At the morning meeting of Wednesday November 28, 2001 Rusty told us about the day’s planned activities. After the Boat Tour and following rum swizzles and snacks we were going to play a game called Sea Hunt. No further details were forthcoming but she did ask for volunteer captains for 4 teams. A guy who was on the cruise with his two sons and his father volunteered the younger boy to be one of the team captains. He is one of the boys who so enjoyed the rough and wild boat ride recounted in the previous chapter. When the boy was told by Rusty that he had been volunteered by his Dad he said “Damn it Dad!”. That was the only time I actually heard him. Anytime someone asked him a question he would turn to his brother or father and talk. They would then relay his answer. Kind of like a weird puppet show.
Ever after we called him Damit Dad. Leigh and Misty seemed to adopt him and teased him and encouraged him to be more extroverted. He was really a sweet kid but almost terminally shy. The passenger division by Rusty put Clan Robertson on his team. Little did he know what a powerful force had been assigned to him. The Robertson girls will win or die!
 We returned to the Yankee Clipper and sort of puttered around until rum swizzle and snack time. Because of the impending game the rum swizzle pitchers were kept full all evening. Rusty gave out the rules of the game and told us that “Remember for the purposes of this game, I AM NOT A CREW MEMBER”. Sounded strange but OK. The thing turned out to be a scavenger hunt but you could only look in team mate’s cabins. Any other rule and the “Adults” might have sunk the ship in their zeal. Each team also had to have a team name, team slogan, team song, and team cheer. We were something about crab or damit dad or something which has totally slipped from my mind. Leigh resurrected a cheer from her softball playing days. No points were given for these items. The object was to be the first back to Rusty with the announced items and no running was allowed. Points were awarded by Rusty for creative walking according to an arbitrary system. Each finisher after the first was awarded a diminishing number of points. Ready..set..go.. My eyes were opened when Rusty called the first item and Mist said I have that and went crabbing off to get the item. Remember rum swizzles were still flowing so I don’t remember the list of goods. Some of the items were lip balm, contract of voyage, sewing kit, unused condom, etc. I did learn what the bar doubloons were for. You paid $10 for the doubloon and the bartender punched out a number of $ marks. Each drink had a different number to be punched. Once all the $ got punched you got a free drink. With rum and coke you got 4 drinks before the doubloon was used up. So not $10 per drink but for 4 drinks. At that price the rum tasted way better!!!!!!!! One of the major items was a crew members shirt. Ah Ha, now the mystery is solved. Rusty recounted that on an earlier voyage she had called that item and zip--one of the players had her de-shirted within seconds. Naturally that was the day she had decided to go “natural”. HaHa. Since she has been very careful to declare she was not crew. Misty was down below and back with the chef’s shirt within 15 seconds. He probably didn’t know he was shirtless for another 5 seconds or so.  Another item, and only for a female member of the team, was to get 5 crew signatures on your chest. Misty was down and back before one of the teams even decided which woman was going after the autographs. Once she went after something she mistakenly thought Leigh had and still scored points for us by returning doing an inverted crab walk the length of the deck. Macho man knew he was watching true competition in action. The contest was close because Rusty was changing the points awarded to keep the scores close. Like I said, an arbitrary scale. The final part as I remember it was to deck out one of the male team members as a beauty queen. I have never understood why we humans think it is so funny to dress a man as a woman and not vice versa. Leigh and Misty and macho man’s lady took our “NAVY SEAL looking” team guy to their cabin and proceeded to effect the transformation. We were first back with a truely hideous “Beauty Queen”. Leigh sang the praises of the style and grace of our queen. A panel of impartial judges declared our gal “NAVY SEAL” was queen of the voyage.  Our team won the game and we were awarded something. I think it was doubloons. Misty gave our team captain a big hug for being such a great team leader. He blushed clear down to his socks. The passengers all milled around until late night snacks were served. Pat was very nice and seemed to really listen when you talked. She was one of a bunch of nurses who worked together and were taking the cruise together. Sort of like our mini grannie reunions. We had been motoring the whole time we were playing the game. I love watching “adults” playing. We can be way more childish and creative and funny than kids ever can be. You take stuffy work-a-day people and put them in a group of strangers and propose a new game and just watch the fun!!!!!!!!!  And then we went to bed to get ready for the next day at Mayreau. Some days are just better than others.
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