Susie and I were driving down the road in eastern Texas this afternoon, when we both realized that there was an interesting story, that happened to Susie on our return to the Liberty from Cozumel last Thursday afternoon, that we’d never shared with our blog family. Here’s that story…

After a wonderful day at the Hotel B in Cozumel, the 4 of us caught a cab, and headed back to the International Pier and the Liberty. At the pier, the boys had an errand to do, so we parted, and Mom and Dad headed back to the ship. Just so you know, the standard procedure when you return to the ship is similar to being at the airport. You come up the gangway, they scan your Sea Pass card (a security person is at the machine, and checks that you are the person who’s picture shows up after the scan), then you put your bags through an X-ray machine, and go through a metal detector before you go on your way. They are checking that you are not trying to sneak booze or other contraband material onto the ship, and 99% of the time, it’s a quick and easy process. Not this time!

So Susie and I throw our beach bags on the belt, and proceed through the scanner. Mine pops out, and I grab it, while Susie’s gets sucked back in. It comes out again behind someone’s backpack, and the security guy says, “Who’s bags are these?”, indicating the big back pack and Susie’s blue beach bag. They take the two of them over to a table, and the security man starts going through the big backpack, while Susie stands there twiddling her thumbs! Apparently, he was looking for what they saw on the X-ray, and he was unloading and unwrapping everything in the backpack, till he found what he was looking for…two live rounds of ammunition!

The guy’s story was that he’d taken that backpack hunting a couple of weeks before the cruise, and guess he hadn’t emptied the backpack and that was what the bullets were from. They asked if he had more bullets or a gun with him. He said “no”, but Susie thought he seemed a little sketchy. Our question was, how did he originally get on the ship??? As Susie stood there, EVERYTHING that was in that backpack was examined, and when the guy asked what was going to happen now, the security officer said, “Well, we have to call the Federales…” OMG!!! We figured they probably then proceeded to search his cabin!

Oh, and what happened to Susie? Well, they originally thought her bag was with the backpack, and that she was with this group, and after 20 minutes of search, the officer asked about her bag, she said it was her’s and she wasn’t with them, they ran it through the scanner again, found nothing, and sent us on our way! Before we knew about the bullets, we thought they grabbed her, because the waiter at the Hotel B had spilled a whole shot of tequila on her bag. Luckily, the Federales are Tequila friendly!!!

And now you know…the Rest of the Story!