Nudist Cruise Page 7

  After all that hard work, I went home and took a nap. I don’t know if I have ever had a better birthday. It was a great day, but it was not until I was on the nude cruise that I really thought about the dream I had about nudists. It seems kind of weird to me that I was dreaming about nudists almost two years before I ever met any. As far as I remember, no one in the dream had an umbrella.

  Chapter 7: First Sea Day

  I woke up earlier than Liam, as I always do. Usually when we are on vacation I will try to wake him up so we can go out and do things. The key word is try. Liam is not a morning person. It is usually very hard to get him to wake up before noon without some kind of sexual incentive. Physical exertion will always wake him up no matter what time it is.

  To be fair to Liam, he works nights. So it’s not like he is too lazy to wake up. Sometimes he gets off work just before dawn, so obviously he is not going to wake up bright and early.

  I’m a morning person. I wake up early no matter where I am or what I am doing. On this morning, I woke up on a giant cruise ship that happened to have a nice jogging track on the top deck. Since this was a full day at sea, I assumed that the nude rules meant people could be naked the whole day. They only had to get dressed when the ship docked in Xiamen the following day – and in the main restaurant for some reason. Otherwise, this was a full naked day for most of the passengers.

  I did not know how many naked people I would run into, but that top deck seemed like a great place for a jog, and it was early enough in the morning that most people would still be asleep whether they were naked or not. There is a lot of nightlife on a cruise ship, so most people stay up pretty late. I knew that the early morning would be my best time to see the ship as empty as possible.

  I put on my usual running clothes. Some things are always a necessity. Even if I were a nudist I would still wear my good running shoes and a supportive sports bra. Forget modesty, I simply would not be comfortable flapping all over the place.

  When I got up to the top deck, it was cold. The boat seemed to be going at full speed, as far as I could tell, and the early morning air made it colder than usual. I thought it was great. Anytime I go for a jog in Hong Kong, I am always immediately hot. Hong Kong is just naturally humid and the air quality is often not so great. The air on the deck of the ship was the freshest I had breathed in a long time. There are also not very many good places to jog in Hong Kong. There are a few tracks you can use, but the streets are useless and dangerous. The sports deck on the ship was designed specifically for runners without a single bus or taxi in sight.

  The fresh sea air and the early morning jog felt great. I decided then and there to do this every morning.

  The deck was empty when I got there, but after a while I noticed a man jogging around. It did not take me long to figure out that he was naked.

  “How can you run naked?” I wanted to ask him. “Don’t your balls hurt?”

  Obviously I was not going to ask him that, but I was curious. Guys love to talk about their testicles, but I was not going to talk to a total stranger about his.

  He seemed comfortable enough. He had good quality running shoes on and one of those elaborate watches that shows your pulse rate and distance, so you could tell he was a serious runner. Or at least went to a store where some salesman convinced him to buy some serious running equipment. The only difference was that he was naked from the ankles up.

  After a while, he was only a few paces in front of me and he slowed down. The last thing I wanted was some naked guy hitting on me during my morning jog, but I was too curious to break away. He said hello as he slowed down to match my stride. I said hello back. Naked or not, that is what we do where I come from.

  “One of us is overdressed,” the jogger said.

  He was trying to be funny, but not in that obnoxious way guys get when they are desperately trying to get laid. This was more like small talk humor without any agenda.

  “Or one of us is underdressed,” I replied.

  “Hey, whatever works,” he said. “My wife always wears a sports bra when she goes running.”

  I immediately felt better when he mentioned his wife. Guys almost never mention their wives when they are trying to pick up girls.

  “Even when she’s completely bottomless, she still has support up top,” he told me.

  Now I had that image in my head.

  “You’re not a fan of support?” I asked.

  I wanted to ask him if he ever felt the urge to hold his sack while running.

  “No,” he answered. “This way is more natural. The last thing a guy needs while running is bunching and chafing. Plus, there’s all that bacteria with sweat forced against your body. It’s just more hygienic to run nude.”

  “The good news is it’s almost time for breakfast,” I said.

  “Sorry,” he said, laughing. “That’s just one of my pet peeves – people telling me I need to wear a cup or something. It’s just gross.”

  “Why isn’t your wife running with you today?” I asked.

  I thought that talking about his wife might be a good way to avoid a conversation about fungus and whatever disgusting things were running laps through his mind.

  “She hurt her knee during the Shanghai tour,” he answered. “At the Yuyuan Garden – that little bridge.”

  He was talking about the place as though I was supposed to be familiar with it.

  “I’ve never been there,” I told him.

  “You didn’t go?” he asked. He seemed surprised. “It was part of the ABC package.”

  He did not say “ABC”. He said the initials of the nudist organization of which all the other passengers seem to have been members. They were the group that chartered the cruise ship.

  “I didn’t book the cruise with them,” I told him.

  “Really?” Now he was more surprised than ever. “I thought we booked the whole ship.”

