A Christmas Letter

Allen sent in a funny excerpt from his Christmas letter to the family. Everyone survived the trip including Allen...


It was cold so we took a two-week trip to Hawaii. This was the trip of a lifetime with helpful financial support from our kids. Hawaii was awesome: lots of whales, great food, marvelous scenery and weather and all in all a very relaxing vacation.
Hawaii is beautiful but it can be dangerous. Shirley wanted to go scuba diving but I negotiated snorkeling instead. I had heard you could go snorkeling in shallow water, which suited me just fine.
So we arrived at this neat little sandy beach and I looked around for the snorkeling gear. I was informed that it would be on the boat. Nobody told me about a boat. Boats infer deeper water. I’ve been on boats before with Shirley. It always ends up different than I had anticipated.
So we take off in this boat to head for the Captain Cook snorkeling bay which I discover is ten miles away going over a whole lot of really choppy waves way off shore. I sat up near the Captain just in case he needed any advice. We were roaring across the ocean at about thirty knots when he said, “I noticed from your white knuckle grip on the rail that you are a bit nervous. Just remember that that little handle next to the rail is the throttle. If you feel inclined to grab anything besides the rail, don’t grab that. We are going fast enough.
Sheesh. What did he take me for, a landlubber?
So after about an hour of bouncing over the ocean we arrive at the bay, seasick, and the captain parks the boat about 200 yards from the shore and tells everybody to put on their gear, jump in and head for the shore. Everybody does except for me. I look up and Shirley is already fifty yards from the boat with her head in the water. She didn’t even check for sharks or nothing. I, on the other hand, had a few questions. I put one rubber fin in the water up to my ankle. The water temperature had to be about 30 degrees colder than anything I was used to swimming in.
I eased off the side and after about five minutes managed to get in the ice-cold water up to my neck. The Captain said, “Let go of the ladder and float toward shore.” (They had given us one of these little tubes to help me float).
I said, “How do I know this tube will hold me up?”
“They’re designed to hold up to 300 pounds.”
I talked them out of two more tubes.
After adjusting the tubes, I held my breath and very carefully stuck my head in the water to see if the snorkel tube was malfunctioning. You can’t be too careful you know. It seemed to be working ok so I practiced looking in the water. I spotted a couple of fish right away.
I announced, “OK, I’m done. I spotted a couple of fish and they were very pretty. Help me get back in the boat.”
“You haven’t let go of the ladder yet Allen and you have to paddle about 50 feet to shore in order to really see the good stuff.”
“Can’t you just nudge the boat closer to shore for me?”
“We are as close as we are allowed to go without running right into the coral. Aren’t your knuckles getting tired gripping that ladder?”
“They’re my knuckles.”
“Well yes but you paid good money to see more than two little fish.”
“Have you checked the shore line to see how many of your passengers, including my wife Shirley, have drowned yet?”
“Allen, in fifteen years, we have never lost a snorkeling diver this close to shore, but if you don’t let go of that ladder and paddle toward your wife, this could be the year.”
So I paddled over to see if Shirley needed any help. She was really glad to finally see me.