3 dead pirates hanging from the bridge. I tried to find verification of this by doing a quick google search but was not able to find any information.
After we were done snorkeling, the Calypso took us to a cove on an island where they threw the anchor and started cooking our lunch. We could get off the boat and swim, look for shells on the beach, or stay on the boat to have drinks and socialize. Our friend, Deb and I decided we were going to snorkel some more. I am so glad that we did. We came across a big sea turtle just chilling out on the ocean floor eating some sea grass. He stayed in the same spot for about 5 minutes before he swam off to find something else. It was so cool! Seeing this turtle was definitely the highlight of the excursion for me and really made the trip worth while.
Deb and I swam back to the boat to have a couple drinks and visit. It was at this point that my husband's cousin, Steven, and I decided to dive off the back of the boat. Keep in mind that we live by Lake Michigan. We often take our pontoon boat (22 ft with a 250 horsepower Evinrude on the back) to Lake Michigan or to Muskegon Lake or Bear Lake. I dive off my boat all the time. (Do you see where this is going?) Steven did a VERY impressive backward somersault / flip into the water. Next, I did my signature move....just a simple back dive. We got back on the boat for another dive. This back dive was not so good. All of a sudden, I hit my head on: something. HARD. I figure one of two things happened.
1. The end of the boat shifted and the water was not as deep at it was before.
2. I did not take into acount of the water displacement between incoming and outgoing waves.
Either way, I hit my head and I remember thinking to myself, "that's going to leave a mark". When I resurfaced, everyone was yelling at me to get out of the water. I couldn't understand why they wanted me out of the water. Then someone told me that my head was bleeding. I asked, "really?". The response was "Yes, a lot". I climbed back on the boat and was wisked to the front of the boat where the captain already had the first aid kit open and ready. Maybe I am not the first one to injure themselves on the boat? I wonder how often they have to put someone back together?
Fortunately, there was a vacationing nurse on the excursion with us and she gladly helped the captain to clean and bandage my wound. At one point, they even poured vodka on my head to help clean the wound. Such a waste of perfectly good Vodka. They proceeded to wrap my head with gauze and gave me a "lovely crown" to wear.
It was a beautiful day so we sat on our porch while waiting for the doctor. By then our friends that had been on the excersion were making it back to Pineapple Beach and came by to check in on me and to keep us company. We had a couple more drinks. Our friend, Stacy, came by with her blow up inflatable ring that she named Chad, and had a great time talking about my need for attention and desire to give all the managers at both resorts a heart attack.
The doctor finally arrived (he had to come from the other side of the island). He gave me 7 stitches. Fortunately, he did not make me go to the hospital since I did not have nausea and excessive drowsiness. This is about the time that I started to regret not buying travel insurance. When we made the reservations, I was trying to be cheap and chose not to get the travel insurance.....because we have never had to use it before. We paid the doctor $500 and he was on his way. He left me with a shaved head, 7 blue stiches made out tf what appeared to beo 50lb blue fishing line, and a huge bandage on my head. Yep, he made sure that I was going to get attention for the rest of our vacation!
It has now been just 3 months since my fiasco. My hair is growing back. I have learned the I will NEVER travel without Travel Insurance again. I am extremely thankful that I did not break my neck doing my back dive. Can you imagine if I had become paralyzed or died while on vacation with NO insurance???
Now, Kathy's favorite song to sing is "No more Karen jumping off the boat". Remeber the song you used to sing about no more monkies jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head? Yeah, it's that song but with the words changed.
Lessons learned from this excursion -
1. Don't be cheap. Buy the travel insurance!
2. If I am going to jump off the boat, jump feet first!
3. Travel with a great group of friends that will NEVER let you live this down and will REMIND you of your mistake for the rest of your life!
I love all of my friends that went on vacation with us - Allie, Kathy, Dan, Steven, Dana, Karl, Mary, Barb, Olivia, Tim, Stacy, David, and Debbie. You all make these vacations to Pineapple Beach the most memorable and best times of my life!
