Chapter 3: Shore Excursions

We weren’t going to be in Grand Cayman all that long. We would dock about the time anybody was getting up, so if you wanted to get the utmost out of your day you had to get up at dawn. The ship sailed at 1600, so nobody was checking out the nightlife in the Caymans. There were a few shore excursions available, but not many. In addition, the ship didn’t dock at the port but simply dropped anchor in the harbor; tenders, transport boats, would ferry you back and forth to a dock.

The big benefit to taking a shore excursion was that if you arranged it through the cruise line, they were responsible if something happened. If the tour bus broke down, they had to send another out to rescue you, and they wouldn’t leave without you, or at least without arranging for you to catch up. If you went to the dock and simply hired a local taxi to drive you around and got a flat tire, you were shit out of luck. Getting back was your problem, not the cruise line’s. Ooops!

None of the available excursions in Grand Cayman really interested us so we simply reserved two spots on the day trip to Seven Mile Beach. Shuttle buses went back and forth to the port. We had breakfast in the café and then changed into swimsuits and coverups. Seven Mile Beach was beautiful, but heavily developed. That meant there were a lot of tourist traps and shops around, so after swimming and sunning, we ate in town and did a little souvenir shopping. It sounds corny, but we planned to pick up a pair of shot glasses in every port. We also wanted to find some t-shirts and stuff for the kids. It was a fun day, but short. By mid-afternoon we were just two among thousands of people hustling back to the port. It added pressure to a trip that was supposed to be all about lowering pressure.

When you were docked, some of the ship’s activities closed down. The casino, for one thing, shut down. On some islands gambling is prohibited, and other islands had casinos, so the ship casino was a competitor. In addition, some of the restaurants and bars shut down when the ship is in port; why run a restaurant when all the customers are ashore?

In any case, dinner that night was in the main dining room, but it was just Kelly and me. Celia and Jenny didn’t show, but that didn’t mean anything sinister. There were several other restaurants on the ship, including some special restaurants that charged extra and needed reservations. We were curious about that, and Kelly suggested we try one on one of the nights we were cruising all day. It was a casual dining night, so we didn’t need to get fancy. We never ran across Clyde or his wife, so after dinner we went to the show, hit one of the lounges, and went to bed. We had a folded towel in the form of an elephant on our bed. Very cute.

Tuesday was another full day at sea, so we laid around in bed laughing about the performance we had heard the other night. Eventually we got up and dressed, heading off to the main dining room for breakfast. Very nice, very fancy. You don’t sit at your regular table, since they only operated one floor of the dining room. Instead, you were seated with other guests at some of the larger tables. Unlike the buffet in the Windjammer Café, meals in the dining room were plated; you had menus and waiters.

Afterwards we changed into our swimsuits and headed towards the pool area. Kelly decided to wear a mesh bikini that hid nothing. We took advantage of the privacy of the Sun Deck again. Kelly liked the attention she got when wearing her revealing suits, but she didn’t like the much too personal attention of some of the younger men and teenaged boys, nor some of the snide comments from pissy women. This was our first mom-and-dad-only vacation that we hadn’t taken at a couples-only resort. We had taken several vacations to some of the Sandals resorts. They weren’t X-rated types of places like the Hedonism or Temptations resorts, but you didn’t have children or teens around.

After lunch we headed back inside, and I found a lengthy email on my computer from Terry Hollister. He was still interested in talking to me and asked me to call when we got home. I packed my computer up and headed down to Guest Services to find where I could print it out, along with the attachments. I ended up in the Business Center on Deck Two, where an enthusiastic helper promptly took my SeaPass card and charged me per page that I printed. Afterwards I went back to the cabin, where Kelly was snoring. I sat down and started reading.

The problem facing Terry Hollister was fascinating, and not at all what I had expected. Bethel Hollow was the largest city and county seat of Bethel County. Recently the voters in Bethel County had voted to adopt a new county charter and in conjunction with that to consolidate the several municipalities in the county under the Bethel Hollow municipal government. Demographic changes in the county were depopulating the smaller towns and enlarging Bethel Hollow to an extent that the smaller towns were just becoming uneconomical to administer. Aside from Bethel Hollow, which had a police force of about sixty officers, there was also East Bethel, with about two-thirds that number, Jonestown, which was very small and only had a half-dozen part-time constables who patrolled the local central school, and Lithium Springs, which didn’t even have a police force but instead relied on a state trooper barracks in the next county over. In a way it sounded a lot like what had occurred in Matucket County back in the 1970s.