  “You did,” I said. “I think I’m the only passenger who’s not an ABC member.”

  “So you’re not a naturist?” he asked.

  “Naturist?” I asked. “I thought you were nudists.”

  He almost sighed, like I was talking about UFOs kidnapping Elvis.

  “We prefer to be called naturists since we’re in harmony with nature,” he informed me. “Nudist is the same thing, but it’s only what outsiders call us. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said. “I don’t know anything about your club.”

  I later found out that what he said about “naturist” and “nudist” was not entirely true. Some of them prefer to be called naturists and don’t like it when they are called nudists, but some of them prefer to be called nudists. Some of them don’t care either way. All of them hate it when people call them naturalists. A naturalist is a person who studies natural history or philosophy and has nothing to do with getting naked. And no matter what you do, never say that they go to nudist colonies. That only enrages them in pretty much the same way Austrians get offended when you ask them where all the kangaroos are.

  When I was finished jogging, we said goodbye and he kept running. Other than slowing down to talk to me, he seemed pretty serious about it.

  “It’s a clothing optional cruise,” he said just before I left. “So you can wear clothes all you want. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But I hope you’ll give nature a try. It’s very liberating.”

  His suggestion that I get naked without insisting that I had to get naked was something I would see again and again on this cruise. Nudists or naturists or whatever you want to call them love to advocate their lifestyle, but they are not at all pushy about it. They seem to be mostly happy that they can do what they want to do without getting in trouble. Unlike a lot of groups that have different or unusual views, they are not trying to force everyone else to convert.

  My jog with this naked guy made me feel better about being on a ship full of naked people. He was naked the whole time and we were the only two people on the deck, but he never tried to do anyt
hing. He just talked to me the way a normal clothed person would. Even then, guys with clothes on can sometimes be annoying. I don’t think trying to get me naked even crossed his mind, except to enjoy his nudist lifestyle.

  I still felt bad for him with his nut sack bouncing up and down like that.

  There was definitely more nudity on the first day at sea than there ever was while we were in Shanghai. I have been to a few places where you expect to see a lot of naked people, mostly because Liam takes me there, but the second day of the cruise was the most nudity I had ever seen in my life.

  Liam took me to my first ever nude beach – in Hong Kong of all places. Hong Kong is not exactly known as a nudist’s paradise. I have seen a lot of naked children at park fountains and pretty much wherever there is open water, especially in the oppressive heat of summer, but it is not a place you will ever see naked adults. Even at a regular beach, most people in Hong Kong cover up as much as they can. I have never seen anyone sunbathing in any park. Most of the women seem to do everything they can to keep the sun away. They even use umbrellas on sunny days.

  “The sun makes my skin ugly,” one Chinese woman told me.

  “It makes the skin dark,” another Chinese woman said. “Chinese want white skin, not dark.”

  It’s not a racial thing. They are not saying they don’t like black people. As near as I can tell, it is a class distinction. People with tans are seen as poor, since farmers and laborers have to work out in the sun. Rich people can stay indoors and keep that ghostly white complexion that Chinese women love.

  The funny part is that where I come from, everyone wants to get tanned in summer. Being as white as possible is never anyone’s idea of healthy or beautiful. White Americans want to get as dark as they can.

  Liam and I went to the nude beach in December 2011, but it was not cold at all. That winter went back and forth between warm and cool, but it was nothing like winters in Minnesota. I always see a lot of Hong Kong locals walking around in the daytime with big coats and hats and scarves, but I have never been cold enough for more than a light sweater, and that is at night. I have not worn a parka in over two years.

  So when Liam suggested going to the beach, it did not seem strange at all. Going to the beach in December in Hong Kong is nothing like going to the lake in December in Minnesota. What he did not tell me was that it was a nude beach, just as he did not bother to tell me that the cruise would be full of nudists. I should notice the pattern by now.

  “We should go to the beach tomorrow,” he said.

  “In December?” I asked.

  “Why not?” he said. “It’s seventy degrees outside. It’s not like you’re wearing Sorels.”

  Hong Kong uses Celsius, of course. Liam still uses Fahrenheit. I used to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, but after a few months in Hong Kong, I got used to Celsius. Now when Liam says something like “seventy degrees”, I think that is far too hot. Twenty two sounds nice to me and freezing to Liam.

  There are beaches all over Hong Kong. Hong Kong has six hundred miles of coast that is all twisted and goes all over the place. That makes a lot of little bays and coves, which makes for some great beaches that are protected from the direct waves of the ocean. The mountains protect a lot of the bays from wind.

  Hong Kong should be a beach paradise. Unfortunately, the air quality is usually pretty bad and the water quality is hazardous in some places.

  Most of the beaches are mostly empty even in the summer. I don’t think the Chinese are big fans of the beach. There is a small beach near the house in Clear Water Bay where our friends Livia and Hiram stay every summer. It’s a great house that his boss owns and a nice little beach. We try to have a picnic or beach party there every summer. I have never seen anybody else on that beach. If I lived there, I would go to that beach all the time.

