Just returned from my trip from Florida. It was a great time. Highs
around 82 degrees. Lows about 70. And that’s at 9 o’clock at night.
I mean what could be better? Except, of course, whenever one is
traveling danger lurks around every corner. The old Captain’s mojo even
rubbed off on some of his traveling companions this go round.
We’ll look now to the Tuesday of Terror that the Captain experienced at
Typhoon Lagoon. Typhoon Lagoon is one of two water parks operated by
Disney (the other, Blizzard Beach was being fixed up the week we were
there) and features exciting water slides, a lazy river . . . all the
usual fare. And, of course, DANGER!
My brother and I went to the park expecting the usual–you know, not to
die or stuff–and we got to this monstrous property and knew something
was amiss. Not really, but I felt foreshadowing would help here so try
to dig it, okay? Anyhoot, we get on the water slides and my brother is
wearing his sunglasses down one of the tube slides. He gets dumped in
the drink and I see him smiling, sunglasses gleaming in the sunlight, as
he is pulled under the water’s glassy surface. When he emerges–no
sunglasses. The evil pool had claimed the sunglasses for its own
amusement.
He lost the sunglasses right at the bottom of the slide, so we couldn’t
exactly camp out there to search for the things. He mentioned he lost
the sunglasses to the lifeguard and she said, “Check here later. Maybe
they’ll turn up.”
Yeah. Right.
My brother, obviously in a surly mood now, decides to torture me. So he
takes me to SHARK REEF.
That’s right: SHARK REEF. Don’t believe me? Look at this review:
http://www.10-7.com/disney/pages/TL/sharkreef/shark_reef.htm
Yeah. And me with a shark complex. This ought to be great.
You get to the little shanty and they give you a snorkel and a diving
mask. I swear the teenager that passed the stuff to me could smell my
fear. Then you walk to an area where they want you to shower so all the
icky chlorine will come off and you can put on the salt watery
goo-goo-goodness of the shark tank. (We saw one A.J. go through and
refuse to shower because “he’s been in water all day and already wet.”
Steve wanted to kill him. I wanted to simply poison him because it
seemed equivalent. Or at least you know fart at him or something. I
figure chlorine in your salt water might be a little like that. Of
course, I was a little worried I might make a mess in my pants during
this whole ordeal to begin with, so I forwent the obvious attack and
continued concentrating.)
Then, a kid tells you what to do. Since it is salt water, you should
float pretty good. She warned, “If you are not a strong swimmer, you may
want to get a life vest.” Guess where I ran. Only person over 5,
apparently, ever to go get one. It barely got around my belly, but I
squeezed into and returned to the briefing. “As you cross, don’t kick
your feet. This attracts the sharks.”
What? Say that again!
“As you cross, don’t kick your feet. This attracts the sharks.”
So how the hell is that swimming?
Against my better judgment, I get in the pool. It’s about the size of a
pool at a Hampton Inn going from 7 feet to 10 feet to 7 feet deep again.
They run a little current through there so you keep moving through and
the next bunch of shark bait can get in the water.
Well, when I get on the “ready ledge” or whatever that thing was, my
knees buckle and I almost go down right there. That was exciting. This
was a little hint I wanted to give to the sharks. “Hey! I’m the weak
one. Thin me out of the herd. If that stunt wasn’t enough, check out my
life vest!”
So we start across and immediately a leopard shark, I’d say 25 feet
long, but probably closer to 4 feet takes an interest in me. So I think:
“As you cross, don’t kick your feet. This attracts the sharks.” So I
freeze. I do the dead man’s float. Absolutely no movement. Meanwhile,
through my snorkel is some chaotic, feverish breathing. Every time a
shark, or heck one of the other little saltwater fish looked at me, I
slammed closed my eyelids and prayed that I disappeared.
My brother got out much earlier than me and heard some of the lifeguards
talking about the guy just laying out there not moving. They were a tad
worried. Little did my brother know at the time they were talking about
Captain Catastrophe himself.
Eventually, the current carried me to the other end and I escaped with
my life.
But not my health. See all day at Typhoon Lagoon I wore water slippers.
Couldn’t wear my fanscy-schmanscy shoes with the orthotic lifts so my
feet were taking a pounding. This developed some lovely blisters on my
toes–and even between my toes. For the remainder of the vacation, I
limped from attraction to attraction–but I had escaped the ferocious
death planned for me by the sharks just below the surface at Typhoon
Lagoon.
Captain Catastrophe