This was all supposed to be part of a push for efficiency and cost savings, though Hollister didn’t seem to think much of that. It wasn’t just the police force that was consolidating, either. The school system was consolidating, too, with plans for a whole new set of schools to replace the old schools, most of which dated back to World War II. How that was going to save money wasn’t clear. I remembered what had been spent building the new Matucket County High School. Building codes had changed dramatically since the old schools had been built, along with state requirements for new schools. Matucket County High had cost almost $50 million to build. Bethel County was in for a rude awakening.

The school consolidation also tied into the police consolidation. The Lithium Springs school would eventually be closed, with students going to updated and enlarged schools in Jonestown. Six part-timers would be inadequate to police that end of the county. Meanwhile, promises had been made to all the existing police officers that they would still have jobs, at the same pay and seniority as before. In other words, nobody was to get fired, everything would go on as before, nothing would change, and they were going to save millions of dollars. It was a massive clusterfuck in the making.

Terry tried to put a good shine on things but wasn’t doing a great job of it. As the Chief of Police of Bethel Hollow, the largest police force and the police force of the county seat, he was to head the new and improved police force. This wasn’t supposed to officially happen until January 1, 2019, but he needed to provide a plan for how he was going to do it before then. He had been given a budget for ‘studies’ and also said that the county was doing its own studies. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. A bunch of Ivy League consultants had sold a bill of goods to the county commission. Exactly how everything was supposed to work wasn’t specified. All hope was not lost, though. The same consultants would be more than happy to stay on the payroll for however long it took them to finish the consolidation. If it took years of monthly billings, they would make the sacrifice.

Could it be done? Sure! It had been done in Matucket County so it could be done elsewhere. How, I wasn’t sure, but I knew it could be done. Whether it could be done and save money at the same time was an entirely different question. It was an interesting question.

I was still contemplating the question when Kelly woke up and looked around. She rolled onto her back and ordered me to satisfy her carnal cravings, and no excuses would be tolerated. That kept me busy until about four, after which we both cleaned up and dressed for the evening. It was another formal night, so I switched to slacks and sport coat. We had one more formal night before the end of the cruise, but it was Saturday night, our first cruise day on the way back to Miami. Depending on the condition of my suit, I could send it to the cleaners on the ship. That would cost roughly what the suit cost to begin with. Oh, well. That really wasn’t a problem, though. Kelly had brought along some very interesting dresses, so nobody was going to be looking at me anyway.

“So, what’s the job?” Kelly asked.

“The one in Tennessee?” She nodded and I answered, “It’s a lot like I told you before. I just got more information. Hollister has to build a new police force from three different forces. I’ll need to meet with him when we get back, so figure I’ll drive up there sometime next week or the week after. Not sure how long it will take, but I imagine I can come home after that first meeting and then travel as necessary.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’m not worried about that. Between your mom and mine we’ll take care of Riley and Seamus.”

“That assumes they haven’t sold them by the time we get home. Dad promised me a cut if they got a good enough price.”

Kelly snorted out a laugh. “Don’t get my hopes up!”

Dinner that evening was in one of the specialty restaurants, not in the main dining room. I had made reservations earlier in the day at something called Chops Grille, which did steaks. There was also an Italian restaurant and a Japanese sushi place, but I could get Italian anywhere back home, and raw fish wasn’t something that interested me at all. Kelly picked a halter-top minidress made out of something sheer and shimmery; I made the appropriate approving comments.

Over dinner Kelly asked me what I had in mind for Bethel Hollow. “Not really sure yet. I’m not even sure how to go about figuring it out.”

“Take it like a math problem,” she replied.

I made a face at her. “You’re not helping me, Professor.” Great, a math problem, my least favorite type of problem!

“No, I’m serious. In math, if you don’t know how to solve a problem, you break it down into smaller problems. Then you start solving the small problems. Sooner or later, you will figure out how to solve the big problems.”

“Ah. So...”

“So, break it down. Maybe one problem is meshing the police forces. Maybe another is doing something with the buildings. Or the police cars. Or other stuff. Maybe you find there are some problems you won’t be able to help with at all.”

I gave my wife a wry smile. “Like politics. No way am I going to know anything about whatever the local politics are going to be in that little corner of Tennessee. I can barely figure out Georgia politics!”