Gangway!

On the second-last day of my New Year’s Cruise, Sean and I joined our new friend Michelle on the waterslide a few times. At the bottom of the slide is a salt water pool, which naturally attracts one’s attention after leaving the slide. The three of us were in the pool when Sean started doing jackknifes, presumably in an attempt to cause the biggest splash possible (he maintains that a jackknife yields a better splash than a cannonball).

I thought maybe we could make a bigger splash if we did simultaneous cannonballs, so I said “Let’s do a double cannonball!” We got to adjacent corners, I counted down, then we did our cannonballs. Indeed there was a huge splash (I think… I was underwater), and when we surfaced, Michelle and the six or seven kids in the pool were laughing.

That’s when it hit me. “OK, let’s do a group cannonball!” We got back out of the pool and motioned for everyone to follow. Much to my surprise, everyone did so and distributed themselves along the perimeter.

“OK, point to where you’re jumping!” Everyone pointed. No collisions were evident. “On three… one… two… THREE!” SPLASH!

Upon surfacing I noticed two things: the water was white with post-splash foam, and everyone was laughing. Even the grown-ups.

We hung around and splashed around for a while, and did several more group cannonballs with the folks that drifted in and out of the pool. Everyone seemed to love it, and one girl who just watched the first time enthusiastically joined in when we immediately did it again.

It was so fun. Much more fun than it had any right to be. As Sean said, “I like how it takes two thirty something year-old guys to show the kids how to have fun.”

OK, I know what you’re thinking — “What’re you, twelve years old?” Yes. Yes, I am.