  The nude beach where Liam took me was on Lantau Island and very hard to get to. I work on Lantau, so I’m used to going there, but I take the MTR. This was on the other end of the island, way beyond the MTR’s reach. I don’t think any buses even go out that far. Liam borrowed a car from one of his band friends who probably “borrowed” it from someone else. They are a questionable bunch.

  “Whose car is this?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Quinn loaned it to me.”

  “Is it his?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  We drove out to the beach with a hand drawn map that was really not all that helpful. We probably would have had better luck with MapQuest.

  We drove around a long time and got lost a few times before we stopped in a tiny little village to ask for directions. I know more Chinese than Liam, but still not enough to have a conversation with anyone. I knew north, south, east and west in Chinese, but that did not matter since none of the locals seemed to know what direction anything was in.

  “往西走嗎?” I asked a local. I was trying to ask if we should keep going west.

  “我们不明白你,疯狂的老外小姐,” one of the locals replied. “我的手好痛和妻子不喜欢做我的苹果蛋糕.”

  I did not understand what he was saying – something about apples. We were looking for a beach and asking people who don’t like beaches.

  They did not understand our map at all, but they understood the few Chinese words written on it and told us to go down the road where they pointed. It quickly became the only road and at that point our only options were to turn around and go back or keep going. I was ready to turn around, but Liam wanted to keep going.

  “We should just go back,” I told him.

  “No,” he said. “We have to keep going.” He was exceptionally determined to get there. “The road has to either go there or just stop dead,” he decided. “Where else can it go?”

  “It’s an island,” I told him. “This road could just go around in a large circle. It doesn’t have to go anywhere.”

  Not long after the tiny village, we were at a makeshift dirt parking lot. Liam decided that was it.

  “This is it,” he announced.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  He had never been there before, but his friend who drew the map said there was a dirt parking lot. Normally, that would not be specific enough for me, but in Hong Kong any kind of parking lot is rare enough to beat the odds. It turns out they were right. A quick hike from the fake parking lot and we were at a beautiful little beach.

  “Is this worth it or what?” Liam asked me.

  “It’s nice,” I said. “But where do I pee?”

  It was a long drive and I finished off my bottle of water long before we got there.

  There was no one there, so it was hard to know if it was really the nude beach, but in December you are not going to find any crowded beaches in Hong Kong anyway.

  Liam was disappointed that no one was there. I think he wanted to go to look at naked girls just as much as he wanted to get naked, but if you want to see naked girls on the beach, don’t go to Hong Kong. I was glad there was no one else there. I brought a bathing suit and was not about to get naked if there were other people there.

  Liam always says I need to get over my prudish upbringing and be more comfortable with my body and the human body is beautiful and blah, blah. He’s right. I would like to be more comfortable with nudity. I went to a great spa on my birthday and my discomfort with being naked around the people who worked there took something away from the experience. It was great, but it would have been better if I was more relaxed. The ladies there were not trying to hurt me at all. They only wanted to pamper me.

  I also knew that the trip to the nude beach was not just so I could gain confidence. Liam wanted to look at naked girls.

  The water was too cold for swimming. I am never very confident about water quality in Hong Kong anyway. They have a system that tells you if the water is safe that day, but that just makes me wonder. I would rather swim where the water never has hazardous days.

  Liam got naked right away. He loved
running around with everything hanging out.

  “Come on in,” he called to me from the water. “The water’s fine.”

  When he got out, I could tell how cold the water was. He was naked, after all.

  I stayed on the sand in my bikini for a while. Eventually, I went topless. Even then I was cautious, but there was no one else there. Only Liam and a few sea birds could see my bare breasts.

  Liam and I went into the water together and it was only there that I was comfortable enough to take off my bikini bottoms. I was completely naked, but if there was anyone on the beach, they would never be able to see most of my body. Of course, there was no one on the beach besides us.

  “Congratulations,” Liam told me. “You’re naked. Outdoors. In public.”

  “It’s not exactly public,” I said. “There’s no one else here.”

  We kissed and I could feel that he was starting to get a little too excited, so I got out of the water and went to go sit down on my towel. Being naked at a deserted nude beach is one thing, but I was not about to do anything that I would never do if people were there.

  It felt nice having the sun all over my body, but I knew that it was not something I will be doing on a regular basis. Since that day, I have wanted to get to the point where I’m comfortable enough to do it with other people around, but I rarely ever go to any beach in Hong Kong and that particular beach was a pain in the backside to find. I have only been back there once, and Liam and I have never been back there together.

  Chapter 8: Liam Can’t Get Naked

  I went back to our cabin after my morning jog and took a shower. I was out of the tiny bathroom in time to watch Liam wake up. That’s always fun to watch. He is like a cat waking up. He wakes up, pokes his head up and looks around. More often than not, he will decide to go back to sleep. Sometimes he will get up and then lie back down again.