Hello, My name is Darian. You can call me Dairy for short. My experience at sea was really unexpected, it started when I was 16 years old in 1969, and my mother told me that me and her were going on a ferry to celebrate my 16th birthday. Here is how it went,
I was laying in my bed, reading a very fascinating book, and suddenly, "Darian! Come downstairs! I have a surprise for you!" I thought to myself why she was calling me down in the afternoon even though I had already had lunch. I walked down the stairs carefully, and when I finally got downstairs, she told me some surprising news. "Darian! Guess what?" This has gotta be something important, I think to myself. "What?" I asked her, I looked at her curiously waiting for her response. "We are going on a ferry to celebrate your 16th birthday!"
After hearing that, I immediately felt a rush of adrenaline run through my veins. "Really?! Are you serious?! Thanks mom!!!!!!" I hugged her with excitement, I had never been on a ferry before, nor been on a boat ever, I have only seen pictures of the ocean in newspapers, and I could not wait to see the ocean in person!
"When are we going on the ferry?" I asked my mom excitedly. "June 14th" My mother replied. I immediately ran around in joy, I could not wait until June 14th. After a long wait, 10 days to be exact, We we're finally on our way to the ferry. My mother told me this ferry takes passengers from Grand Marais, all the way to the other side of Lake Superior, Vermilion for a beach day.
I could not believe what I was hearing, not only was there a fancy ferry that is very luxurious as described in the photos, but that the ferry also goes to a beach for a nice relaxing vacation?! My excitement was through the roof. Surprisingly, the car trip only took a few hours to get to the Grand Marais dock where the ship was located, waiting for us.
The moment I took the first glance at the ship, I knew this was going to be an amazing vacation! The ship was absolutely massive, bigger than anything I was expecting a ferry to be. The ferry had a massive funnel towering over her deck, A bricky type bridge, and a box-like superstructure. The ship was super satisfying to look at, and when we arrived near the ship, we passed all of the inspections needed to board the ship, and we finally boarded the ship. We boarded a little near the ship's forecastle, the massive superstructure towering over us, we just could not believe our eyes.
We went inside the ship's starboard side entrance, and were surprised by how many people there were inside the giant room. It was definitely more people inside than the outside, probably because of the warm weather, which to be honest, I cannot blame them. We saw tables, most of them were packed with people but luckily for us, we spotted a table with two chairs and they are both empty. "Perfect!" I thought to myself as we approached the table to sit down.
While we were sitting down, we noticed people walking down the stairs from the second floor. I told my mother that I was going to the second floor to see why those people went up the stairs without food, but came back down with food in their arms. I went upstairs to the second floor, looked behind me and thought, "Oh, this must be why there are so many people in here, not only because it is hot outside, but because this place is a food court." I said out loud, but nobody heard me, obviously.
I went closer to the giant restaurant on the second floor, and looked at their menu. "Hmm.. they have hot dogs, cheese dogs, and large drinks." I looked at the menu some more. "I should get a meal for my mother too." I thought. Then I waited to be at the front of the line, and I made the orders. When the meals were ready, I pulled out my wallet, but the employees working there told me something surprising. "You do not need to pay, sir. All of the food onboard this ferry is included in your vacation. Which means that the food is free." I was shocked, but I still opened my wallet.
"But I still think you guys deserve a tip, you work hard every day and night." After I said that, I placed a 20 dollar bill into the tip jar and walked downstairs, gave my mother the food, we ate and then we decided to walk all the way up to the top deck, where the massive funnel is. By this time, the ship is already about 3 miles away from shore after we set sail and had the sail away party.
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We placed down our tanning chairs, sat down and relaxed in the sun. However, after about 10 minutes since we sat down and relaxed, we began to notice that the sky grew dark, which could only mean one thing.
