March 17: 2007: Balls, balls, balls.

Three words: Gay. Naked. Cruise. Welcome aboard. We had the honour of hosting the Gay Naturist club my first two weekw aboard the Mandalay. Fortunately, the first week of the two-week charter was clothed, so they broke me in gently. Pretty easy week, actually — not surprisingly, the men on this trip were more interested in, er, (insert diving euphemism of choice here: night diving, deep diving, cave diving, snorkelling, etc.) than the dives I had on offer. But still, when my manager told me I'd have to come down and meet the charter group at their private party the night before they boarded (and the night before I was due to join the ship) because the ship hadn't arrived yet and I was the only Windjammer representative on the island, he could have told me which charter it was instead of waiting for me to figure it out through the smirks and chuckles of Captain Cesar. All up, though, even the naked week wasn't that bad, once you got used to it. The worst of it was reboarding the ship whenever I came back from shore leave, when I usually forgot all about the charter. Being greeted by the full monty when you're not expecting it is a bit of a shocker. Actually, that wasn't the worst of it. What was worse was spending a week on a ship full of naked men and the only one worth actually looking at was the only one who wouldn't take off his clothes. Funniest moment: passengers going to get their lifejackets from their cabins for the mandatory safety drill and coming back wearing them... and nothing else. Naked old dude in a lifejacket. Maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, just be glad I don't have any photos.