January 11th Tortola British Virgin Islands

Matt's birthday is tomorrow! We pull into Tortola and it's like all of
the other ones. This is our last island so we decide to do an
excursion since we haven't done one yet. We signed up for the snorkel
and Virgin Gouda baths which everyone has been talking about. The
thing I hate about it is we have to get up at 6:30 am and be at the
Stardust Theatre at 7! I am the furthest thing away from being a
morning person. I basically sleep walk to the theatre, but it's going
to be worth it. We get on the boat that is taking us to the baths and
it's not quite what I expected. I thought it was going to be a
catamaran but it turned out being a big metal sort of catamaran boat
but without a sail and it was packed...I started to be not as excited
anymore. The ride there was about 30 minutes, and the waves were big. I
have never gotten sea sick in my life but I was feeling it. Luckily I
didn't puke! Just look at the horizon Jenny! We pull about 100 meters away from shore and have
to snorkel/swim to the shore..I have only snorkeled twice in my life
and one of my biggest fears is getting eaten by a shark or some other
sea creature, so of course I start hyperventilating and barely make it
to shore. What makes it worse it my goggles are all fogged up so I can
barely see what's around me. I eventually calm down but it takes me
about 10 minutes. I finally reach the shore. Now for our "Lost" style
adventure to the Gouda Baths. The trail is through 5ft opening between
4 ton sized rocks. We climb up and down wooden ladders through the
granite rock caves. The rocks are eroded in the most unusual patterns.
It's amazing. We have to hold on to ropes to get down the steep parts
of rock. There was a "larger" man in front of me who almost fell about
twenty times, it was comical. He kept asking how much longer until we
get there.They should have a disclaimer for the excursion saying "No
fatties allowed." It was easy for me to squeeze and crawl through the
small spaces. It was even a bit hard for Matt to get through the extra
small ones. I felt like Crusoe lost on a strange island. We finally
made it to the baths. Crawling from darkness into a beautiful secluded
beach. The Gouda Baths! Since the wind was picking up the baths were
pretty rough, so I decided not to snorkel and to just collect shells
and interesting rocks for our Caribbean souvenir we are going to make.
There were some beautiful shells, unlike any I have ever seen. We got
to hang out on the beach and climb around on the rocks for quite a
while. It was time to head back to the boat. We got to snorkel a bit
more on the way to the boat, and I saw some really pretty fish. A
couple on the boat had seen sting rays, that would have been something
to see. We got back to Tortola where a flea market was going on..I
wasn't feeling well at all so I threw up in the bathroom and pushed on because I
really wanted to get my Tortola shot glass. I found one and headed
back to the boat. By this time I was really getting sick. We got to
the room as fast as we could and I just started puking my guts out. At first, I
thought it was just from the ride on the bumpy boat and too much sun.
I took a nap and woke up two more times to puke between 1pm and
midnight. It wasn't what I called a good time. I came to the
conclusion it was something that I ate? Maybe the Tappenyaki last
night? The funny thing is I told Krystal at dinner that I had never gotten food poisoning before. I should have knocked on wood. Whatever it was, I never want it to happen to me again! Luckily
I took a xanex and slept through most of it, since I didn't have much
in my stomach. I'm just glad it happened after we finished our
excursion and had nothing else special to do since this was our last
island. Hopefully this is one of those 12hr things...hopefully. The good thing is I'm probably going to lose all the weight I have gained on this trip. I heard the average weight gain on a cruise is 5 pounds!!