Our "Three Hour Tour" off the Cilento Coast

The Pediatric department decided to take a day trip cruise of the Cilento Coast, organized through the QOL committee at the hopsital. As always, the corpsmen were a wealth of information since they had been on a similar cruise. So, we rallied rather early for a Saturday and boarded a bus at 6am to drive nonstop for two and a half hours (despite no bathrooms) to get to the boat. Once there, we boarded the "fishing-boat-meets-booze-cruise" boat, took our seats on the sun deck, and set off!

The kids enjoyed themselves, entertained by applying sunblock for a good part of the time.

The views were amazing!

And a new Pediatric tradition was established (a.k.a. "Gibson's legacy"): kids sippy cups filled with adult beverages in USA koozies! (The kids were eyeing them.)

In the late morning, we arrived at a beautiful private beach to enjoy some swimming for a couple of hours.

Sophia enjoyed some shade-bathing on shore.

 Miranda set about to find some seashells, but was not disappointed to find mostly rocks--big ones at that. All the kids (Sydney, Miranda, Avery and Connor) played in the pebbles (no sand in their suits at least) at the water's edge the whole time.

 

Sophia cools off with Daddy (and Gibson and Mr. Marty) in the refreshing water.

Here's the view of the beach and the grotto Brian swam to explore with Gibson. I chickened out once we reached the open sea and the wind and waves were knocking into my face and it felt like I wasn't moving despite much effort. I figured one of our girls' parents should live to tell, so I headed back!

Then the boat returned to pick us up for our return trip, which included lunch. We squished into the lower deck, passed around water as we sampled a couple different types of bruschetta. Then we moved onto the main course of pasta with fresh tuna, as we kept an eye out for the vino being passed around. We were especially glad Gibson had taken care of us, since each person in our group received only about 1 to 2 ounces of vino! This is when we realized it was more like a fishing boat than a booze cruise, which was just as well with the kids along.

After lunch, we all got comfy for the boat ride back to our starting point.

Then the boat started to rock and roll...Miranda can sleep through anything sometimes! Many people were seasick and spent their time at the bow of the boat...only Gibson took photos of that!

Sophia snacking on her fingers...until they passed around the watermelon.

Then the wind and waves really started to kick up and the boat started to lean to the right. Sydney didn't seem to mind and fell asleep, which tells you how tired she was...or maybe how much the boat was rocking her to sleep.

Several times the crew would ask us to all sit on the left to balance the boat out. The last time the woman asked us, people were slow to move, so she added, "Quickly!" I sat right next to her holding Sophia on my lap and was honestly afraid we were going to capsize and couldn't help but exclaim/pray, "Oh God!" She tried to reassure me, but the damage was done! I was on alert the remainder of the trip...which was a lot longer than planned.  We half-joked about this being like Gilligan's Island's "three-hour tour" but were lucky it was only three hours longer than planned!