In 2001, my family decided to take a cruise to Bermuda. It was a twentieth anniversary celebration for my parents. My best friend from first grade, Alexandra Duffy, and her parents got in on the deal. Add my parents’ best friends from church, Jim and Sheryl Hughes, and it was a party. Cruises don’t happen much in a one-income family. Our big vacations, up to that point, had been ski trips with the Hugheses.  I’d never even imagined going on a cruise. I boarded the Norwegian Majesty that windy, cold day in October hoping for a new experience. I got one. This vacation had a positive impact on my life because it taught me to make the best of every situation.

            It took us two days to reach the island. It was almost 70 degrees when we docked, but the wind made it feel much colder. My family and the Hugheses decided to go swimming. The natives probably thought we were crazy. Only American suckers like us would go swimming on a day like this! However, when you’re used to the 55-degree water at Hampton Beach, 70-degree water in Bermuda feels pretty good.

            This less-than-stellar weather continued into the next day. Alexandra and I decided to venture outside anyway. Anticipating warm weather, we’d both brought only shorts and T-Shirts. We hadn’t gotten what we expected. Around three we shuffled back onto the ship and said, “Oh well. Maybe it will clear up tomorrow.”

            We couldn’t have been more wrong if we tried. At seven-thirty the next morning, when we went to breakfast, the weather had taken a definite turn for the worse. The sky was black, winds were blowing at 50 miles an hour, and rain was pelting our ship so hard I thought it was hail. The captain sent a warning telling everyone to stay on the ship until the storm was over.

            Well, that sure was a kick in the teeth! I was mad as mad could be. The cruise I’d been looking forward to for the past year and a half was turning out to be a huge disappointment. Alexandra had recently hurt her back and was on painkillers that made her act as if she’d just had a frontal lobotomy, so she wasn’t available to hang around with. I wasn’t a very happy camper-or maybe I should say cruiser-and spent the next four hours sulking.

            By lunchtime, the storm had let up a little bit and Alexandra and her father had gone swimming. My parents, the Hugheses, and I were eating lunch. I was drowning my sorrows in a huge ice cream sundae, not really paying attention to the conversation, and staring idly out the window watching the trees outside move back and forth as the wind blew the ship.

            Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…it probably would have hypnotized me if not for the sudden break in rhythm. The trees went back, then forth, then back…and back…and back.

            “Hey, that’s weird,” Dad said, “Look at how the trees are moving.”

            I was glad someone else had noticed it. More people around the dining room were starting to wonder what was going on. I saw the ship slowly moving away from the dock.

            I looked at my mother in a panic. “Did we miss something?” I asked frantically. “I thought we weren’t leaving until tomorrow! Alexandra and Mr. Duffy are still on the island!”

            Mom was just as befuddled as the rest of us. The entire wait staff was gathered around a window as if drawn there by some magnetic force. My ice cream completely forgotten, I stood up to get a better look. Two of our three bowlines had broken and the remaining one was looking rather strained.

            SNAP! Our last bowline snapped like a rubber band, and left us completely adrift in the harbor. The dining room now resembled something more like a crime scene. People were panicking and asking random waiters and waitresses if we were going to sink. The cruise director came on the intercom and assured us we were in no immediate danger, but that didn’t seem to help any.

            Mr. Hughes and Dad ushered us to the stern, where we could get a different view. Rolling their eyes all the way, Mom and Mrs. Hughes went along. My bad mood was quickly being replaced by excitement. Who else could say they’d been on a cruise ship that broke away from the dock?

            When we got to the stern, we went to sit at a table way near the back so we could look out the windows. There wasn’t much to see for a few minutes, just the scenery outside going round and round as the boat spun further into the harbor. If I concentrated hard enough, I could imagine the boat was staying still and the trees were actually moving.

            Then the ship stopped moving and the floor began to vibrate and then shake. I plastered myself to the window. The water outside looked like a coffee cup that had just had a creamer poured into it. A huge cloud of sand was billowing behind our ship.

            Just as theories of what had happened were starting to work their way around the room, the captain began to speak over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began in ridiculously labored English. “Everything is all right. The Majesty is in no danger. We were too far out in the harbor so I skillfully maneuvered the ship onto this sandbar…”

            Howling laughter, mostly from the Miller/Hughes table, drowned the rest of his announcement out. “He didn’t ‘skillfully maneuver the ship onto a sandbar!’” Mr. Hughes railed, “He ran us aground!”

            The next two hours were spent trying to get the ship off the sandbar, and then we went back to the dock. The cruisers who’d been stuck on the island had an entirely different adventure. Theirs had not been nearly as much fun as ours. Alexandra and her dad had been swimming and when they got back to the dock, the ship was gone. Alexandra’s back began giving her trouble, and by the time she got back to the boat she needed such a huge dose of painkillers that she was a zombie for the whole night.

            Two tugboats showed up to keep the Majesty at the dock that night. The entire ship was abuzz over the events of the day. People were pressed up to the windows taking pictures and the Internet Café was full of passengers emailing home about their incredibly unusual cruise.

            The weather was still bad enough the next morning that the authorities wouldn’t let us leave port. We had an extra day in Bermuda and the weather couldn’t have been more beautiful! Aside from the winds, it was exactly as I’d hoped Bermuda weather would be: 75 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Eager to milk our bonus day of cruising for all it was worth, my family and the Hugheses went out early.

            The island was completely destroyed. If you’ve ever seen the TV shows Wrath of God or Storm Stories, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Palm trees were broken off at the middle. Shutters and trim were blown off houses. I used up two rolls of film that day taking pictures of the wreckage. Later, I would discover that I had double-exposed those rolls. Not a single picture I took that day came out.

            That vacation was a true learning experience for me. I learned to make the best of every situation. Now when life gives me lemons, I really try to make lemonade. It doesn’t always work, but I give it a fair shot. This cruise was unlike any vacation I’d ever had and I’ll probably never have another one like it. It taught me that what my father had been saying since I could remember was actually true: “If you have a good vacation you can talk about it once. If you have a bad vacation, you can talk about it for decades.”