Delayed at Sea?

Lee & I have just returned from our first (but likely not our last) sho'nuff cruise. We left last Thursday, 9/1, on the Carnival Elation for a 5 day cruise in the Gulf to Cozumel, Mexico. It was a combination celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary in Oct and Lee's milestone birthday in July. Lee's sister Faye agreed to stay with Ellen while we were gone & Izzy was headed to the vet's for her own little staycation. The trip started out great! We left shortly after Ellen left for school and drove to Mobile where we boarded the 900' ship with 2,000 of our (now) friends. After our couples massage (AWESOME!), the weather began to turn ugly Friday thanks to Tropical Storm Lee (go figure that!) but was still tolerable thanks to the skillful captain of our ship. We swung out to the east in order to avoid the worst of the storm and then turned west into Cozumel on Saturday. Our day in Cozumel was awesome! The weather was perfect! We shopped, sunned, ate, read & napped all day. We were unable to see the Bama game, but we expected to be able to withstand anything that Kent St had to offer and thanks to the text messages of our Bama friends, we were able to keep up with the score. RTR! We were even able to watch the LSU/Oregon game Sat night on the ship. Unfortunately, we were joined by a number of LSU fans. It took a bunch of SEC fans (ARK, AU, Ole Miss, Gators & Bama) to offset their obnoxiosness. Sat night at dinner, I thanked Lee for the best 25 years of my life & asked her to marry me again. She said yes & gladly accepted the white gold wedding band that I had for her. Bigtime points scored in the love bank!
Sunday morning was not too bad, but after our workout the weather quickly turned REAL ugly during the day. We were scheduled to arrive in port in Mobile on Monday morning, but due to the weather, were forced to go back out into the Gulf for an additional day. Originally, it was thought that we would only be delayed in arriving until later in the afternoon, but the Port Authority was forced to close the Port, leaving us stranded until the weather cleared. We scrambled to find accommodations for Ellen (thanks to the Castleman's) and then hunkered down to ride out waves & swells larger than I have ever seen! Thanks to Dr. Tim for the medicated patches & Bonine pills! I don't know how we would have made it without the medication. Many of our mates were not as lucky and a number of them were not seen again after Sun morning. :) I suspect they spent the remainder of the day & Monday hugging the porcelain. Thankfully, the ship was well stocked with food, diet coke & ice cream. We ate well, slept well and made a number of new friends. We arrived safely in Mobile on Tuesday and finally made it back to Bham late Tuesday afternoon. Overall, it was a great trip and will likely be the first of many cruises that we will enjoy. Next time, Ellen will go too. Thanks to everyone who helped us out!