Cozumel, Mexico

We boarded the Empress of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship, on Sunday in Miami. The ship has only 1600 passengers, a small ship by today's standards. The best part is that the promenade deck did allow you to walk completely around the ship. The worst part for us was the entertainment, of the 8 shows we saw, four were comedians, and most nights there were no bands playing music or allowing one to dance.

Our first stop was Cozumel. Mary, Cindy, Sunny, and Andy decided to walk the town. They ended up having a few tall margaritas at Senor Frog's. Since Cindy doesn't drink much, everyone else had more liquor then they needed.

Secret River 

Meanwhile, I decided to try some caving at the Secret River on the mainland. The wind was blowing strong, so we had rough seas trying to ferry to the mainland. Once there, the team really took good care of us, providing lunch, water, shoes, wet suits, head gear, mining lamps, and a great tour. We descended into the cave and began exploring one of the five different caverns open to the public. It was absolutely gorgeous. At times we were walking on a trail, other times we walked in water (72 degrees), and a few times had to swim to the next spot. The formations were interesting and varied. We also encountered tiny blind shrimp and some blind catfish, but missed out on blind spiders. We did have the mandatory time where we turned out all the lights. I highly recommend this tour if you're not squeamish about caves and tight spaces. My only complaint was that the price of pictures was high $25 for one, $99 for a set of about 20, most of which were of you going through various parts of the cave. Some of the pictures were really interesting, but I wasn't going to pay that price.