Key West is a magical wonderland, and only a complete lack of the appropriate financial and social resources prevents me from moving here immediately.
Before I learned that I would be coming to this seminar and workshop as a runner-up for an award, I was, as I mentioned, obsessed with cruise ships. It was a particular delight for me to walk down the street in a post-air-travel haze and run into a docked RCI ship, the Enchantment of the Seas. All of RCI’s ships are named Something-or-other of the Seas, which is how I recognized her.
I walked as close to her as I could without a ticket, in the hopes that I would be able to feel the ship’s presence — feel the immensity, feel what it was like to be near a floating colony the size of a small town. But I wasn’t able to feel anything about her. She was the size of a city block, and no more awe-inspiring to be near than that. Maybe if I get on board a cruise ship myself someday, I’ll be able to sense it better.
It turns out that I had previously encountered the Enchantment of the Seas online, in a video of a less than enchanting incident where strong winds pushed her into another cruise ship, as passengers yelled and called across to each other. (Not much damage was done.)
L.T. Patridge 